Forgotten: Narratives of Age-Related Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease in Canada

by Marlene Goldman

Overview

Since the 1860s, long before scientists put a name to Alzheimer’s disease, Canadian authors have been writing about age-related dementia. Originally, most of these stories were elegies, designed to offer readers consolation. Over time they evolved into narratives of gothic horror in which the illness is presented not as a normal consequence of aging but as an apocalyptic transformation. Weaving together scientific, cultural, and aesthetic depictions of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, Forgotten asserts that the only crisis associated with Canada’s aging population is one of misunderstanding. Revealing that turning illness into something monstrous can have dangerous consequences, Marlene Goldman seeks to identify the political and social influences that have led to the gothic disease model and its effects on society. Examining the works of authors such as Alice Munro, Michael Ignatieff, Jane Rule, and Caroline Adderson alongside news stories and medical and historical discussions of Alzheimer’s disease, Goldman provides an alternative, person-centred perspective to the experiences of aging and age-related dementia. Deconstructing the myths that have transformed cognitive decline into a corrosive fantasy, Forgotten establishes the pivotal role that fictional and non-fictional narratives play in cultural interpretations of disease.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773552289
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	11/07/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Marlene Goldman is professor in the Department of English at the University of Toronto and the author of DisPossession: Haunting in Canadian Fiction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Why Apocalypse Now? 3

1 A Forgotten History: The Late-Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Construction of the Disease Concept 47

2 The Rise of the Asylum in Ontario and Its Impact on Canadian Families 78

3 Popular Perceptions of Aging and Dementia in Canada: The Theory of Waste and Repair from the 1860s to the 1960s 109

4 From Psychological and Stress-Based Theories of Dementia to the Triumph of the Biomedical Paradigm 149

5 A Narrative View of Deinstitutionalization: Alice Munro's "Powers" 178

6 A Tale of Two Brothers: Andrew Ignatieff and the Rise of the Alzheimer Society of Canada 193

7 Gothic and Apocalyptic Horror: Michael Ignatieff's Scar Tissue 216

8 A History of forgetting: Cognitive Decline and Historical Cycles of Degeneration 238

9 Unburying the Living in Jane Rule's Memory Board and Selected Stories by Alice Munro 269

Conclusion: From the Gothic to Brecht's Epic Theatre 305

Notes 343

Appendix: Works on Dementia in Canada 395

Bibliography 399

Index 429

Editorial Reviews

"We have needed a book like this for quite some time. Though others have written brief analyses of Alzheimer’s in Canadian literature or chapters about dementia care from a historical perspective, neither topic has received book-length attention to date. Goldman, with an incredible eye for genre across modes of discourse, makes remarkable connections by pulling together the historical narrative with literary analysis." Sally Chivers, Trent University

From the Publisher