GLOBAL NARRATIVES OF ILLNESS AND DISABILITY

FREN 375M

DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN

DR. JULIE NACK NGUE

TAPER 177
[email protected]

Are you okay? is a question that invites a story. But how we ask that question and how we
listen are as much a part of the “narrative” as the response itself. After all, often when we
inquire about another’s health or wellbeing, we already have a story in mind; what we
anticipate or want to hear. In this course, we will encounter diverse narratives of illness and
disability—some familiar, some foreign—that will hopefully challenge not only our
assumptions about the meanings and experiences of illness and disability, but the way we ask
questions: of an-other and of a text as well.
Throughout the semester, we will travel through various types of narratives that,
separately and together, help shed light onto: 1) socio-cultural meanings of and narratives
about illness and disability (and the ill and disabled) and 2) the ways in which subjects of
illness and disability engage in storytelling to relate and, often, re-imagine their worlds. First,
we will read a series of critical writings on disability and illness as subjects of narrative;
secondly, we will consider the question of self-representation and the authoring of one’s own
disability or illness story; thirdly, we will analyze the role of stigma and shame in the
“outing” of one’s life and disease; then, we will turn to narratives that, respectively, theorize
and perform the experience psychological illness in light of racial and gender discriminations;
then, we will study how subjects of political or national persecution bear witness, whether
through oral, visual and written testimonial forms; finally, we will look to the ways in which
immigrant narratives navigate the complexities of “fitting in” when one’s body, psyche,
and/or cultural sensibilities are in conflict with those of their new home.

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 Texts will include: Marie Cardinal’s The Words to Say It, Rhea Côté-Robbins’
Wednesday’s Child, Edwidge Dandicat’s The Dew Breaker, Fatou Diome’s The Belly of the
Atlantic, Hervé Guibert’s To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life and Susan Sontag’s
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. We will also read selections from
Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to the Hillbrow and Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost
their Accents. Films will include: Hervé Guibert’s Modesty and Shame, Djibril Diop
Mambety’s The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun, and Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly. Non-conventional primary materials will include USC Shoah Foundation oral
testimonies and a book of photography and written testimonies of survivors of the Rwandan
genocide, The Wounds of Silence. Students who wish are welcome to do those readings
available in the original French for credit as a major or minor elective.

GENERAL COURSE OBJECTIVES

o To develop critical skills of analysis of diverse cultural texts: literary, cinematic,
testimonial, photographic, and theoretical.
o To think, in a comparative manner, about texts from various cultural, linguistic,
historic, and geographical sites
o To engage with fellow students in discussion or debate of key questions concerning
human diversity and the respect for difference
o To be able to formulate a clear and pertinent argument about a given text or texts and
support it lucidly in writing

SPECIFIC COURSE OBJECTIVES

o To gain an appreciation of the different ways in which illness and disability is
thought, lived, and expressed in varying socio-cultural contexts
o To better understand how narratives shape not only our experiences from the outside,
but can help reshape them from the inside as well
o To think critically about cultural representations of illness and disability, whether in
literature, film, or elsewhere
o To encourage students to seek out further explorations of illness and disability in
literature and film
o To encourage students to think about illness and disability as difference that
transcends conventional ideas of pity, purgatory, or the like

EXPECTATIONS
This course is discussion-based and it is therefore imperative that you come to class
prepared to discuss the text(s) for that day in a meaningful and thoughtful manner. As this
class meets only twice a week, even one missed class will be a detriment to your progress.
Unless you are seriously ill or have a personal emergency, I expect to see you in class. More
than one unexcused absence will negatively affect your participation grade.
Your contributions can and should include relevant questions as well as observations
and/or interpretations. You should think of this class as an opportunity to discover new
spaces of cultural and literary expression and to develop your critical eye, as it were. This
means reading with a pencil in hand, with—yes—your laptop, desktop, or iPad open to the
website section pertaining to that reading or viewing for clarifications of cultural, literary
and/or cinematic references.
Reading critically does not always come naturally, so remember that while reading, you
should always pay attention to the macro and micro elements of the text or film, that is, all
the way from the cultural and literary context in which the text or film is situated and the

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circumstances of the writer/filmmaker, to the form and content, to the use of language or
choice of music, and to figures of style or cinematic technique.
ASSIGNMENTS
You will be required to engage with the course materials in four different ways:

1) Each week, you will write a short, informal, but thoughtful blog entry to the primary
material covered. This 150-word response may consist of either an original response or a
response to another student’s posting. These blog entries must be posted by midnight before
the first meeting for that week.

2) You are welcome to develop one of your ideas from the weekly blog to write short, but
more focused, analytical papers (3, 2-3 pp. papers). All of these assignments will be posted
on the course website. These papers are meant to be focused, analytical responses to a given
question related to disability and illness as narrated by a writer or filmmaker.

3) The topic for the final paper will be the choice of the student but must be approved in
advance by the instructor at least two weeks before it is due. This paper, like the shorter paper
topics designed by the instructor, must directly address issues of disability and/or illness as a
category of diversity, and should also attend to secondary or related categories of race,
gender, class, or culture.

