I will be giving a talk on November 20th at an interdisciplinary conference in France (in French, English, and Spanish) with the overarching theme: “Memories, Marks, Imprints.” I show how the words and aura of an illness diagnosis and its subsequent treatment—my examples will be cancer (David Small’s Stitches) and mental illness (Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me)—mark us in mind and body. This continues my earlier work on the trauma of diagnosis in graphic memoir, but with an emphasis on how the language itself, as delivered in most medical settings, can wound. (Fortunately, I get to do this in English—and with slides.)
View the conference information page and/or PDF. See also selections from my ongoing project, My Multifocal Life.
