Eros and Illness
Understanding the Human Experience of Disease Through Desire
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Harvard University Press
Published:23rd Feb '17
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
David Morris's Eros and Illness explores the interplay between desire and the experience of illness, offering a deeply human perspective on coping with disease.
In Eros and Illness, David Morris delves into the profound impact that illness has on our lives, both personally and relationally. When faced with sickness, whether it be our own or that of a loved one, we often find ourselves navigating a world turned upside down. Our routines are disrupted, and our core beliefs are challenged. Morris argues that the prevailing biomedical approach, while invaluable in treatment, often overlooks the emotional and psychological dimensions of illness. He posits that desire—encompassing emotions, dreams, and even aspects of romance—plays a pivotal role in how we experience disease.
Drawing on his own experiences as a caregiver, Morris illustrates how desire can influence our journey through illness. He emphasizes that our perceptions of pain and suffering are deeply intertwined with what we yearn for and value. By examining various cultural artifacts, including myths, memoirs, and art, Eros and Illness provides a rich tapestry of insights into the human experience of disease. Morris invites readers to explore how the narratives we create around illness can either amplify our suffering or help us navigate through it.
Ultimately, Eros and Illness serves as a guide through the often dark and isolating landscape of sickness. Morris encourages us to recognize and harness the power of desire, suggesting that it can lead to moments of connection and understanding, even amidst the challenges of health crises. This book is a heartfelt exploration of resilience and the human spirit in the face of adversity.
Eros and Illness lends authority and vision to the very private experiences of personal pain and illness. As his wife Ruth succumbs to an aggressive early form of dementia, David Morris ‘corrects’ what he thinks he knows about pain and suffering with his own anguish. From this personal experience emerges the daring formulation of medical eros. What Morris is trying for is almost impossible, but he pulls it off. He is trying to enter illness carrying its presumed antithesis. He proposes that some valuable things are possible within the experience of serious illness, that one can undergo states of profound quest, of abandon, of all that is not ordinary, constricted life. Only a scholar of Morris’s stature who has had to suffer his battering losses would be able to propose such a profound challenge to the world of medicine. -- Rita Charon, Columbia University
This remarkable book focuses on the fundamental and fraught relationship of what the author terms ‘medical logos’ and ‘medical eros.’ These terms mirror the philosophical relationship of logos to eros, and bear upon how desire and knowledge in the context of illness reshape that relationship. David Morris is not afraid to delve deep into personal experience. His writing is clear, communicative, and filled with sections that are brilliant in conception and execution—such as the discussions on Modigliani, light, appearance and disappearance, and assenting to life in death-boundedness. This book is a tour-de-force. -- Thomas Dumm, Amherst College
Eros and Illness eloquently illustrates how much medical humanities, narrative medicine, and similar new disciplines can contribute to more effective and compassionate care by reminding clinicians that illness is more than a series of data points. -- Suzanne Koven * Los Angeles Review of Books *
ISBN: 9780674659711
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
368 pages