You are not expected to do outside research for any of these papers; your “research” is your
own informed, critical approach to course materials. Papers must be typed, double-spaced,
and in MLA format (a link to MLA guidelines is on the class website). Papers may not be
turned in via email and late papers will not be accepted.

4) Students will also be required to present orally in class one text of their choosing. Your
presentation is meant to initiate discussion for that meeting, thus the presentation will focus
on an aspect or an approach to your text that you find particularly interesting or critically
important, referring to specific passages to illustrate your points. You must always cite the
page and/or line numbers so that the rest of the class can follow along with you. The
presentation should further our understanding of a significant aspect of the reading by
offering a thematic, contextual, stylistic, structural or other approach to the work as a whole,
or to one or more of its key themes, episodes, motifs, or characters. Often, I recommend that
presentations end with a central question posed of the text or the author.

COURSE WEBSITE
Our course website will be an online “second home” for this course. In it, you will find three
main areas. In “The Course”, you will find the course syllabus, assignments, and
supplemental readings. In “Key Resources”, you will find links to the following: online
cultural and literary resources relevant to our readings, including specific links relating to
each author or filmmaker; and finally, online and uploaded resources for literature and film
analysis (key terms, analytic strategies, how to develop an argument). In “Our Blog,” you
will find week-by-week entry sites where you will post a response to the week’s primary
material. The website address, which I will email to you for ease of access, is
https://sites.google.com/site/globalnarratives/. I suggest you bookmark it.

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I highly recommend exploring the website in the first week of the semester to get an idea as
to what is there and what might be of use or of interest to you. Don’t hesitate to contact me
should you have any questions about the site.

COURSE GRADING AND BREAKDOWN

Attendance, preparation, & participation 15%
Weekly blog entries 10%
Oral presentation 10%
Short Papers 15% each
Final Paper 20%

GRADING SCALE:
93 + A 80-82 B- 67-69 D+
90-92 A- 77-79 C+ 63-67 D
87-89 B+ 73-76 C 60-62 D-
83-86 B 70-72 C- Under 60 F

ACCOMMODATIONS FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability will receive full
support in and out of the classroom. A letter of verification for approved accommodations
can be obtained from Disability Services and Programs each semester. Please be sure the
letter is delivered to me by the start of week 2. DSP is located in STU 301 and can be reached
at (213) 740-0776 or [email protected].

REQUIRED TEXTS
Marie Cardinal, The Words to Say It. Trans. Pat Goodheart. Cambridge, Mass.: VanVactor &
Goodheart, 1984. OR Les Mots pour le dire. Grasset, 1975.
Rhea Coté-Robbins, Wednesday’s Child. Rheta Press, 1997.
Edwidge Dandicat, The Dew Breaker. Penguin, 2004.
Fatou Diome, The Belly of the Atlantic. Trans. Ros Schwatz and Lulu Norman, Serpent’s Tail
(2006) OR Le Ventre de l’Atlantique, Anne Carrière
Hervé Guibert, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life. Serpent’s Tail, 1993. Trans. by
Linda Cloverdale. OR L’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie. Gallimard, 1990.
Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, Picador, 2001.

Course reader available for purchase at the USC Bookstore.

DETAILED COURSE SCHEDULE

I. Writing and Reading Illness, Disability, and the In-between

Focus on diversity: This introductory section will provide students with an important
framework for interpreting the divergent representations of illness and/or disability in the
course materials. Through these fundamental readings, students will learn to be attentive to:
1) what it means to be a “wounded storyteller” or writer, 2) the ways in which that wounded-
ness is viewed and interpreted not only socially and culturally but by us as readers, and 3)
how these narratives can help to re-imagine illness and disability as human difference to be

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valued instead of as human deficiency or abnormality. After all, understanding and
appreciating difference entails a multi-level interrogation of norms, assumptions, and
expectations. Students will be encouraged to think about illness and disability in other terms
than pity or hope for “cure.”
Week 1
Arthur W. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics (selections)
Arthur Kleinman, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition
(selections)
Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor

Week 2
Lennard Davis, “Constructing Normalcy,” in The Disability Studies Reader
Simi Linton, “Reassigning Meaning,” in Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity.
Rosemarie Garland Thomson, "Feminist Theory, the Body, and the Disabled Figure," in The
Disability Studies Reader

II. Disability, Illness, and (Self-)Representation

Focus on diversity: These first literary and cinematic portraits of disability and illness will
present students with two autobiographical novels that present very different health states—
one near 100% paralysis, the other managing breast cancer—but which both address critical
issues of self-representation, self-expression, and writing in stifling environments. We will
study the ways in which illness and disability can intensify underlying divisions between
individuals based on class, culture, and gender differences. We will view Julian Schnabel’s
well-received cinematic adaptation of Bauby’s novel to consider the complexities of re-
presenting a life narrative of disability.

