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Global Healing
Literature, Advocacy, Care
Series: - Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature, Volume: 92
Author:
Read an interview with Karen Thornber.
In Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care, Karen Laura Thornber analyzes how narratives from diverse communities globally engage with a broad variety of diseases and other serious health conditions and advocate for empathic, compassionate, and respectful care that facilitates healing and enables wellbeing.
The three parts of this book discuss writings from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania that implore societies to shatter the devastating social stigmas which prevent billions from accessing effective care; to increase the availability of quality person-focused healthcare; and to prioritize partnerships that facilitate healing and enable wellbeing for both patients and loved ones.
Thornberâs Global Healing remaps the contours of comparative literature, world literature, the medical humanities, and the health humanities.
Watch a video interview with Thornber by the Mahindra Humanities Center, part of their conversations on Covid-19.
Read an interview with Thornber on Brill's Humanities Matter blog.
In Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care, Karen Laura Thornber analyzes how narratives from diverse communities globally engage with a broad variety of diseases and other serious health conditions and advocate for empathic, compassionate, and respectful care that facilitates healing and enables wellbeing.
The three parts of this book discuss writings from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania that implore societies to shatter the devastating social stigmas which prevent billions from accessing effective care; to increase the availability of quality person-focused healthcare; and to prioritize partnerships that facilitate healing and enable wellbeing for both patients and loved ones.
Thornberâs Global Healing remaps the contours of comparative literature, world literature, the medical humanities, and the health humanities.
Watch a video interview with Thornber by the Mahindra Humanities Center, part of their conversations on Covid-19.
Read an interview with Thornber on Brill's Humanities Matter blog.
Karen Laura Thornber, Ph.D. (2006), Harvard, is Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard. Her publications include Empire of Texts in Motion (2009), Ecoambiguity (2012), several (co)edited volumes, translations, and more than 70 articles/chapters.
"Global Healing showcases the critical role of the emerging field of medical humanities for valuing and understanding what effective physical, mental, and social well-being of individuals entails across diverse contexts, and it would be a valuable resource in the training of health services and medical professionals, as well as for general interest." - Priya Agarwal-Harding, Brandeis University, in: H-Sci-Med-Tech (November, 2023)
"At once a vigorous re-framing of Medical Humanities, and a vigorous challenge to World Literature as it is currently defined, Global Healing offers a new geography, a new methodology, and a new archive, connecting the Americas to Asia and Africa, and, through that expanded sphere of analysis, speaking to the world's health crisis with a new urgency and authority." - Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University
"All too infrequently a book is published that redirects the inquiries of multiple fields. This is such a book. Global Healing is an extraordinarily huge book not merely in word count but far more so in scope, depth, and vision. Global vision is easy to say but extremely difficult to achieve. Global Healing does so. It is essential reading for those working in Asian studies, African studies, global studies, and especially medical humanities, health humanities, and bioethics." - Jing-Bao Nie, University of Otago
"Karen Thornber has written a tour de force. It is difficult to imagine a book more sweeping in its scope and successful in its ambitions. Global Healing is essential reading for health humanists, as well as literary critics, historians, and health professionals who think seriously about the promise of the humanities for health." - Sari Altschuler, Northeastern University, author of The Medical Imagination
"Karen Thornberâs Global Healing is a major achievement that will have a critical impact on both the medical humanities and global literary studies. Ranging across traditional boundaries of east and west, north and south, with erudition, clarity, and compassion, Thornber powerfully demonstrates how literature illuminates the most essential elements of the experience of illness, as well as the limits of our medical and social approaches to its alleviation." - Allan M. Brandt, Harvard University, author of The Cigarette Century
