Chronic Illness Narratives and Neoliberalism - MA Dissertation
2017
Using a distinctive script-writing format this essay is an investigation into neoliberalism’s impact in shaping illness narratives. My research into the subject felt at times less like revelations of new knowledge and more like verbalised expressions of lived experiences. When Mark Fisher writes ‘one is not the kind of person who can fulfill roles which are earmarked for the dominant group’, it is a type of translation of things I have said and things said to me. Not, to be clear, in anger or spite, but in polite conversation. Linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf wrote in 1940 of how knowledge is shaped and constrained by language. In the structure of this essay I demonstrate how language can reinforce narratives while paradoxically restricting the authors awareness of the ideals that drive those narratives.
For a copy of the dissertation please email:
paul [at] paulmulgrew [dot] com
