Alleviating the suffering associated with adverse health conditions involves not only developing new medical treatments.
It also requires fundamentally changing how people treated themselves one another and the planet.
Welcome everybody.
I am maternally LA Research Fellow at the Queens College University of Oxford today, I am really delighted to welcome a distinguished guest,
Karen Thurman, who is the author of The Word We Which I Hope and this first episode of Translating COVID 19.
Welcome, Karen. Thank you for having me.
Today's event is Harry Truman, leaving professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and civilisations at Harvard University.
Karen is author of multiple publications, including more than 70 articles and book chapters,
and three monographs which have shaped and transformed themes such as comparative literature,
world literature, global literature, environmental humanities, medical humanities, diaspora and translation.
Karen's latest book, entitled Global Healing Nature Advocacy Care, was published by Brill in March 2020.
Global Healing, which we will discuss today, engages with literature and other writings from six continents,
more than 50 countries and more than two dozen languages from Afrikaans to.
I feel immensely privileged to be able to reflect, together with such a perceptive author as Karen around issues of contagion,
global policy and care at these challenging times. Karen, I would like to start by quoting the words of Vicki Dimock, professor of English at Yale.
Professor Dimock has noted that global healing offers a new geography,
a new methodology and a new archive connecting the Americas to Asia and Africa and through that expanded sphere of analysis.
Speaking to the world health crisis with a new urgency and authority.
Could you tell us what you understand by global healing and how this nation could help us
alleviate or treat coronavirus disease loss in medical settings and society more generally?
And thank you so much for having me on today. Level Haley refers broadly to shattering stigma surrounding the disease,
said some other serious health conditions refers to humanising health care by fully implementing person focussed care.
Now, Scott refers to find words partnerships.
The current pandemic, notwithstanding improvements in human health, have been monumental over the past century, and there is much to celebrate.
But inequality and other injustices continue to contribute significantly to large scale health problems,
alleviating the suffering associated with adverse health conditions and developing new medical treatments.
New medical procedures that also involves instituting new forms of interpersonal interactions between patients and physicians.
But much more than that, it requires fundamentally changing how people treat themselves, how they treat one another and how we treat the planet.
So this is really everything from how we interact with our loved ones and strangers alike within families,
health care settings and working on the types of leaders and policies we support and for whom and what we advocate and literature needs.
A lot of literature over the last decades reveals that no matter how sophisticated our medical technology and treatments,
tremendous suffering will continue unless we shatter these segments of this class of care, unless we prioritise care friendships.
Now, regarding the second part of your question, which is how understandings of global healing can treat or alleviate the cold front of virus,
I think we need to think about this both in the medical setting and in society.
And I'll go back to this three pronged approach of signals on health care and partnerships.
Societies regularly adopt prejudicial attitudes toward individuals with certain conditions.
Societies promote unfounded assumptions, beliefs,
biases about people who have particular conditions and even more destructively building on these prejudices.
Societies frequently subject individuals with adverse health conditions and also
their families a lot of times to discriminatory and often devastating treatment,
ranging from silencing and labelling to physically attacking, if not murdering.
And, of course, global healing. I talk about how stigmas work piece of democracy.
And since this year's HIV aids, as well as Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia regarding COVID 19, we don't really know yet.
Stigmas will play out. But internal evidence are actually a lot more than anecdotal evidence so far
suggests that it's not only people with the disease who have been stigmatised,
but also families of people with the disease and in that society and some societies,
health professionals who are seen as carriers of the disease or perhaps not doing enough,
even though they're devoting themselves to curing patients and also humanising health care, will go a long way to helping us with this crisis.
And what I mean when I talk about humanising health care,
talk about person focussed care is care in which patients are engaged with as individual people who
have agency care where patients are listened to their backgrounds and experiences are respected,
their priorities are understood. But it's also care where everyone in the medical setting is able to have their needs that have their voices heard.
And it's really a group effort. It's really a joint effort.
