French Studies and Medical Humanities: Critical Intersections

This book articulates the specific affinity between French and Francophone Studies and the burgeoning field of Medical Humanities, grounded in the history of medicine in France, in the particularity of French Republican Universalism, and in the French intellectual tradition informing approaches to cultural and humanistic engagement with health matters. While some journal special issues in recent years have focused on singular aspects of health(care) from a French Studies perspective (e.g. narratives of illness; thanatology; medico-religious interactions), this will be the first book-length study that showcases the variety of critical, methodological and practical approaches to medical and healthcare-related experiences informed by French and Francophone Studies scholarship. The book’s distinctive innovation lies in its analysis of how French literature, cultural production and philosophy locate medical phenomena at critical intersections – e.g., with the Environmental Humanities, Post/Colonial Studies, Queer Studies, Digital Humanities, Disability Studies, Legal Studies and cultural historiography. In this way, the book is well-placed to garner significant interest from a broad readership and will highlight the vital contribution of French Studies to the development of the Medical Humanities as an interdisciplinary field.