Pub Date : 2023-09-27DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2259158
Sleiman El Hajj
To introduce the special issue on illness writing in Lebanon, I theorise Lebano-pathography as a dual, potentially adaptable and reusable, (i) narrative intervention (form/method) that does not depoliticise the traumatic subject. Simultaneously, it is (ii) a body of writing (text) that seeks to illuminate the different ways one can be ill, and try to recover, in present-day Lebanon. While somatic manifestations of illness and their concomitant patient accounts are central to previous research in narrative medicine and illness writing, Lebano-pathography underscores a more versatile interpretation of illness encompassing cultural practice and/or clinical disease, and exploring in critically informed autobiographical text the two illness categories’ causal interrelationship. In the backdrop of the cadaverous political grid and economic tensions rending the country since the national tragedy of the August 4, 2020 explosion of Beirut Port, this volume unpacks the following thematic clusters: (1) Rewriting Illness: Pathographies of Gender and Sex; (2) The Alzheimer Spectrum: Cognitive and/or Cultural Memory Failure; (3) Walking the City: Medical Malpractice, Pedestrian Injuries, and Claustophobia; (4) The Bones Within: Immigrant Narratives and Vicarious Trauma; and (5) Surviving Trauma: Coping and Mental Health.
{"title":"Theorising Lebano-Pathography: A Biographical Exploration of Medical-Cultural Pathologies","authors":"Sleiman El Hajj","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2259158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2259158","url":null,"abstract":"To introduce the special issue on illness writing in Lebanon, I theorise Lebano-pathography as a dual, potentially adaptable and reusable, (i) narrative intervention (form/method) that does not depoliticise the traumatic subject. Simultaneously, it is (ii) a body of writing (text) that seeks to illuminate the different ways one can be ill, and try to recover, in present-day Lebanon. While somatic manifestations of illness and their concomitant patient accounts are central to previous research in narrative medicine and illness writing, Lebano-pathography underscores a more versatile interpretation of illness encompassing cultural practice and/or clinical disease, and exploring in critically informed autobiographical text the two illness categories’ causal interrelationship. In the backdrop of the cadaverous political grid and economic tensions rending the country since the national tragedy of the August 4, 2020 explosion of Beirut Port, this volume unpacks the following thematic clusters: (1) Rewriting Illness: Pathographies of Gender and Sex; (2) The Alzheimer Spectrum: Cognitive and/or Cultural Memory Failure; (3) Walking the City: Medical Malpractice, Pedestrian Injuries, and Claustophobia; (4) The Bones Within: Immigrant Narratives and Vicarious Trauma; and (5) Surviving Trauma: Coping and Mental Health.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135537281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-27DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2259156
Sleiman El Hajj
ABSTRACTAn ongoing economic and financial meltdown, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the August 4, 2020 explosion of Beirut Port—since 2019, Lebanon has been assailed by a spiralling confluence of mutually exacerbating crises. The present-day poverty, hunger, and unemployment levels are coeval with an extraordinary rise of similarly hyper-endemic sextortion cases. While drawing on its author’s experience of sexual blackmail in Lebanon, this article narrates the various parameters of this pathology and its trauma—its perpetrators, progression, and victims—in relation to several documented instances of this illness, including three excerpts from my students’ memoirs (2020–2023). The resulting ‘pathography’ reveals sexual blackmail in Lebanon as a nuanced corollary of not only socioeconomic tensions, but also sex stigma. In a context where societal attitudes to sexuality remain, to a significant extent, regressive, being sexually active, regardless of sexual orientation, incurs a status quo of shaming and silencing that most affects the sexual and mental health of the country’s vulnerable groups: youth, particularly women, and queer individuals more generally.KEYWORDS: Sexual blackmailsex stigmasexual scammingyouth memoirspathography Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 A quick search on Google reveals a score of obstetrics and gynecology clinics in Beirut that market hymen reconstruction as a swift (30 to 40-minute) procedure ‘to eliminate your anxiety and bring self-confidence as well as happiness to your life’ (Dagher Citation2023).2 Some details in this pathography have been altered for reasons of privacy; in addition, pseudonyms, where relevant, replace real names throughout the essay.3 The Lebanese University, founded in 1951, is Lebanon’s only public university to date.4 Title IX is a federal law in the United States, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational institutions. Currently, both the Lebanese American University and the American University of Beirut operate Title IX offices in their establishments.Additional informationFundingThis article was written during the author’s appointment as Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, courtesy of a research grant, SRDC–S–2022–162, from the Lebanese American University.Notes on contributorsSleiman El HajjSleiman El Hajj is Assistant Professor of Creative and Journalistic Writing in the Department of Communication, Arts and Languages at the Lebanese American University (LAU). He is the recipient of the LAU Faculty Research Excellence Award 2022–2023. His research interests include creative nonfiction, gender studies, narrative constructions of home, queer theory, and Middle Eastern literature.