I think what we've seen with COVID 19 is a lot of this kind of person focussed care where physicians and nurses and technicians are going
all out to help patients to help nations not only medically but also emotionally and in some cases spiritually because of this distancing.
And if we're only in terms of prioritising partnerships and in the book, I emphasise the importance of strengthening partnerships of all kinds,
but particularly those that will better enable the informal caregiving that actually forms most of the caregiving,
how much caregiving that goes on as a family in a really broad sense.
One is biological family, but also one's chosen family. Westwood One surrounds oneself and providing those individuals with resources and strength
so that they can best help the individual who still while not sacrificing their moment.
Thank you, Karen. Yes, it is extremely important and my second question in a sense reconnects with the this was the collective,
the global and the holistic focus of the pandemic.
And in the introduction to a special literature of literature or sorry, special issues of literature and medicine,
you write that the medical practises in these courses are amongst the most widely circulated of all activities in the global economy.
Yet how actual medical care is provided is rooted strongly in local and regional cultural standards.
So with reference to the current pandemic, how what literature and most specifically literature in translation can help us better understand the ways
in which discourses on health and disease are being transmitted across national languages and cultures.
And what do you think is the most important lesson we can learn from these by your culture transfers?
Thank you, another great question. It's still too early, I think, to see how literature on COVID 19 specifically is translated across borders,
although I hear them some exciting translations coming out this summer, so I'll be looking for those.
What I can say thinking about literature, narratives, other diseases is that a trans cultural perspective,
a trans lingual perspective not to mention a global perspective,
helps us better, better understand the broader context of individual community, regional and national experiences.
And it's true that literature occurs most immediately within local systems.
And that's why in the book, I do think a lot of attention to the specific national,
cultural, literary and medical context of the narrative inside the cesspit.
The things that really became clear to me, the more I read, was the value of these narratives beyond their source cultures.
You know, at the most basic level, adopting this global perspective, which of course, would be impossible, that translation.
This enables us to see what aspects of this experience might be primarily a function of local systems and what might be more unavoidable.
I mean, certainly in the case of COVID 19, we know that there are certain aspects of the disease that transcend nationality,
for instance, individuals of pre-existing conditions. Individuals who are more elderly are at increased risk no matter where they are.
But it's also very apparent that there are many things that do not said about many things about COVID 19 that do not transcend nationality,
and there are many places from which we can learn best practises.
So there are many best practises that that we can that we can learn.
And we know this because we see infection rates and death rates differ tremendously around around the world.
And some of these differences resolve differences made in the present and then your past.
So, for instance, how soon to take the disease seriously, how strongly to enforce physical distancing, how about ultimate testing and so on?
But also one thing that I think it's become even more apparent than it already was is
that vulnerability is impacted by actions and inactions of the less immediate past.
So decisions concerning what constitutes a fair wage, availability of health insurance, availability of quality,
health care and social support for families and individuals dealing with health crises and so on.
And so I think we have a tremendous amount to learn from one another, not only in more immediate actions to take one of the great strides,
but also how we can better support everyone to make everyone more or everyone less susceptible to the pandemic.
And that makes them in the first place. I think, you know, taking on a global perspective also has a lot of other benefits.
It gets us, of course, different perspectives. It helps us reach decisions and become more comfortable with those decisions.
And in the book, I talk a lot about decisions of the end of life,
which is an issue that's been addressed in literature at least since this century
of a least wrote about this and can say that we're going to try this out.
In the book, I talk about narratives from all over the world that address this question of what happens when you have no one
at the end of life who's begging that you help take their life from them and the agonising decisions and choices,
the places and burdens this place has on family and loved ones.
You know, that's an extreme example, but there are many, many other examples we're just reading about experiences of others reading how others have
with difficult situations can help one make the best decisions for oneself and one's life.
One's digging global perspective again, which is made possible by translation,
helps us reduce exceptionalism the feeling that we are or someone else's unique or special or different or particularly deserving or undeserving,
whether we're talking about superiority or. Right.
And finally, taking global perspective helps us produce priorities and helps us produce stereotypes.
