SNF project "Life (beyond) writing: Illness narratives" (2009–2013)
This project was run by a team of scholars from literary studies, linguistics and communication, working on material from the medical field, broadly speaking within the field of the Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine (see also SNF entry).
The title of our project can be explained thus:
"Life writing" is an umbrella term (used in today’s autobiography studies) illustrating the prominence and diversity of autobiographical writing (e.g., diaries, letters, essays, memoirs, photography, homepages, etc.); thus, our lives are permeated with life writing texts. Inserting the preposition "beyond" between "life writing" on the one hand alludes to the potential of an author living on in his/her text after his/her death, which is even more pertinent in a narrative recounting the experience of a terminal illness. On the other hand "life beyond writing" refers to the fact that in writing/telling a narrative there is always an interaction between writer and reader/listener involved and the "life" of a vis-à-vis who is not writing is inherently present.
"Narrative" is also a broad term and there are different schools of narrative analysis mainly involving linguists, literary theorists, and anthropologists. In spite of the many different definitions (see Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann 2002; Martinez and Scheffel 2002) there is a general agreement, namely that a narrative must “involve the recounting of an event or events, […]. And second that these events can be either real or fictitious” (Hawthorn 2000: 225). We do not treat ‘narrative’ in the Labovian sense here, but look at it as reflections on past or future events, being well aware that this is a very broad definition.
"Illness": This noun shows that we are working the area of health concerns.
The Project (2009–2013)
This research project explores the social and cultural meanings of illness narratives and analyses their role and function in the literary, linguistic, and medical field. Thus, illness narratives will be approached from the three different disciplines: literary studies, linguistics and medicine.
Life writing (autobiographical) texts are omnipresent in our lives and play a crucial role in doctor-patient communication, in literature, and in everyday linguistic situations. The importance of narrative in the medical field has become acknowledged, but most doctors are not trained to be susceptible to specific linguistic and literary uses in their patients’ stories. Thus, it is necessary to integrate literary and linguistic issues into the curriculum at medical schools to approach illness more holistically. In addition, numerous recent illness narratives by patients/writers provide new insights that go beyond the biomedical dimension of an illness, and with their aesthetic impact express additional aspects of human experience such as illness. A linguistic analysis of narratives by Swiss medical students on a case history and comparative corpora from English students offers crucial information on the ways in which future doctors interpret a patient’s narrative and reflect their own situation.
The results of both the linguistic and literary analyses are used to advance current and develop future training for communicative skills for both medical students and practicing doctors and thus has a direct applied impact for the medical humanities. Furthermore, the students will improve their narrative competence and learn to pay heed to otherwise hidden, yet crucial information on a more encompassing context of illness. The interrelation between the three disciplines will thus be manifold in that both fields of linguistics and literature will work on data derived from the field of medicine and will let their results flow back into the field of medicine.
The Team (2009–2013)
The team consisted of researchers from the University of Basel and an associate of the University of Nottingham:
Prof. em. Alexander Kiss, Abteilung Psychosomatik, University of Basel
Prof. em. Franziska Gygax, Literature, English department, University of Basel
Prof. Miriam A. Locher, Linguistics, English department, University of Basel
Dr. Victoria Tischler, Lecturer in Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Nottingham
Regula Koenig, lic.phil. Linguistics, English department, University of Basel
Claudia Steiner, dipl. phil. II, Abteilung Psychosomatik, University of Basel
The project is interdisciplinary in nature in that illness narratives will be approached from the three different disciplines: literary and culturalstudies, linguistics and medicine.
Literary and cultural studies
Background/starting point:
- Enormous increase of illness narratives in the past thirty years.
- Autobiography studies: New debates and theories about the genre → new fields of inquiry and new genres: literature and medicine, disability studies, medical humanities, pathographies, autopathographies
Illness narratives and the impact of story-telling/the narrative act:
- Writing about the experience of being confronted with a life-threatening illness: "To relieve the suffering of the self" (Thomas Couser. Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life Writing. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997: 289).
- Telling one’s experience of illness: Linked to the continuously changing process of constituting identity/ies.
