Thomas Mann’s Fictional Characters and Their Quest for the Patient Narrative

Speaker: Dr Thomas Rütten Newcastle University

In the majority of his novels, short stories, and essays, in his diaries and personal letters, that is throughout his life and work, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) reflects on matters of health and disease, patients and doctors, healing and dying. The radically autobiographical roots of his writing blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, historiography and the art of narration, experience and imagination. In thsi talk, Rütten explores the interface between medicine and literature in his work and assess the latter’s relevance for a medical historiography that takes the individuality of the patient seriously.