References

Susan Glaspell and the Medical Humanities: An Approximation

Noelia Hernando-Real

DOI : 10.54563/coupdetheatre.1193

p. 65-84

    Abstracts

    This article aims to make use of the tools of the Medical Humanities to initiate a new field of research in Susan Glaspell Studies. The Medical Humanities provides an interdisciplinary and interprofessional approach to researching and understanding the effects of disease on patients, health-care professionals, and society at large. As scholars in the field maintain, more than on measuring scientific parameters, the Medical Humanities focuses on experience: how it feels to be a patient, a health care professional, or a member of a community under threat of disease. This article aims to show that Susan Glaspell’s works provide excellent examples to provide biopsychosocial approaches to illnesses. Drawing on Anne Hunsaker Hawkins’ works on (auto)pathographies, and on Thomas Couser’s and Arthur Frank’s works on “wounded storytellers”, this work will first introduce potential approaches to Glaspell’s works as autopathographies, as scriptotherapy, and as literature useful for health professionals. Elaborating on the third approach, this article will discuss some of Glaspell’s works, including fiction and drama, focusing on The Verge (1921) as a more in-depth case study.

    Cet article vise à utiliser les outils des Medical Humanities pour initier un nouveau champ de recherche dans les études sur Susan Glaspell. Les Medical Humanities offrent une approche interdisciplinaire et interprofessionnelle de la recherche et de la compréhension des effets de la maladie sur les patients, les professionnels de la santé et la société dans son ensemble. Comme l’affirment les chercheurs dans ce domaine, plus que sur la mesure des paramètres scientifiques, les Medical Humanities se concentrent sur l’expérience : ce que l’on ressent en tant que patient, professionnel de la santé ou membre d’une communauté menacée par la maladie. Cet article vise à montrer que les œuvres de Susan Glaspell constituent d’excellents exemples d’approches biopsychosociales des maladies. S’inspirant des travaux d’Anne Hunsaker Hawkins sur les (auto)pathographies et des travaux de Thomas Couser et d’Arthur Frank sur les « conteurs blessés », cet article présentera tout d’abord des approches potentielles des œuvres de Glaspell en tant qu’autopathographies, en tant que scriptothérapie et en tant que littérature utile pour les professionnels de la santé. En développant la troisième approche, cet article discutera de certaines des œuvres de Glaspell, y compris la fiction et le théâtre, en se concentrant sur The Verge (1921) en tant qu’étude de cas plus approfondie.

    Index

    Mots-clés

    Humanités médicales, pathographie, autopathographie, Susan Glaspell, The Verge

    Keywords

    Medical Humanities, pathography, autopathography, Susan Glaspell, The Verge

    Editor's notes

    This research has been carried out thanks to the support of the Research Project “Gender and Pathography from a Transnational Perspective” (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Reference: PID2020-113330GB-100).

    Excerpt

    Illness occupies a significant space in the works of playwright and fiction writer Susan Glaspell (1876-1948). Her first piece, a short Christmas story entitled “Tom and Towser” (1896) published in the Davenport Weekly Outlook, depicts the devastating effects of malnutrition for the infant protagonist. And in her last published work, her novel Judd Rankin’s Daughter (1945), the female protagonist’s son battles against a severe case of shell shock upon his return from service in World War II. From the beginning to the end of her career, illness remains a constant presence, concurring with Virginia Woolf’s urgency to have illness “take[] its place with love, battle, and jealousy among the prime themes of literature” (32). Precisely, in her short story “For Love of the Hills” (1912), Glaspell voices this idea through one of her characters when this says: “In writing, … remember that the biggest stories are not written about wars, or about politics, or even murders. The biggest stories ...

    References

    Bibliographical reference

    Noelia Hernando-Real, « Susan Glaspell and the Medical Humanities: An Approximation », Coup de théâtre, 39 | 2025, 65-84.

    Electronic reference

    Noelia Hernando-Real, « Susan Glaspell and the Medical Humanities: An Approximation », Coup de théâtre [Online], 39 | 2025, Online since 01 décembre 2026, connection on 07 septembre 2026. DOI : 10.54563/coupdetheatre.1193

    Author

    Noelia Hernando-Real

    Noelia Hernando-Real is Associate Professor of Anglo-American Theatre and Drama at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). She has published extensively on the theatre and fiction of Susan Glaspell. She is the author of Self and Space in the Theater of Susan Glaspell (2011), Voces contra la mediocridad: la Vanguardia teatral de los Provincetown Players (2014), and Rosas en la arena: los relatos de Susan Glaspell (2022). She was President of the International Susan Glaspell Society from 2015 to 2021.

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