Research questions:
Representations of the (sick) body (foregrounding of the deteriorating body)
- What about the relation between this body and the self/selves? (→ Concepts of subjectivity/ embodiment, gendered body).
- What about the interface between autobiography and identity and the new insights from neuroscience (cf. Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. New York: Harcourt, 1999)?
Empowerment
- What is the aesthetic impact of such literary illness narratives?
- In what ways do they address realms that are not expressed in everyday discourse?
Writing against death and transgressing
- Writing and being confronted with imminent death; transgressing limits of what one does not know (i.e. death):
- What effects does this position have on the writing and on the reader (cf. also Die neue Sichtbarkeit des Todes, ed. Thomas Macho and Kristin Marek, München: Fink, 2007)?
- What about empathy and affect?
- Writing about the experience of a terminal or very serious illness triggers a contemplation of the "unthinkable", which is the stimulus for a theoretical exploration. See the great number of illness narratives written by academics; these texts do not only give evidence of the experience of illness, but present complex theoretical explorations of the cultural and social construction of illness.
- How is the dialogue between personal experience and theoretical inquiry achieved?
- How are moments of disintegration, collapse and transgression described? ( → Cathy Caruth's trauma theory; trauma is not unrepresentable; potential of language)
- What role does medical discourse play?
Linguistics
Data
- A corpus of German texts written by Basel medical students on a remarkable encounter during their internship at a GP + questionnaire
- A parallel corpus of texts and questionnaire in English by medical students at the University of Nottingham (Victoria Tischler)
- An additional corpus of texts written by doctors (experts) on remarkable encounters, published in medical journals.
Research questions: Illness
- How is illness conceptualized linguistically (metaphors, semantic fields, jargon, etc.)?
Research questions: Identity construction
- What linguistic strategies are employed to construct the identities of (novice/expert) doctor and patient?
- What other protagonists feature in the texts and how are they portrayed / created?
- How do the students address the dilemma of being a novice while performing in the role of an expert?
Research questions: The question of the text genre
- Do the texts have a narrative core in the strict (Labovian) sense?
- In what way is it possible to speak of narratives?
- What linguistic strategies identified in narrative research occur in the texts and what functions do they fulfill?
- To what extent does it matter that the text is an assignment written for an instructor?
- What 'text genre' are we dealing with?
Research questions: Cognitive issues
- Is there any linguistic evidence of ‘frames’ (structures of expectation with respect to norms, rights, obligations)?
- What type of metaphors are employed?
- What analogies are drawn?
Research questions: Cross-cultural comparison
- Do we find any evidence of cross-cultural differences in the construction of illness and identity when comparing the corpora?
Medicine
- Studie Reflective Writing von Medizinstudierenden in Basel und Nottingham
April 15, 2013, 9-18h, Grosser Hörsaal, Englisches Seminar, Nadelberg 6, CH-4051 Basel
The team had been exploring the social, cultural, linguistic and literary meanings of illness narratives and reflective writing and the applications of these findings to medical education. This symposium provided a platform to share results and to invite eminent scholars from different research disciplines such as linguistics, literary studies, psychology and medicine to engage in dialogue.
Program
9:00-9:15 | Welcome |
9:15-9:45 | Brigitte Boothe (University of Zurich) |
9:45-10:15 | Gabriele Lucius-Hoene (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) Narrative matters and narratives that matter. Illness stories in interaction: reporting, constructing, creating |
10:15-10:45 | Michael Bamberg (Clark University) |
10:45-11:15 | Coffee break |
11:15-11:45 | Femi Oyebode (University of Birmingham) 'Illness and illness metaphor in Chekhov: Medicine and storytelling |
11:45-12:15 | Annette Kern-Stähler (University of Bern), Anna Thiemann (University of Münster) "We are, after all, expecting them to live the American Dream": Cure and recovery in the American autie-biography |
12:15-13:30 | Lunch break (Englisches Seminar) |
13:30-14:00 | Lisa Diedrich (Stony Brook University) Graphic heterotopias: Treating epilepsy in L’Ascension du Haut-Mal |
14:00-14:30 | Franziska Gygax (University of Basel) "Woundable, around the bounds": Life (beyond) writing and terminal illness |
14:30-15:00 | Miriam Locher, Regula Koenig (University of Basel) Reflective writing texts by medical students: A genre analysis |
15:00-15:30 | Coffee break |
15:30-16:00 | Alexander Kiss, Julia Notter (University of Basel) Medical Humanities in Basel: General aspects and medical student narratives – When empathy is lacking |
16:00-16:30 | Victoria Tischler (University of Nottingham) 'Its something a bit different'—Reflections on introducing narrative writing into a medical curriculum |
16:30-16:45 | Coffee break |
16:45-17:30 | Round table |
18:30 | Dinner at Restaurant Schlüsselzunft, Freie Strasse 25 |
Project team: Franziska Gygax (literary studies), Miriam Locher (linguistics), Regula Koenig (linguistics), Alexander Kiss and Claudia Steiner (medicine) (University of Basel); Victoria Tischler (psychology) (University of Nottingham).
