The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that modernism in the arts might have in articulating the uselessness and incomprehensibility of physical and mental suffering. It is argued that the experience of illness is frequently resistant to interpretation, and as such, it will be suggested, to conventional forms of artistic expression and communication. Conventional narratives, and other beautiful or conventionally expressive aesthetic structures, that presuppose the possibility and desirability of an harmonious and meaningful resolution to conflicts and (...) tensions, may fundamentally misrepresent the patient
s experience. By drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas (on useless suffering) and the aesthetic theories of Nietzsche and T. W. Adorno, it will be argued first that a faith in the possibility of harmonious resolution of suffering is misplaced and does violence to the experience of suffering. Second, it will be argued that the expression of suffering lies not in finding words, images or sounds that communicate the experience of that suffering to others, but rather in the persistent and radical disruption of any illusion of meaning and coherence that might be imposed upon the experience, so that the very possibility of communication is also disrupted. (shrink)

The nature and scope of medical humanities are under debate. Some regard this field as consisting of those parts of the humanistic sciences that enhance our understanding of clinical practice and of medicine as historical phenomenon. In this article it is argued that aesthetic experience is as crucial to this project as are humanistic studies. To rightly understand what medicine is about we need to acknowledge the equal importance of two modes of understanding, intertwined and mutually reinforcing: the mode of (...) aesthetic imagination and the mode of analytical reflection. (shrink)

The question of whether the universe is expanding or contracting serves as a model for current questions facing the medical humanities. The medical humanities might aptly be described as a metamedical multiverse encompassing many separate universes of discourse, the most prominent of which is probably bioethics. Bioethics, however, is increasingly developing into a new interdisciplinary discipline, and threatens to engulf the other medical humanities, robbing them of their own distinctive contributions to metamedicine. The philosophy of medicine considered as a distinct (...) field of study has suffered as a result. Indeed, consensus on whether the philosophy of medicine even constitutes a legitimate field of study is lacking. This paper presents an argument for the importance of a broad conception of the philosophy of medicine and the central role it should play in organizing and interpreting the various fields of study that make up the metamedical multiverse. (shrink)