Companions in this Age: A Study of Pain in Canadian Literature

Abstract

This dissertation is informed by lived experience of disability, artistic practice, and medical practice. My dissertation is also intended to be a model of how to bring to bear professional expertise, personal history, and personal obligations on scholarship. An inter-field survey of critical lenses within the humanities is developed, making for a heterogeneous model of engagement for scholars interested in studying medicine and medical representations in literature and other artistic genres and forms. A fusion of fields is created, demonstrating that many different approaches can be brought to bear – a deliberate choice because medicine is in need of critique from the humanities. Settler/bioscientific epistemologies are unpacked alongside Indigenous epistemologies. Metaphor, intersubjectivity, Indigenous place-thought, and disability studies are also deployed. I develop a way to link all of these pieces when they use the representation of pain as a common cause. I respectfully consider Indigenous knowledge without defining same or clinicalizing their knowledges. Ultimately, I develop a pain poetics.