Embodied Narration

Do liminal embodied experiences such as illness, death and dying affect literary form? In recent years, the concept of embodiment has been theorized from various perspectives. Gender studies have been concerned with the cultural implications of embodiment, arguing to move away from viewing the body as a prediscursive phenomenon to regarding it as an acculturated body. Age studies have extended this view to the embodied experience of ageing, while drawing attention to the ways in which the ageing body, through its materiality and plasticity, restricts the possibilities of (de)constructing subjectivity. These current debates on embodiment find a strong counterpart in literary representation. The contributions to this anthology investigate how and to what extend physical borderline experiences affect literary form.

»Each of the articles that compose the collection invites the readers into a nuanced analysis of protagonists who live through intense pain and illness, highlighting the potentialities of language as well as the contradictions that arise inside the same protagonists between their failing bodies, their selves and societys expectations.« Maricel Or-Piqueras, Ageculturehumanities, 5(2020)