Kirurgiske kærtegn

Forfattere

  • Iben Engelhardt Andersen Syddansk Universitet

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/kok.v43i120.22988

Nøgleord:

medical realism, popular culture, Madame Bovary, Sherlock Holmes, medical discourse

Resumé

This article examines contemporary American medical television dramas and their intersections with 19th century literary realism asking how technical language and sentimental speech are connected in these cultural representations of illness and medical discourse. I argue that they share a common effort of medical realism: Questions of medical knowledge, diagnosis and the delimitations of the normal and the pathological not only inform the thematic content of these genres, but also mark the narrative techniques of description, characterization and imagery. Because the rational professionalism, since the founding of modern medical science, carries with it a specific truth privilege, it presents itself not only as the possibility for medical treatment, but also as an answer to our existential troubles. I consider this double authority of medical practice and social therapy a model for the medical realism at play in modern hospital dramas. They borrow the scientific authority of medicine in order to present characters who are first and foremost bodies and who are therefore potentially pathological. Furthermore they borrow the interpretive authority of medicine to develop a diagnostics, which can determine the normal and the pathological on a social scale.

Forfatterbiografi

Iben Engelhardt Andersen, Syddansk Universitet

Iben Engelhardt Andersen er ph.d.-stipendiat ved Institut for Kulturvidenskaber, Syddansk Universitet. Skriver på afhandling om tragiske teenagefigurer i litteratur og samtidskultur. Publikationer i bl.a. Kritik, Retfærd, Trappe Tusind, Den blå port, Nordisk Kvindelitteraturhistorie. Har i samarbejde med Mikkel Frantzen oversat Judith Butler: Krigens rammer (Arena 2015) og er medredaktør af antologien Syg litteratur (Munksgaard 2015).

Referencer

Barthes, Roland: “Sémiologie et médecine”. L’aventure sémiologique. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1985. 273-287.

Brooks, Peter: Realist Vision. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Canguilhem, Georges: Le normale et le pathologique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972.

Doyle, Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, London, 1994.

Doyle, Arthur Conan: “A Study in Scarlet”. Sherlock Holmes. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1989.

Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary, Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1972.

Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary. København: Gyldendal, 1995.

Foucault, Michel: Klinikkens fødsel. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag, 2000.

Foucault, Michel: “Socialmedicinens fødsel” i Distinktion – tidsskrift for sam­fundsteori, 2:3. 2001. 11-23.

Jerslev, Anne: “Kropsbilleder i den amerikanske tv-serie House M.D.” i Kritik, 191, 2008.

Reagan, Leslie J.; Tomes, Nancy; Treichler, Paula A. (red.): Medicine’s Moving Pictures – Medicine, Health, and Bodies in American Film and Television, University of Rochester Press, 2007.

Rothfield, Lawrence: Vital Signs – Medical Realism in Nineteenth-century Fiction. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992.

House M.D. – David Shore, FOX, 2004-2012.

ER – first season – Michael Crichton, NBC, 1994.

Downloads

Publiceret

2015-12-30

Citation/Eksport

Andersen, I. E. (2015). Kirurgiske kærtegn. K&K - Kultur Og Klasse, 43(120), 185–206. https://doi.org/10.7146/kok.v43i120.22988