持续的经济和金融危机、2019冠状病毒病大流行以及2020年8月4日贝鲁特港爆炸，自2019年以来，黎巴嫩一直受到相互加剧的危机螺旋式融合的袭击。当今的贫困、饥饿和失业水平与类似的高地方性性勒索案件的异常上升同时出现。这篇文章借鉴了作者在黎巴嫩遭受性勒索的经历，叙述了这种疾病的各种参数及其创伤——肇事者、进展和受害者——与几个记录在案的这种疾病的实例有关，其中包括我的学生回忆录(2020-2023)中的三个摘录。由此产生的“病理图”揭示了黎巴嫩的性勒索不仅是社会经济紧张局势的微妙必然结果，也是性别耻辱的必然结果。在社会对性的态度在很大程度上仍然是倒退的情况下，性活跃，无论性取向如何，都会导致一种羞辱和沉默的现状，这对该国弱势群体(青年，特别是妇女，以及更普遍的同性恋者)的性健康和精神健康影响最大。关键词:性勒索、性耻辱、性诈骗、青年回忆录、血清学、披露声明作者未发现潜在的利益冲突。注1在谷歌上快速搜索一下，就会发现贝鲁特的许多妇产科诊所都将处女膜重建作为一种快速(30到40分钟)的手术来推销，“它可以消除你的焦虑，给你的生活带来自信和幸福”(Dagher Citation2023)出于隐私原因，本病理图中的一些细节已被更改;此外，在相关的情况下，在文章中使用假名代替真实姓名黎巴嫩大学成立于1951年，是黎巴嫩迄今为止唯一的公立大学第九条是美国的一项联邦法律，禁止教育机构中的性别歧视。目前，黎巴嫩美国大学和贝鲁特美国大学都在其机构内经营第九条办事处。本文由黎巴嫩美国大学SRDC-S-2022-162研究基金资助，作者在牛津大学国际发展部担任访问研究员期间撰写。作者简介:sleiman El Hajj，黎巴嫩美国大学传播、艺术和语言系创意和新闻写作助理教授。他是2022-2023年劳学院杰出研究奖的获得者。他的研究兴趣包括创造性非虚构、性别研究、家庭叙事结构、酷儿理论和中东文学。
{"title":"Narrating Sexual Blackmail in Lebanon: A Present-Day Pathography","authors":"Sleiman El Hajj","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2259156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2259156","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTAn ongoing economic and financial meltdown, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the August 4, 2020 explosion of Beirut Port—since 2019, Lebanon has been assailed by a spiralling confluence of mutually exacerbating crises. The present-day poverty, hunger, and unemployment levels are coeval with an extraordinary rise of similarly hyper-endemic sextortion cases. While drawing on its author’s experience of sexual blackmail in Lebanon, this article narrates the various parameters of this pathology and its trauma—its perpetrators, progression, and victims—in relation to several documented instances of this illness, including three excerpts from my students’ memoirs (2020–2023). The resulting ‘pathography’ reveals sexual blackmail in Lebanon as a nuanced corollary of not only socioeconomic tensions, but also sex stigma. In a context where societal attitudes to sexuality remain, to a significant extent, regressive, being sexually active, regardless of sexual orientation, incurs a status quo of shaming and silencing that most affects the sexual and mental health of the country’s vulnerable groups: youth, particularly women, and queer individuals more generally.KEYWORDS: Sexual blackmailsex stigmasexual scammingyouth memoirspathography Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 A quick search on Google reveals a score of obstetrics and gynecology clinics in Beirut that market hymen reconstruction as a swift (30 to 40-minute) procedure ‘to eliminate your anxiety and bring self-confidence as well as happiness to your life’ (Dagher Citation2023).2 Some details in this pathography have been altered for reasons of privacy; in addition, pseudonyms, where relevant, replace real names throughout the essay.3 The Lebanese University, founded in 1951, is Lebanon’s only public university to date.4 Title IX is a federal law in the United States, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational institutions. Currently, both the Lebanese American University and the American University of Beirut operate Title IX offices in their establishments.Additional informationFundingThis article was written during the author’s appointment as Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, courtesy of a research grant, SRDC–S–2022–162, from the Lebanese American University.Notes on contributorsSleiman El HajjSleiman El Hajj is Assistant Professor of Creative and Journalistic Writing in the Department of Communication, Arts and Languages at the Lebanese American University (LAU). He is the recipient of the LAU Faculty Research Excellence Award 2022–2023. His research interests include creative nonfiction, gender studies, narrative constructions of home, queer theory, and Middle Eastern literature.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135537282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-18DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2257903
Gretchen Shirm
ABSTRACTThe idea of writing from the wound is a pervasive concept in the discourse of writing, yet the relationship between language and trauma is a contradictory one. Writing ‘from’ the wound suggests a causal relationship between traumatic encounter and the writing, which fails to fully account for the symbolic rupture. Yet, the relationship between writing and wound can be seen more productively as involving a movement away from the wound instead of towards it. This process is enacted in Cold Enough for Snow, a work of autobiographical fiction, in which the narrator hints towards certain structural traumas, without describing those wounds. Instead, Cold Enough for Snow through its focus on surface descriptions, the preference for metonymy over metaphor, the coming together of different time strands, creates a veneer-like surface that gestures towards wounds. The novel moves the narrator away from a state of disconnection, towards a reconnection with the mother and others, following an intense period of reflection. In this way, the idea of wound writing can be seen in Cold Enough for Snow as a movement towards healing. The directionality of this movement is crucial to writers seeking to avoid traumatic