This past week, I travelled to Liverpool to attend the 10th annual conference hosted by the British Society for Literature and Science. This is my fifth year of attendance; I started my involvement with the society in 2010, the year after I began my PhD. I guess you could say this is the place where I ‘cut my teeth’ in the interdisciplinary field of medicine, culture and their representation in literature.
My career trajectory has until last year been relatively a straight arrow. My academic studies have been focused strictly in English: literature, writing, editing and research. During the 4 year interruption between my masters and PhD, I worked as an editor in trade publishing and for the U.S. Government. I’ve had a very defined career path. Technical.
Fast forward to now, where I have been leading a much more ambiguous interdisciplinary project in my historical overview of the development of the Malawian illness narrative. My research is taking a more qualitative turn. During my time at Edinburgh, I’ve taken part in a more diverse array of projects and presentations and I’m still navigating my way around various disciplines modes of research.
Therefore, to find myself immersed in literature again at BSLS was quite a surprisingly warm feeling. Martin Willis, Sharon Ruston, Daniel Brown, Peter Middleton, Janine Rogers and Michael Whitworth led an impressive round-table discussion on the function of analogy in Literature and Science studies. Never mind that the room was freezing but it was a really engaging discussion that brought me back to my own criticisms of Susan Sontag and her stance on eliminating all illness metaphors. It was argued that analogy can be a methodological tool and metaphor can be conceptualized as transmutation. Martin Willis spoke about symbolism and urged a close reading of Paul Ricoeur. I found myself so enthralled because it really threw me back into the dialogue of the literary theorist.
Earlier in my career, I remember many times having prepared a thorough reading of a book and completely disappointed that we spent one hour discussing on paragraph trying to ascribe meaning to a passage. Over time I began to see that as a signifier of the beautiful art that is literary studies. I’m not sure where I will be next year in terms of a research post but I definitely feel as though I reconnect to my inner literary theorist over the past few days.
Miss Chisomo | Life and Work in the Medical Humanities 