Week 3
Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly OR Le Scaphandre et le papillon
(selections) [1997, France]
Film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel. [2007, France]
Anatole Broyard, “Toward a Literature of Illness” in Intoxicated by My Illness [1992, US]
G. Thomas Couser, “Disability, Life Narrative, and Representation”

Week 4
Rhea Coté-Robbins, Wednesday’s Child [US-Quebec]
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. “The Story of ‘I’: Illness and Narrative Identity”
G. Thomas Couser, “Autopathography: Women, Illness, and Lifewriting”
Paper #1 due

III. Speaking “Out”: Narrating HIV/AIDS

Focus on diversity: This section will turn to the HIV/AIDS epidemic to consider how disease
and infirmity can be stigmatized and ideologically constructed and the effects of this on the
ill subject. By looking at both a novel and documentary film by HIV-positive French writer
Hervé Guibert, we will also study the ways in which Guibert critiques—through literary and
visual means—the doctor-patient relationship and the shame and stigma not only of one’s
disease but of one’s sexual orientation. We will conclude with selections from a more

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contemporary autobiographical novel from South Africa that reveals an intensified stigma
due to the intersection of HIV, poverty, and race.

Week 5
Hervé Guibert, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life OR L’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la
vie. [1990, France]
Susan Sontag, AIDS and its Metaphors (selections)
Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity (selections)

Week 6
Hervé Guibert, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life
Phaswane Mpe, Welcome to Our Hillbrow (selections) [2001, South Africa]
Film: La Pudeur ou l’impudeur (Modesty and Shame), Hervé Guibert. [1992, France]

IV. Traumatic Encounters: Race, Gender, and…Madness?

Focus on diversity: In these next weeks, we will read two texts that, though different in form,
each “speak” to the complicated nature of psychic and physical trauma related to racial and
gender difference in disobliging climates. Indeed, through these first-person narratives—the
first authored by a trained psychiatrist and the second by a woman going through
psychotherapy—we will study: 1) how ideas of deficiency and aberrance have come to define
disability and race and gender, and 2) how the daily experiences of degradation and disregard
based on race and gender effect a real disablement of the subject. In tandem, we will consider
the role of therapeutic talk and writing in the process of healing.

Week 7
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks OR Peau noire, masques blancs (selections) [1952,
Martinique-France]
Sander Gilman, Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness
(selections)

Week 8
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (selections)
Catherine Kudlick, “Disability History, Power, and Rethinking the Idea of ‘the Other’.”
Paper #2 due

Week 9
Marie Cardinal, The Words to Say It OR Les Mots pour le dire [1975, Algeria-France]

Week 10
Marie Cardinal, The Words to Say It

V. Reconstructions: Disability, Testimony, and the Nation

Focus on diversity: Through oral, visual, and written “testimonies” of disability, we will
study how the political persecution of bodily, psychological, and cultural difference creates a
society of witnesses and survivors, all living with wounds of the past. However, we will

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explore disability as a national construction and a personal reconstruction. By looking at both
conventional and fictionalized testimonies of disability, we will consider the ways in which
survivors and storytellers attempt to reconstruct their past and present.

Week 11
Filmed Testimonies: USC Shoah Foundation testimonies of illness and disability during the
Holocaust (online)
Photography and Testimonial Writings: The Wounds of Silence / Les Blessures du silence
[2002, Rwanda]
Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (selections)

Week 12
Edwidge Dandicat, The Dew Breaker [2005, US-Haiti]

Week 13
Edwidge Dandicat, The Dew Breaker
Film: Djibril Diop Mambety. La Petite vendeuse de Soleil. [1999, Senegal]
Benedicte Ingstad and Susan Reynolds Whyte, “Disability and Culture: An Overview,” in
Disability and Culture
Paper #3 due

VI. Fitting In: Immigration, Health Norms, and Belonging

Focus on diversity: In this last section, we will consider contemporary issues surrounding
immigration, especially as it relates to: 1) negative received ideas about “unhealthy”
immigrants and 2) to the very real health issues faced by those immigrants both at home and
in their country of adoption. We will study they ways in which immigrants, whether
ostensibly healthy or ill or disabled, are subject to unfamiliar and sometimes troubling norms
of bodily and psychological wellbeing. By looking to two fictionalized life narratives by a
Senegalese writer in France and a Dominican writer in the US, we will think about how ideas
about race, gender, and health come to inform the immigrant experience and, in turn, how
these writers navigate and narrate spaces of belonging in their new homes.

Week 14
Fatou Diome, The Belly of the Atlantic OR Le Ventre de l’Atlantique [2003, Senegal-France]
Gisela Brinkler-Gabler & Sidonie Smith, Introduction to Writing New Identities: Gender,
Nation, and Immigration in the New Europe

Week 15
Fatou Diome, The Belly of the Atlantic
Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents (selections) [1991, US-Dominican
Republic]
Madelaine Hron, “‘Perversely through Pain’: Immigrants and Immigrant Suffering,” in
Translating Pain: Immigrant Suffering in Literature and Culture

Final paper is due by 2:00pm, Friday of finals week, in the office of the Department of
French and Italian, Taper 155. No exceptions.