Essays in French Literature and Culture (Oct 2021)
Digital Autopathography: Relational Modes of Illness Writing in Marie-Dominique Arrighi’s K, histoires de crabe
Abstract
This article contributes to recent scholarship on the shift beyond traditional narrative forms in patient expressions of illness and disease. It takes as its focus a study of French journalist Marie- Dominique Arrighi’s blog on her experience of cancer and probes some of the implications, for both physician and patient, of the public documenting of medical treatment. The article further considers what the rise in digital autopathography reveals about the role of community and ethics in illness writing and explores some of the perils and possibilities facilitated by a cultural move towards more relational and experimental modes of autopathography.
