Frontmatter and Editorial

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the frontmatter and editorial: 

This special issue of gender forum focuses on the intersections between medicine, literature, and gender. The interest in the interface of literature and medicine from the specific point of view of gender is triggered by the intriguing similarities between the medical and literary disciplines (cf. Brieger 402-06). The doctor, like the literary scholar, is faced with a text, a narrative voiced by the patient either through language or bodily symptoms. In order to understand this narrative, the doctor, like the scholar, needs to listen closely, to examine the constituents of the narrative carefully, to consider the subjectivity of the narrative, to read between the lines, and to interpret ambiguities coded in metaphorical language (cf. Brody; Davis).