This symposium terminated the SNF-funded research project "Life (Beyond) Writing: Illness Narratives" (CR13I1).
Sponsors
We thank the following institutions for their generous support:
Gygax, Franziska (2013). Theoretically ill: Autobiographer, patient, theorist. In Alexandra Lembert-Heidenreich & Jarmila Mildorf (Eds.), The writing cure: Literature and medicine in context. Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften im Dialog/Natural Sciences and Humanities in Dialogue, vol. 2 (pp. 173-190). LIT-Verlag, Münster.
Gygax, Franziska (2013). On Being Ill (in Britain and the US). European Journal of Life Writing, 2, 1-17.
Gygax, Franziska (2015). Sitwell Edith Sitwell: Stein and Sitwell in echo. In Sarah Posman & Laura Luise Schultz (Eds.), Gertrude Stein and Europe: Talking and listening (pp. 71–84). London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Gygax, Franziska, Koenig, Regula & Locher, Miriam A. (2012). Moving across disciplines and genres: Reading identity in illness narratives and reflective writing texts. In Rukhsana Ahmed & Benjamin Bates (Eds.), Medical communication in clinical contexts (pp. 17-35). Kendall Hunt, Dubuque.
Gygax, Franziska, Koenig, Regula, Locher, Miriam A. & Tischler, Victoria (2013). Interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt: Life (Beyond) Writing: Illness Narratives. Bulletin SAGW, 3, 60-61.
Kiss, Alexander, Steiner, Claudia, Honold, Alexander, Grossman, Paul, Gygax, Franziska, Heuss, Ludwig, Langewitz, Wolf, Schuster, Sylvie & Kiessling, Claudia (2015). Medical Humanities in der Ausbildung. Schweizerische Ärztezeitung – Bulletin des Médecins Suisses – Bolletino dei Medici Svizzeri, 96 (14–15), 534–536.
Locher, Miriam A. (2015). "After all, the last thing I wanted to be was rude": Raising of pragmatic awareness through reflective writing. In B. Pizziconi & M. A. Locher (Eds.), 'Teaching' and 'learning' (im)politeness (pp. 185-209). Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Locher, Miriam A. & Koenig, Regula (2014). "All I could do was hand her another tissue" – Handling emotions as a challenge in reflective writing texts by medical students. In A. Langlotz & A. Soltysik Monnet (Eds.), Emotion, affect, sentiment: The language and aesthetics of feeling (pp. 215-236). Tübingen: Narr.
