Call for Papers: Dystopian Narratives and Stories about Illness

In recent years, novels have increasingly explored themes of dystopia and illness. Examples include pandemics, e.g. Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014), in which most of the human population has been wiped out by a swine flu pandemic, or Ling Ma’s Severance (2018), a novel set in a mostly emptied post-pandemic world. Others focus on dystopian treatments for illness, for instance Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) or The Unit (2006) by Ninni Holmqvist. Others look at genetic engineering both of the human body and beyond, such as Paolo Baciglupi’s The Wind-Up Girl (2009) or Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2013). These novels arguably reflect societal anxieties, and offer critical insights into contemporary political, social and ethical issues. This workshop seeks to investigate how dystopian narratives about illness shape and are shaped by our understanding of the political, the social fabric and the human condition. We aim to explore the role of these narratives in exposing vulnerabilities, critiquing power structures and imagining alternative futures.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

• The role of dystopian narratives in critiquing contemporary political regimes
• Illness as a metaphor in dystopian literature
• The impact of dystopian and illness narratives on public perception of health and healthcare
• Representations of pandemics and their socio-political implications
• Narratives of mental illness and their portrayal in dystopian settings
• The intersection of environmental catastrophe and illness in dystopian works
• Biopolitics and the body in dystopian fiction
• Gender, race and disability in dystopian and illness narratives
• The ethical implications of medical advancements in dystopian stories
• The role of technology and surveillance in dystopian depictions of illness
• Resistance and resilience in narratives of dystopia and illness