Literary Studies and Well-Being - by Ronald Schleifer (Paperback)

About the Book

"The literary arts represent and provoke experiences of understanding and emotion, and this open access study examines how the practical pursuit of well-being in healthcare reveals purposes at the core of our engagements with and understanding of literature itself. During the past twenty years, much admirable work in the "health humanities" has focused upon what studies of literature contribute to the understandings and the practical work-the "worldly work"-of healthcare. Such a project aims at developing healthcare practitioners who bring greater care to those who come to them ailing or in fear or faced with terrible suffering. Literary Studies and Well-Being turns this inside out by examining the intergenerational caretaking of healthcare in a manner which allows us to comprehend the nature and discipline of literary studies in new ways"--

Book Synopsis

The literary arts represent and provoke experiences of understanding and emotion, and this open access study examines how the practical pursuit of well-being in healthcare reveals purposes at the core of our engagements with and understanding of literature itself.

During the past twenty years, much admirable work in the "health humanities" has focused upon what studies of literature contribute to the understandings and the practical work-the "worldly work"-of healthcare. Such a project aims at developing healthcare practitioners who bring greater care to those who come to them ailing or in fear or faced with terrible suffering. Literary Studies and Well-Being turns this inside out by examining the intergenerational caretaking of healthcare in a manner which allows us to comprehend the nature and discipline of literary studies in new ways.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The University of Oklahoma.

Review Quotes

"Literary Studies and Well-Being reminds us what real interdisciplinary scholarship can do. While interdisciplinarity usually results in the domination of one discipline by another, this book tries to keep literary studies and healthcare in a mutually illuminating equilibrium. Ronald Schleifer channels his literary curiosity into a project enriched by his many years of teaching medical students and conducting research with healthcare professionals." --Configurations

"This book is a beautiful discussion of what it means to have lived experiences, how humans use these events to understand the narrative that is their life, and how literature can influence the definition of wellness in our modern society. I would encourage anyone interested in living well or helping others to do so to pick up this book and take the chance to expand their knowledge, deepen their experience, and start a conversation about well-being." --World Literature Today

"A fascinating, open-access study from the medical and health humanities that examines the 'worldly work' toward well-being, which both literature and healthcare share ... Schleifer is firmly anchoring literature and literary studies in worldly practices that go far beyond escapist entertainment and upper-class luxury: literature is a fundamental aspect of human well-being." --Anglia

About the Author

Ronald Schleifer is is George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma, USA and Adjunct Professor in Medicine.