Aims

This module examines how contemporary experimental writing has engaged with, and responded to, current health debates, which may include such topics as disability, neurodiversity, the neoliberalisation of healthcare, and the politics of diagnosis and vaccination. Focusing on experimental writing of the twenty-first century, we will identify and explore a range of techniques used by contemporary writers to explore these themes. These could include the body/visuality of the text, the mixing of poetry and prose, the creative use of a source text, or techniques of erasure and anecdote.

Conceptual material will draw on critical medical humanities and critical disability studies. Throughout the module, we will ask how contemporary experimental writing positions itself in relation to the medical, considering whether it 'speaks back' to and contests medical frameworks, or whether it explores its entanglement within medical structures of knowledge.

Outline Of Syllabus

Writers studied on the module may include: Raymond Antrobus, Eula Biss, Anne Boyer, Joanne Limburg, or Molly McCully Brown.

The primary texts that we will study do not have a body of associated secondary criticism and so students will be required to close read them independently, in dialogue with the critical and conceptual material studied.

Textual forms: poetry, lyrical essay.

Keywords: disability, neurodiversity, race, gender, class, nation.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The lectures introduce students to the knowledge outcomes, as listed. Seminars develop this knowledge further and provide a structured learning space where students practise the skills of close textual analysis, critical debate and the evaluation of critical positions.

Students will participate in an online discussion forum where they will debate set topics and questions relevant to the module and that run alongside and extend the discussion in seminars.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The module will be assessed by a mid-module essay of 1,500 words (30%) that asks you to close read a piece of contemporary experimental writing studied on the module, attending to its formal features and strategies. The end of module assessment will comprise a written essay of 2,500 words (70%) that examines the relation between contemporary experimental writing and current debates and discourses in health and medicine.

The mid-module close reading assesses knowledge of literary form and technique and is preparatory to the final assessment which will also practice these skills. The written essay expands on the first assessment by asking students to relate the close reading of a text to relevant critical debates on health, medicine or dis/ability.