The Sense of Suffering in Literature, Poetry, and Performance

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel focuses on the ways that literature, poetry, and performance attempt to make sense of suffering. Suffering, in general, takes many forms, from the absolutely unbearable to what is born most regularly. The worst form of suffering is meaningless suffering, yet false consolations and interpretations can even aggravate that. As a great poet once wrote, suffering is a fact, perhaps the basic fact of human life, and we need no theories to feel it. Yet sometimes we seem to need art, which can give even meaningless suffering the form and cohesion it needs to be understood. Our papers explore the ways that suffering in the form of pain, sickness, torment, and death is made into sense through art.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 19th Century

Chair

• Kathleen Manukyan, U of Pittsburgh

Papers

• The Pain of Sharing Pain - Murad Jalilov, U of Kansas

• 'Mouki' in the Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky - Peter Orte, Williams College

• Faith’s Influence on the Expression of Lament in Dostoevsky’s 'Crime and Punishment' - Mariia Shishmareva, U of Kansas

• Narratives of Cervical Cancer: Exploring Women's Lived Experiences through Film and Literature - Laura Pricop, Alexandru Ioan Cuza U of Iași (Romania)

Discussant

• Giulia Dossi, St Olaf College