Edited collection
Gygax, Franziska, Locher, Miriam A. (Eds.), (2015). Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines. Studies in narrative 20. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Boothe, Brigitte (2015). Illness narratives in the psychotherapeutic session. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 73-98). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Brancher, Dominique (2015). Pox pain and redeeming narratives in Renaissance Europe. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 47-69). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Diedrich, Lisa (2015). Against compassion: Attending to histories and methods in medical humanities; Or, doing critical medical studies. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 167-182). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gordon, Cynthia (2015). "I would suggest you tell this ^^^ to your doctor": Online narrative problem-solving regarding face-to-face doctor-patient interaction about body weight. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 117-140). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gygax, Franziska (2015). "Woundable, around the bounds": Life (beyond) writing and terminal illness. In Franziska Gygax & Locher Miriam A. (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 33-45). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gygax, Franziska & Locher, Miriam A. (2015). Introduction to narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 1-14.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kern-Stähler, Annettte & Thiemann, Anna. (2015). Autism and the American Dream: Progress and recovery in the American autie-biography. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 17-31). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Locher, Miriam A., Koenig, Regula, & Meier, Janine (2015). A genre analysis of reflective writing texts by medical students: What role does narrative play? In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 141-164). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Lucius-Hoene, Gabriele, Adami, Sandra, & Koschack, Janka. (2015). Narratives that matter. Illness stories in the ‘third space’ of qualitative interviewing. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 99-116). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Oyebode, Femi & Tischler, Victoria (2015). Applying narrative to medical education: Medicine and storytelling. In Franziska Gygax & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (pp. 183-205). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Monograph
Locher, Miriam A. (2017). Reflective writing in medical practice – A linguistic perspective. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
The members of the research team gave presentations and workshops on a regular basis. In addition, our research efforts also flowed into and benefitted from our teaching to ensure transfer to students. The team hosted a number of guest speakers during the duration of the project.
Guest lectures
In connection with the lecture on "Health and Language" in autumn term 2010 (Locher), three distinguished scholars spoke to Basel students and guests.
These lectures were sponsored by the English Seminar of the University of Basel.
November 2, 2010:
Prof. Brigitte Boothe, Universität Zürich
"Erzählen im Behandlungszimmer. Leiden in narrativer Darstellung"
November 9, 2010:
Prof. Peter Schulz, Universität Lugano
"'Gilding the pill?‘ Information quality and argumentation in pharmaceutical advertising"
November 9, 2010:
Prof. Srikant Sarangi, Cardiff University
"The socio-cultural dimensions of health and illness: A discourse perspective "
In connection with the seminar on “Life Writing in the 21st Centruy” in spring term 2013 (Gygax), a distinguished literary studies scholars spoke to Basel students and guests:
May 23, 2013 (Supported by the American Embassy):
Prof. Jared Gardner, Ohio State University
"Graphic Autobiography and Illness."
Further outreach was achieved in workshops and the Symposium on "Narrative Mattes in Literature, Linguistics, Psychology and Medicine", which terminated the project.
Teaching Transfer
Franziska Gygax: Life Writing in the 21st Century, ST 2013
Life writing has become a booming and extremely popular genre in our century, and the modes of auto/biographical narratives vary greatly (written auto/biography in book form, autopathography, "online lives," collection of photographs, graphic memoirs, biopic, performances, etc.). The reasons for the increasing popularity of this genre are manifold and need to be explored and discussed in the social, cultural, and political context of today?s notions of the (cult of the) self.
Franziska Gygax: Representations of Illness in Autobiography, ST 2010
In the last decades an enormous number of illness narratives have been written and published, and scholars in literary and cultural studies have begun to discuss and theorize this genre. Personal narratives about illness not only raise complex questions about notions of selfhood, they equally provide insight into the cultural and social constructions of illness. Besides reading a whole range of illness narratives, we will also discuss canonical texts on literary representations of illness such as Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor and Aids and Its Metaphors" and Virginia Woolf's essay "On Being Ill".
Franziska Gygax and Alexander Kiss: Medical Humanities Course for 1st year medical students
"Literatur und Medizin: Autorenlesung und Diskussion”, together with Klaus Merz, writer
"Arztgeschichten/Patientengeschichten (from JAMA and Annals of Internal Medicine)”, together with Prof. Osswald, Medical Faculty, University of Basel (HS 2009)
"Film und Medizin: Dr. House", together with Prof. Bürgisser, Medical Faculty, University of Basel (FS 2010)
Miriam Locher: Thementag für Medizinstudierende, Workshop on “Das Internet als Fundus an Gesundheitsinformationen aus der Sicht des Laien" (HS 2008, 2009, 2010)
M. Locher: Health and Language, AT 2010
In this course the focus is on 'language in use' in situations where health plays a role. We will investigate how people interact in situations such as doctor's appointments, or counselling sessions, as well as how health educators package their persuasive messages in online Internet sites such as advice columns. The speech acts of advice giving, information giving and suggesting will be discussed in detail, while the contextual factors of the studied practices will be taken into account when analyzing. The lecture is situated within the field of pragmatics and in particular within the field of applied linguistics and discourse analysis. In connection with this lecture four prominent scholars have been invited: Prof. Brigitte Boothe, Prof. Srikant Sarangi and Prof. Peter Schulz.
