Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

ABSTRACT:

This essay looks at the liminal genre of the critical pathography, a literary form that bridges the boundary between an academic analysis and an illness narrative. It argues that when this genre is compared to more traditional forms of analysis in the medical humanities and bioethics, the critical pathography treats its subject in a manner that is more akin to what Gabriel Marcel refers to as a mystery, something that can only be explored, than to a problem, a puzzle that can be solved.