repetition in their writing.KEYWORDS: Traumaautobiographical fictionJessica AuCold Enough for Snowwound writing Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsGretchen ShirmGretchen Shirm is the author of Having Cried Wolf, Where the Light Falls, and The Crying Room. Her scholarly writing in the area of testimony, trauma, and emotion has been published in Textual Practice, Critique, New Writing, Life Writing, and Australian Literary Studies, amongst other places. She was named a 2011 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist for her collection of short stories, Having Cried Wolf. Her first novel Where the Light Falls was shortlisted for the 2017 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Her novel-in-stories The Crying Room was published in July 2023. Her fiction and criticism have been published widely, including in The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, Best Australian Stories, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Overland, Kill Your Darlings, The Australian, The Monthly, Art Monthly, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Review of Australian Fiction and Southerly.
摘要创伤写作是写作话语中普遍存在的概念，但语言与创伤的关系是矛盾的。“来自”伤口的文字暗示了创伤性遭遇和文字之间的因果关系，这并不能完全解释象征性的破裂。然而，写作和伤口之间的关系可以被看作是一种远离伤口而不是走向伤口的运动。这一过程在自传体小说《冷到足以下雪》(Cold Enough for Snow)中得到了体现，叙述者暗示了某些结构性创伤，但没有描述这些创伤。相反，《雪够冷》通过其对表面描述的关注，对转喻的偏好而不是隐喻，不同时间线的结合，创造了一个像单板一样的表面，向伤口暗示。小说将叙述者从一种脱节的状态转移到与母亲和其他人的重新联系，之后是一段强烈的反思期。这样看来，《雪冷到不能再冷》中关于伤口的写作可以被看作是一种走向治愈的运动。这种运动的方向性对于作家避免在写作中出现创伤性的重复是至关重要的。关键词:创伤自传体小说jessica AuCold Enough for Snowwound writing披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。作者简介:gretchen Shirm是《狼来了》、《灯光落在哪里》和《哭泣的房间》的作者。她在证词、创伤和情感领域的学术著作发表在《文本实践》、《批判》、《新写作》、《生活写作》和《澳大利亚文学研究》等刊物上。她的短篇小说集《狼来了》被评为2011年《悉尼先驱晨报》最佳澳大利亚青年小说家。她的第一部小说《阳光照耀的地方》入围了2017年新南威尔士州总理文学奖的克里斯蒂娜·斯特德小说奖。她的长篇小说《哭泣的房间》于2023年7月出版。她的小说和评论广泛发表，包括《星期六报》、《格里菲斯评论》、《澳大利亚最佳故事》、《悉尼书评》、《澳大利亚书评》、《陆上》、《杀死你的爱人》、《澳大利亚人报》、《月刊》、《艺术月刊》、《悉尼先驱晨报》、《时代》、《澳大利亚小说评论》和《南方》。
{"title":"The Myth of ‘Wound’ Writing: The Multiple Surfaces of Jessica Au’s <i>Cold Enough for Snow</i>","authors":"Gretchen Shirm","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2257903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2257903","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe idea of writing from the wound is a pervasive concept in the discourse of writing, yet the relationship between language and trauma is a contradictory one. Writing ‘from’ the wound suggests a causal relationship between traumatic encounter and the writing, which fails to fully account for the symbolic rupture. Yet, the relationship between writing and wound can be seen more productively as involving a movement away from the wound instead of towards it. This process is enacted in Cold Enough for Snow, a work of autobiographical fiction, in which the narrator hints towards certain structural traumas, without describing those wounds. Instead, Cold Enough for Snow through its focus on surface descriptions, the preference for metonymy over metaphor, the coming together of different time strands, creates a veneer-like surface that gestures towards wounds. The novel moves the narrator away from a state of disconnection, towards a reconnection with the mother and others, following an intense period of reflection. In this way, the idea of wound writing can be seen in Cold Enough for Snow as a movement towards healing. The directionality of this movement is crucial to writers seeking to avoid traumatic repetition in their writing.KEYWORDS: Traumaautobiographical fictionJessica AuCold Enough for Snowwound writing Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsGretchen ShirmGretchen Shirm is the author of Having Cried Wolf, Where the Light Falls, and The Crying Room. Her scholarly writing in the area of testimony, trauma, and emotion has been published in Textual Practice, Critique, New Writing, Life Writing, and Australian Literary Studies, amongst other places. She was named a 2011 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist for her collection of short stories, Having Cried Wolf. Her first novel Where the Light Falls was shortlisted for the 2017 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Her novel-in-stories The Crying Room was published in July 2023. Her fiction and criticism have been published widely, including in The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, Best Australian Stories, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Overland, Kill Your Darlings, The Australian, The Monthly, Art Monthly, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Review of Australian Fiction and Southerly.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135150085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2252995
Lucy O’Connor
{"title":"‘An Awakening of the Senses’: Reading Julia Child's My Life in France as Gastrography","authors":"Lucy O’Connor","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2252995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2252995","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49653233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2250928
Merril Howie