M. Locher: Illness Narratives, AT 2010
In this research seminar for MA students we will analyze texts of English medical students that were collected in connection with the Swiss National Science project entitled "Life (beyond) writing: Illness narratives". The students write about a memorable experience during their internship and thus create instances of reflective writing in which they construct their identities as students and aspiring doctors vis à vis the patients. This project is interdisciplinary and will allow us to explore the fields of narrative, identity construction and health in linguistics. The seminar involves both reading seminal texts on the topics mentioned, as well as workshops on data analysis.
M. Locher : Language on internet health sites, AT 2011
In this workshop based course we will first work on the theoretical fields of computer-mediated language and health communication and then develop research question for this communicative interface. After this we will explore the use of the English language on different types of Internet sites in English that topicalize health issues (e.g. peer-to-peer blog support sites; professional information sites; health insurance sites, etc.).
International Short Visit by Dr. Victoria Tischler (Nottingham) in Basel
Transfer to teaching in the medical humanities; completion of project (April and May 2013)
Supported by: Swiss National Science Foundation
M. Locher: Language and health, ST 2016
In this lecture course the focus is on 'language in use' in situations where health plays a role. The lecture builds on the lecture from AT 2010 and is based on broader and newer data. The investigation of how people interact in situations such as doctor's appointments, or counselling sessions, as well as how health educators package their persuasive messages in online Internet sites such as advice columns or smoking cessation websites and fora will be discussed. The speech acts of advice giving, information giving and suggesting will be discussed in detail, while the contextual factors of the studied practices will be taken into account when analyzing. The lecture is situated within the field of pragmatics and in particular within the field of applied linguistics and discourse analysis. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, the lecture will also present insights from discursive psychology, sociology and the medical humanities.
M. Locher: Typing yourself healthy, ST2016
In the last decades the Internet has evolved to become an important source of information for health concerns. There are many professional information sites, peer-support sites for patients, mailing lists, online counselling services, and so on. In these contexts, language plays a central role in how health issues are communicated and how health-related activities such as shared decision-making, collaboration, or persuasion, are carried out. Internet users are encouraged to type themselves healthy through language with the help of peers or professionals. The symposium provides a platform for researchers and practitioners from different disciplines such as linguistics, psychology and anthropology, as well as the public to share findings and insights concerning e-health communication. By engaging in a dialogue with researchers from different fields we work towards a better understanding of e-health practices overall, which can be of use and interest to health practitioners as well. This symposium is going to be the endpoint of the SNF-funded research project "Language and Health Online" (NGK1912) and is open to students and the public.
M. Locher: Health and language in action, AT2016
In this course on the research interface of linguistics and health studies, students will work on data that they collected themselves from a number of methodological and theoretical angles. They will develop research questions and work on sharpening analytical tools. The program will be jointly put together at the beginning of term with the aim to gain experience in analyzing a variety of different practices and to account for the interests of the participants. This seminar continues the topic of language and health introduced in the lecture in spring term 16. Having attended this lecture is recommended but not a necessary entry requirement.
Workshops
Illness Narratives: A Transdisciplinary Reading
Workshop with a presentation by Franziska Gygax, and comments by Miriam Locher and Regula Koenig; January 31, 2011, Totengässlein, Basel.
Reflective Writing Texts by Medical Students: The Question of Genre
Workshop with Prof. Srikant Sarangi on developing and fine-tuning research questions on the reflective writing corpus. Participants: Miriam Locher and Regula Koenig. November 9, 2010, English Department, University of Basel.
What Is Narrative Medicien? Wyh Does it Matter?