Helps us realise or recognise the experiences of expectations regarding illness.
I fully blame my gender, ethnicity or sexuality or gender or socioeconomic status, or all the ways in which human beings define themselves.
That the illness experiences for individuals who have an animus, innocence, as well as for those whom they love, are not very individual.
And that's that's really important for us to recognise, just as it's super important for us to recognise that.
A lot of times, much of the time,
individuals to face health conditions faces conditions of their suffering is increased because of decisions that have been made by policy makers,
by medical establishments, you know, often decades. So yeah, thank you so much, Karen,
for such an insightful response which shows very clearly the potential of translation to operate both in the private or on a singular,
on the level of the individual individuality and more globally as a transnational force.
Thank you so much. And my first question in a sense expands on the on this topic.
So in your beautiful introduction of the book, you share the journey that led you to the complete completion of this volume.
So could you tell us a bit more about this process and what role, again, if any,
this translation play you retrieving examples specifically of non Anglo European and non Anglo American literature and
by extension of non Anglo American medical practise that can be helpful or revelatory for us to think of something.
Sure. Sure.
So the inspirations behind this, but I'll focus first on the inspirations and the translation and inspirations behind the Spark were money.
They were both professional and personal and in terms of professional inspirations.
And what were the interests of literature that engages with the scenes that are quite junior thesis back and forth?
The answer to all the French writer Albert Camus, the cast of the play, which is a lot of attention in recent years, but so many years.
So it's been it's been an abiding interest, and it's on a section of my previous book on environmental crises and East Asian literature.
I really wanted to go back or move forward, but go to an interest, you know, work on something which I had a passion for many,
many years and I thought I was going to do a book on medical humanities and world literature
because I was also deeply engaged in world literature at the time of publishing a lot of articles.
And then I realised the two really for my project wouldn't work together that if I were to focus on world literature and medical humanities,
I wouldn't be able to work as quite as many tracks as I could otherwise,
because a lot of the materials that I look at are not world literature, right?
They haven't transcended boundaries there. Some of them are, you know, barely known within their own cultures.
And so I ended up writing a lot of articles on world literature and then just focussing more in the in this book,
Global Healing on medical narratives from a broad range of range of cultures.
And as I said, it's an abiding interest, but also it's part of my commitment to use the skills that we have as far as literature,
as humanness to address very real global crises and global concerns and challenges.
I did this the environment in it with a medical cloth and now my my new projects are taking that same approach, I think, you know, personally.
There were also some personal connexions in that when I was in college,
I had a very serious case of Lyme disease, which resulted in my being essentially bedridden for two years.
I mean, I couldn't really stand very much.
I couldn't think I can concentrate for short term memory.
American nurses was not good, but obviously I struggled back and graduated from college and then went on for my Ph.D.
And I think one of the things that really made my process of healing and recovery so much
smoother than it might have been was not really that I had some amazing physicians.
I mean, there were there were medicine not only in their medical skills,
but also in their empathy and their ability to connect with myself and my family.
And that wasn't lost on me then. And you know,
it's I read more and more over the years that realise that this is not like my
experience was not a huge experience at all and that this combination of a real,
you know, skills and the science of medicine on one hand, but also in how you treat patients, particularly for Lyme disease.
A couple of decades ago, I was pretty new to seniors, and people didn't know as much about it as they do now and just the impact that an empathic
physician and nurses and patients could have a huge impact on me regarding the role of translation.
That's of translations hugely important for the kind of work that I do.
I mean, I can speak many languages, but as everyone, there are so many more that I can't read them hundreds and hundreds of thousands like.
So had I not had access to translations, I would have been severely limited in my research and writing and translation also makes
possible courses that I tried to just say Harvard and so by not finishing my courses.
I hope to be accessible to all our students, which means that the materials have to be available.
English translation, although I strongly encourage students to carry the original to read in the original.
But the basic text for the course would have to be available in translation science currently dependent on translation.
I just think, though, that when we rely on translation or teaching particular research,
we do our best to connect with individuals who can read texts in their source cultures.