{"title":"Reflecting on Memory, Imagination and Place: Reading Janet Frame’s The Envoy from Mirror City Through a Cognitive Literary Lens","authors":"Merril Howie","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2250928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2250928","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41456382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-15DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2244805
H. Ostman
ThisHistory explores innovations in African American autobiography since its inception, examining the literary and cultural history of Black self-representation amid life writing studies. By analyzing the different forms of autobiography, including pictorial and personal essays, editorials, oral histories, testimonials, diaries, personal and open letters, and even poetry performance media of autobiographies, this book extends the definition of African American autobiography, revealing how people of African descent have created and defined the Black self in diverse print cultures and literary genres since their arrival in the Americas. It illustrates ways African Americans use life writing and autobiography to address personal and collective Black experiences of identity, family, memory, fulfillment, racism, and white supremacy. Individual chapters examine scrapbooks as a source of self-documentation, African American autobiography for children, readings of African American persona poems, mixedrace life writing after the Civil Rights Movement, and autobiographies by African American LGBTQ writers.
{"title":"A History of African American Autobiography","authors":"H. Ostman","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2244805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2244805","url":null,"abstract":"ThisHistory explores innovations in African American autobiography since its inception, examining the literary and cultural history of Black self-representation amid life writing studies. By analyzing the different forms of autobiography, including pictorial and personal essays, editorials, oral histories, testimonials, diaries, personal and open letters, and even poetry performance media of autobiographies, this book extends the definition of African American autobiography, revealing how people of African descent have created and defined the Black self in diverse print cultures and literary genres since their arrival in the Americas. It illustrates ways African Americans use life writing and autobiography to address personal and collective Black experiences of identity, family, memory, fulfillment, racism, and white supremacy. Individual chapters examine scrapbooks as a source of self-documentation, African American autobiography for children, readings of African American persona poems, mixedrace life writing after the Civil Rights Movement, and autobiographies by African American LGBTQ writers.","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42996294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-20DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2235146
R. Porter
{"title":"True Lies and Short Takes: Assorted Life Writing Essays","authors":"R. Porter","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2235146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2235146","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59839606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-04DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2226834
R. Mairs
{"title":"Fantasy and Dissimulation in the Memoirs of Getzel Zelikovits (1855–1926)","authors":"R. Mairs","doi":"10.1080/14484528.2023.2226834","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2023.2226834","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43797,"journal":{"name":"Life Writing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43279979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-04DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2023.2228505
Nayiri Baboudjian Bouchakjian
ABSTRACT In this article, I study the different expressions of grief that I experienced while taking care of my Father who lived with Alzheimer’s for over a decade, in Beirut, Lebanon. As his primary caregiver, I was shocked by the reaction of the medical team who, at times, treated my Father as ‘invisible.’ Drawing on a parallel between Pokr Mher, an Armenian mythological figure, and my Father’s status locked in the house for years, I explore how alienation from friends and family affected him. I stress the caregiver’s significant and under-represented role, possible burnout, and withdrawal from society. In a country entrenched in corruption, and sinking in economic and political malaise, the Beirut Port Blast created an immense wave of collective grief, paralleled and even outweighed by the extracted grief of going through the Alzheimer’s arc. I shed light, too, on the importance of one’s mother tongue in dementia care. Discussing end-of-life matters in one’s own language may carry with it a finality that a second language masks. Finally, in seeking to bequeath meaning to my caregiving journey, I emphasise the role of life writing as a tool of remembering and focusing on the fullness of the forget-fullness journey.
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