"Karen Thornber has written the most extraordinary book. It is an account of global literature written from and by those experiencing, caring for, and thinking with pain, suffering and healing. But pride of place goes to works in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Urdu, Arabic, and by writers in Africa, Oceania, Latin America and South Asia about whom even experts in global health and medical humanities will know very little. Counterposing these works with deep and original readings of Sontag, Roth, Coetzee, Fadiman, Gawande, and other well-known Western writers leads to surprising and powerful insights on the human experiences of sickness and care that will convince anyone who needs convincing how essential comparative literature is in the current debates on health care. Reading footnotes that review telling original accounts of human experiences in Korean and what happens to them when translated into Urdu, Chinese and English will upset taken for granted theories and suggest new ones. This is especially true for stigma and leprosy, AIDS, and dementia. But this is not only a book about ideas, but a vade mecum of actions, reactions, reforms, advocacy and policy. A veritable museum of global literatures on what the human experience and meanings of health, suffering and care are that can claim greater comparative cross- cultural validity than anything I have read. An immense and unique achievement!" - Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University, author of The Soul of Care
"At once a vigorous re-framing of Medical Humanities, and a vigorous challenge to World Literature as it is currently defined, Global Healing offers a new geography, a new methodology, and a new archive, connecting the Americas to Asia and Africa, and, through that expanded sphere of analysis, speaking to the world's health crisis with a new urgency and authority." - Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University
"All too infrequently a book is published that redirects the inquiries of multiple fields. This is such a book. Global Healing is an extraordinarily huge book not merely in word count but far more so in scope, depth, and vision. Global vision is easy to say but extremely difficult to achieve. Global Healing does so. It is essential reading for those working in Asian studies, African studies, global studies, and especially medical humanities, health humanities, and bioethics." - Jing-Bao Nie, University of Otago
"Karen Thornber has written a tour de force. It is difficult to imagine a book more sweeping in its scope and successful in its ambitions. Global Healing is essential reading for health humanists, as well as literary critics, historians, and health professionals who think seriously about the promise of the humanities for health." - Sari Altschuler, Northeastern University, author of The Medical Imagination
"Karen Thornberâs Global Healing is a major achievement that will have a critical impact on both the medical humanities and global literary studies. Ranging across traditional boundaries of east and west, north and south, with erudition, clarity, and compassion, Thornber powerfully demonstrates how literature illuminates the most essential elements of the experience of illness, as well as the limits of our medical and social approaches to its alleviation." - Allan M. Brandt, Harvard University, author of The Cigarette Century
"Karen Thornber has written the most extraordinary book. It is an account of global literature written from and by those experiencing, caring for, and thinking with pain, suffering and healing. But pride of place goes to works in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Urdu, Arabic, and by writers in Africa, Oceania, Latin America and South Asia about whom even experts in global health and medical humanities will know very little. Counterposing these works with deep and original readings of Sontag, Roth, Coetzee, Fadiman, Gawande, and other well-known Western writers leads to surprising and powerful insights on the human experiences of sickness and care that will convince anyone who needs convincing how essential comparative literature is in the current debates on health care. Reading footnotes that review telling original accounts of human experiences in Korean and what happens to them when translated into Urdu, Chinese and English will upset taken for granted theories and suggest new ones. This is especially true for stigma and leprosy, AIDS, and dementia. But this is not only a book about ideas, but a vade mecum of actions, reactions, reforms, advocacy and policy. A veritable museum of global literatures on what the human experience and meanings of health, suffering and care are that can claim greater comparative cross- cultural validity than anything I have read. An immense and unique achievement!" - Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University, author of The Soul of Care
Acknowledgements Introduction â1Comparative Literature, World Literature, Global Literature
â2Literature and Medicine, Medical and Health Humanities
â3The Chapters
