IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 1527: Entangled Selves, Emotional Selves, I: The Self in Pain

Thursday 6 July 2023, 09.00-10.30

Organisers:	Isabella Clarke, Oriel College, University of Oxford Meritxell Risco de la Torre, School of Humanities University of Iceland Reykjavík
Moderator/Chair:	Isabella Clarke, Oriel College, University of Oxford
Paper 1527-a	The Ailing Self: Illness and Self-Representation in Tang China (Language: English) Xiaojing Miao, Pembroke College, University of Oxford Index terms: Language and Literature - Other, Medicine
Paper 1527-b	'The bende of this blame I bere in my nekke': Transgression, Wounds, and Plague Anxiety in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Language: English) Mary Alcaro, Department of English, Rutgers University, New Jersey Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Medicine
Paper 1527-c	Saint Hysteria?: The Tumultuous Aura of Sanctity in (Modern) Medieval Texts (Language: English) Meaghan Elizabeth Allen, School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester Index terms: Hagiography, Medicine
Abstract	This session investigates how emotional and/or physical pain can contribute to the experience of selfhood in a constructive or destructive way. Through the study of different kinds of suffering, the papers explore how ailments of the body and mind can illustrate the intersection of selfhood, body, and emotion. One paper examines this connection through the ailing body in medieval Chinese literature. Another paper shall study the echoes of collective trauma stemming from the plague in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The final contribution compares medieval sanctity with modern (in)sanity. Whether through the depiction of illness, (in)sanity, or trauma, the self in pain is shown.