Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines

This collection of original chapters gives center stage to the concept of ‘narrative’ in medical contexts. The contributors come from the disciplines of literary and cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, and medicine and work with texts as diverse as autobiographies, graphic novels, Renaissance medical treatises and reports, short stories, reflective writing, creative writing, and online narratives. The interdisciplinary dialogue shows the richness and scope of the concept ‘narrative’ and demonstrates how crucial it is for practices in the medical context as well as in the contributing disciplines. The collection raises awareness of the great variety and multivocality of narratives on the experience of illness besides paying heed to the many different positions and angles from which these narratives can be perceived, read, and analyzed. The wide range of approaches assembled in this collection provides a comprehensive view on illness and health and on the multiple ways in which they are represented in narrative.