I think this is vital that particularly our research that we not give the impression that
we're talking about the source text if we're not that we talk about text as translation,
which is usually important work. In and of itself. So so I'm fully in support of efforts to do more of that.
I think it's just going to say, yeah, so the innocent targets that are non Anglo Euro American medical practise to provide are also vital.
And certainly, I mean, I'll just give one example here in efforts to reduce disease stigma.
And we've seen a lot of this to some relation to Alzheimer's disease, to dementia on a smaller scale in parts of Japan and parts of Taiwan,
creating communities for or adapting local communities to make them more accessible to individuals with memory challenges.
And its translation that helps us learn about these initiatives and these efforts
and helps us think about how we could use that in our own society as well.
And these so-called dementia belligerents, as they're called in some parts of what I know there, some in Europe as well, you know, they do.
They actually translate really well across cultures. They're not the same in every culture.
But the basic idea the basic principles are quite are quite similar.
So I think there's a lot more that we can do there.
Thank you, Karen, especially for sharing your personal and professional experience so, so beautifully and so honestly as well.
And I really think that to what you just told us, shows the need to bridge the gap between science and culture and medicine and translation.
And it also demonstrates the value and the ability of the humanities at large to address and engage with these global challenges.
And I was the one where you were talking.
I was thinking about the more the second part of your book on global healing, which is concerned with the distinction between cure,
understood that the removal of a disease and healing process which has James Carroll put it,
deals with the concept of wholeness, and as such, it can belong as much to the infirm as that he has.
So one of the most insightful chapters of your book,
you claim that finding a cure for disease and curing disease have in many instances become obsessions, and we know it very well at this time.
So what kind of healing can help us cope with coronavirus disease at a time when a vaccine and a cure for it have yet to become available?
And also, we need healing, be truly global, or we, language and culture negotiate different sets of needs and responses.
So we're right in the middle and susceptible to the COVID pandemic now.
And so finding a cure for the disease or vaccine for the disease are our top priorities, I think I think justifiably so.
But until a cure or vaccine are found and frankly, after nine to seven as well,
I think more of our focus has to be on healing and attaining well-being.
For one thing, we don't know whether COVID is going to turn into a chronic condition.
For some people, we have heard that was on ventilators are continuing to feel or individuals have been on ventilators,
but continue continuing to feel the effects of COVID long after released from hospital.
So we don't know, first of all, whether it's going to be a chronic become a chronic condition.
But even even if it doesn't, it turns out to be an acute condition.
We still have to focus on healing, social building, social well-being.
I think the economy is an injustice in our society in the United States.
But frankly, many silence globally have become even more obvious and even more here than they already are.
And I think this is where a lot of the healing is taking place.
A lot of that will take place locally or regionally within nations.
A lot of it needs to take place nationally, but I think.
What's even more, but a tremendous amount of healing has to take place internationally and globally as well.
I think we've seen that any attempt to think that it's given up a chance in a purely national sense just ends up harming more individuals.
And so, you know, the healing I talk about in healing is a bit different than, I think the healing that we mostly now in the wake of the pandemic.
Certainly, I think global healing now put a chapter on that.
I think the healing that we need now and it's frankly healing, but we need it for a long time.
It's it's on the social level. It's again addressing these inequalities, these injustices,
the types of practises we have that makes so many individuals so vulnerable and vulnerable medically,
but also vulnerable economically and so on economically.
Also, of course, to me, you know, the tour has gone insane.
So we need a society to do a much better job of addressing these injustices.
And so I'm thinking of healing. Let's talk about COVID 19 in an even broader way than I talked about it much, much.
Thank you, Karen, for touching on these such delicate themes and the urgent and important themes such as the vulnerability and the social injustice.
And indeed, I would like like to conclude this conversation with a final question that in a sense.
Challenges a bit like the so-called privileges of literature, all of the of this evidence of disparity, which we can really feel by now because,
you know, we are rather privileged to be able to talk about these things, but obviously there are people who have not these privileges.