Introduction: Exposing Stigmas â1Legacies of Leprosy â1Leprosy, Christianity, Europe
â2Imperialism, Segregation, Hawaiâi, Nigeria
â3Leprosy and East Asia
â4Propagating Prejudices
â5Countering Violence
â5.1Leprosy Narratives and Hawaiâi
â5.2Japanese and Korean Stories of Leprosy
â5.3Paradise Reconsidered in Yi ChâÅngjunâs Your Paradise
â5.4Betrayal and the Urdu Translation of Your Paradise
â5.5Leprosaria as Refuge â Ola Rotimiâs Hopes of the Living Dead
â2AIDS , National Fear, Literary Production â1HIV /AIDS â The Global Epidemic
â2South Africa â Silence, Secrets, Accusations
â3Tanzania and Kenya â Denials, Allegations, Vulnerability
â4China â Innocence, Guilt, Social Control
â5The United States â Indictments, Activism, Understanding
â3AIDS Stigmas, Fear, Care
â1Deterring Advocacy, Activism, and Education
â2Deferring Responsibility
â3Obstructing Timely Testing and Medical Treatment
â4Forestalling Support
â5Destroying Landscapes
âEntrâacte: Confronting the Stigmas of Alzheimerâs
Introduction: Person-Focused Care â Advocacy, Respect, Compassion, Empathy, Healing â1Calls for Patient-Centered Care
â2Person-Focused Care â Empathy, Cultural Humility, Compassion, Healing
â3Challenges to Person-Focused Care
â4Narrative Interventions
â4Contrasts in Care â1Exposing Disparities
â2Asserting Humanity
â3Voicing Despair
â4Articulating Change
â5Speaking For, Not With
â1Stories Dismissed
â2Stories without Words
â3Stories without Memories
â4Differences Denied
â6 Medically Treating, Not Healing
â1Transforming Medicine â Women Physicians and Healing
â2Saving without Healing
â3Temporarily Curing without Healing
â4Accentuating Violence, Impeding Healing
â7Interventions in Dying
â1Easing Death
â1.1On the Right to Decline Death-Prolonging Care
â1.2On the Right to Life-Ending Care
â2Conundrums of Cure
â2.1Sacrifices in Discovering and Developing Cures
â2.2The Paradoxical Precariousness of Cure
Introduction: Healing Partnerships â8Promoting Partnerships in Living, Sharing Care
â1Integrating Support â Patients, Loved Ones, Health Professionals, Societies
â2Truth Telling â Patients, Loved Ones, Health Professionals
â3Eschewing Medical Treatment â Patients, Loved Ones
â4All about Elephants
â9Providing Partnerships in Dying, Easing Death
â1Partnerships Interrupted
â2Partnerships Criminalized
â3Partnerships Redefined
Bibliography Index
â2Literature and Medicine, Medical and Health Humanities
â3The Chapters
Part 1: Shattering Stigmas
Introduction: Exposing Stigmas â1Legacies of Leprosy â1Leprosy, Christianity, Europe
â2Imperialism, Segregation, Hawaiâi, Nigeria
â3Leprosy and East Asia
â4Propagating Prejudices
â5Countering Violence
â5.1Leprosy Narratives and Hawaiâi
â5.2Japanese and Korean Stories of Leprosy
â5.3Paradise Reconsidered in Yi ChâÅngjunâs Your Paradise
â5.4Betrayal and the Urdu Translation of Your Paradise
â5.5Leprosaria as Refuge â Ola Rotimiâs Hopes of the Living Dead
â2
â2South Africa â Silence, Secrets, Accusations
â3Tanzania and Kenya â Denials, Allegations, Vulnerability
â4China â Innocence, Guilt, Social Control
â5The United States â Indictments, Activism, Understanding
â3
â1Deterring Advocacy, Activism, and Education
â2Deferring Responsibility
â3Obstructing Timely Testing and Medical Treatment
â4Forestalling Support
â5Destroying Landscapes
âEntrâacte: Confronting the Stigmas of Alzheimerâs
Part 2: Humanizing Healthcare
Introduction: Person-Focused Care â Advocacy, Respect, Compassion, Empathy, Healing â1Calls for Patient-Centered Care
â2Person-Focused Care â Empathy, Cultural Humility, Compassion, Healing
â3Challenges to Person-Focused Care
â4Narrative Interventions
â4Contrasts in Care â1Exposing Disparities
â2Asserting Humanity
â3Voicing Despair
â4Articulating Change
â5Speaking For, Not With
â1Stories Dismissed
â2Stories without Words
â3Stories without Memories
â4Differences Denied
â6 Medically Treating, Not Healing
â1Transforming Medicine â Women Physicians and Healing
â2Saving without Healing
â3Temporarily Curing without Healing
â4Accentuating Violence, Impeding Healing
â7Interventions in Dying
â1Easing Death
â1.1On the Right to Decline Death-Prolonging Care
â1.2On the Right to Life-Ending Care
â2Conundrums of Cure
â2.1Sacrifices in Discovering and Developing Cures
â2.2The Paradoxical Precariousness of Cure
Part 3: Prioritizing Partnerships
Introduction: Healing Partnerships â8Promoting Partnerships in Living, Sharing Care
â1Integrating Support â Patients, Loved Ones, Health Professionals, Societies
â2Truth Telling â Patients, Loved Ones, Health Professionals
â3Eschewing Medical Treatment â Patients, Loved Ones
â4All about Elephants
â9Providing Partnerships in Dying, Easing Death
â1Partnerships Interrupted
â2Partnerships Criminalized
â3Partnerships Redefined
Bibliography Index
Students and scholars of comparative literature, world literature, medical humanities, and health humanities; health professionals, students, and others interested in arts/literature and medicine; anyone interested in literature promoting healing care.