Illness and Healing at the Turn of the 20th Century America

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23720139
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: Nara Women's University
• Principal Investigator: NAKAGAWA Chiho 奈良女子大学, 研究院人文科学系, 准教授 (70452026)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-28 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 病 / 医療 / 宗教 / 心霊主義 / ジェンダー / New Thought / Neurasthenia

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study explores the discourse in 19th and early 20th American fiction concerning the female body, in particular, how women’s health and illness are
addressed. The novels of the writers I discuss--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Wiiliam Dean Howells, Hamlin Garland, Edith Wharton, and others--reflect a wide range of 'turn of the century' views related to medicine: the etiology of physical and psychological diseases, spiritualism, materialism, New Thought cults, the role of doctors, and the newly establish profession of nursing. One of my interests is "neurasthenia," which was considered at the time to have been born out of rapid industrialization and urbanization, yet the study reveals that the novels represent the condition as arising out of unarticulated anxieties and complaints that resist uniform interpretations. My research argues that the women’s spirituality, which offered women wider social access, leads them―paradoxically―to be defined physically and materially.

Free Research Field

英米文学