Illness Narratives: Interview with Maria Vaccarella
In this post I interview Maria Vaccarella on her latest project which concerns illness narratives. Maria is Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the University of Bristol. She works at the intersection of literature and medicine, and she is a member of the steering committee of the Centre for Health, Humanities and Science . Her current research explores the genre of illness narratives, with a special focus on non-linear and non-triumphalistic plots. She is also interested in narrative medicine, critical disability studies, narrative bioethics, comparative literature, and graphic storytelling. Her current project is “ Illness as Fiction: Textual Afflictions in Print and Online ” and is funded by a British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant. LB: How did you first become interested in false accounts of illness? MV: About two years ago, I was reading this article on health-related Internet hoaxes during my lunch break and had a lightbulb moment: these illness accounts, whether pr...