Dementia Narratives: Fictions of Forgetting

Overview

This project analyses contemporary cultural representations of dementia in autobiography and fiction. It draws on interdisciplinary approaches from the medical humanities that bring ‘the new science of memory’ together with the literary and cultural analysis.

In the last decade there has been a huge explosion of fictional, biographical and autobiographical writing about dementia. Recent fiction by Munro, Franzen and Byatt also explores the complex role of care-givers. Autobiographical and imaginative works by Skloot and Genova place cutting-edge neuroscientific understandings of the brain alongside first person accounts of dementia. My project adopts an innovative approach to analysing this recent writing to highlight the importance of exploring dementia from personal and cultural as well as clinical perspectives. The research is intended to build understanding of the role that literature plays in contributing to and shifting public understandings of dementia.

The project responds to two key challenges in the Wellcome Trust’s Strategic Plan: ‘Understanding the Brain’ and ‘Investigating Development, Ageing and Chronic Disease’. Outputs will include a journal article, conference paper, and proposal for five interlinked broadcasts on memory for BBC Radio 3. Research networking will build contacts in preparation for a Medical Humanities Wellcome Trust New Investigator Award application in 2014.