So in the final pages of global healing, you make two very important and provocative observations.
So on the one hand, you note that even though we have made remarkable strides in conquering diseases,
global literature reveals the tremendous work that remains with advocacy, care and ultimately global healing amongst our greatest challenges.
On the other hand, I have the you're also aware of the need to remember that and I quote again,
conditions for countless numbers of the world's peoples are far worse than what we encounter in our readings.
Even if even as these readings provide us with some of the most penetrating insights into the lead experiences of illness.
So to what extent do you think that we should allow to integrate literature and humanities into medical policy since they would provide,
at least in most cases,
a tool to understand and alleviate diseases rather than a solution to eradicate them and call literature, especially literature in translation?
Help us shape, improve and possibly implement health intervention in humanitarian settings.
Now, this is another vitally important question. I think literature has been one of the loudest and most persistent voices and revealing the urgency,
as well as the possibility of transforming treatment and monitoring and sort a sense transforming treatment.
When I talk about in the book as communities,
there are works of literature highlighting just how much of the suffering that accompanies certain conditions is caused directly
and indirectly by social responses to these conditions and the social structures from which of these responses emanate.
Even more important, I think works of literature vividly depict the intensity of the suffering and underscore the need for care.
Literature frequently focuses on individual anguish or the anguish of families amongst the broader economic and social dynamics,
and I think that's uniquely positioned as literature to reveal the deeply penetrating garnered bodies, the current practises,
as well as the need for significant transformation in how societies prepare for and how we
respond to crises and how literature's exposure to the suffering people inflict on one another,
particularly those already dealing with the physical associates of adverse health conditions.
I think this is literature the potential to motivate private citizens for professionals and policy makers alike.
I like to demand change, but also to work more effectively and persistently to implement practises instead of healing and wellbeing and to follow up.
First of all, literature is not an asset here, and what I mean by that is, you know, in my in my book,
I focus on something that I ensure that by and large are amongst these very persistent voices in revealing the urgency of change.
But across the centuries, literature has not always played that for literature.
This is a book that literature was also reinforced. Stigmas reinforced inequalities reinforce prejudices.
So I want to make it clear that not all literature does, but I just said some literature, zero and formulas no.
Formal changes in matters of health and wellbeing often occur at the level of policy, with policymakers,
legislators, bureaucrats, lobbyists, hospital and pharmaceutical executives exerting significant power.
And so I think personally, it's less a matter for these individuals who hold the most power.
Actually reading literature themselves, although I know many do,
but I think it's it's much more or it's much more important to think about society, broader society as a whole as reading narratives,
talking about noticing that these patterns and these narratives as impacting how people think about what is important,
what they should advocate for whom they should enact, which office.
And so it's more interactive, although sometimes, of course, it's quite direct.
And I want to of here with a quotation from the historian Sarah Lewis quote in the book and I find
really inspiring where she says the one of the culture sections that access to the world of justice,
how many movements have begun with the work of art and culture? Some shows in our perceptions of the world entirely that we have to see.
But I think again, this is playing who has said I think more times than we can possibly imagine.
And so answer your question directly.
I think we do need to integrate literature or humanities more broadly and medical training as well as policymaking.
This helps us better understand the challenges that we face.
And it absolutely helps us change and remove and ultimately implement interventions
that will increase the health and well-being of our community in our society.
Thank you so much for discussion and also for shifting the focus in a sense, from the institutions to the individuals,
as well as promoting, you know, proposing new ways to, as I said, bridge villages gap between the sciences and humanities.
And thank you so much indeed for taking us on this journey.
This has been vigorous and knowledgeable.
As much of this as being compassionate and humane and as I have tried to express with my question throughout this conversation,
your book pays tribute to the workings of literature within our bodies and in the world around us.
And it is also a testimony to the resilience of humankind through our thanks to the media one language.
So last but not least. Thank you to our listeners for embarking on this global journey with us and with Karen in the attempt to promote healing,
and we never read these during and after the pandemic. So thank you very much.
Thank you.