June 23, 2010 Zentrum für Lehre [ZLF], Kleiner Hörsaal; 12.30- 13:30h
Brian Hurwitz
Brian Hurwitz discusses the term ‘narrative’ and why this notion has become increasingly important to modern medicine over the past two decades. His talk analyses various formulations of narrative and how these contribute to ‘Narrative Medicine’, an approach to health care that not only pays renewed attention to ‘the patient story’ in its many formats, but which also helps physicians to look beyond the biological mechanisms at the centre of conventional medicine, towards domains of thought, and ways of telling which promise new contacts with patienthood. Narrative Medicine is helping to articulate an extended clinician role, one that moves beyond listening, diagnosing, communicating, treating and information-giving, and which experiments with representation. This role places special emphasis on ways of telling and of depicting, which are emerging as new values in clinical medicine. The talk is illustrated with clinical case reports from general practice and will be punctuated with PowerPoint slides.
Supported by: Swiss National Science Foundation / Abteilung Psychosomatik, Universitätsspital Basel / Englisches Seminar, Universität Basel / IHAMB
Workshop with Dr. Victoria Tischler (Nottingham)
Transfer to teaching in the medical humanities (February 10, 2012)
International Short Visit by Dr. Victoria Tischler (Nottingham) in Basel
Transfer to teaching in the medical humanities; completion of project (April and May 2013)
Supported by: Swiss National Science Foundation
Presentations
Gygax, Franziska
2009 International conference on Life Writing in Europe: Founding Conference IABA Europe in Amsterdam, VU University. Paper on "Life (Beyond) Writing: Illness Narratives."
Gygax, Franziska
2010 6th European Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts: "Textures" in Riga, Stockholm School of Economics. Participant in roundtable panel on "Literature and Medicine: The State of the Field 2010", organized by George Rousseau, one of the pioneers in this field.
Gygax, Franziska
2010 "Moments of Recovery: Life Writing and Illness." Paper presented at the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) Conference 2010 on Life Writing and Intimate Publics in Brighton, University of Sussex.
Gygax, Franziska
2011 "Illness Narratives: A Transdisciplinary Reading". Interdisciplinary workshop with Franziska Gygax, Miriam Locher and Regula Koenig, University of Basel.
Gygax, Franziska
2011 Participation in the panel on "Modalities of Relationship". IABA Life Writing in Europe Conference: "Trajectoris of (Be)Longing." Tallinn.
Gygax, Franziska
2012 Illness Narratives: Pain and Empowerment. Paper presented at the EAAS (European Association for American Studies) conference, panel on "Illness and its Metaphors: Challenging Medical Discourse from a Gendered Perspective." Izmir.
Gygax, Franziska
2013 "Woundable, around the bounds": Life (beyond) writing and terminal illness. Paper presented at the Symposium Narrative Matters in Literature, Linguistics, Psychology and Medicine. University of Basel.
Gygax, Franziska
2013 Illness Autographics of the 21st Century. Paper presented at the IABA Europe 2013 conference: Beyond the Subject. New Developments in Life Writing. Vienna, Austria.
Gygax, Franziska, Regula Koenig and Miriam A. Locher
2010 "Life (beyond) writing: Illness Narratives." Research Colloquium, Englisches Seminar, Universität Basel.
Gygax, Franziska, Regula Koenig and Miriam A. Locher
2011 Moving Across Disciplines and Genres. Paper presented at the SAUTE meeting 'On the Move'. Bern.
Koenig, Regula
2009 SWELL Best Practice Workshops with Prof. David Britain (November 6, 2009), English Seminar, University of Basel. Brief input presentation on the PhD workshop. Project participants: Miriam Locher and Regula Koenig.
Koenig, Regula
2010 Identity construction in reports by medical students. Paper presented at the SWELL meeting, Englisches Seminar, Universität Bern.
Koenig Regula
2010 Reflektionen über Identitätskonstruktionen in Berichten von Medizinern (Arbeitstitel). Präsentation im Rahmen des Doktorandenforschungskolloquiums Linguistik Basel, Universität Basel.
Koenig, Regula
2010 SWELL Best Practice Workshops with Prof. Dennis Preston, English Seminar, University of Basel. Brief input presentation on the PhD workshop. Project participants: Miriam Locher and Regula Koenig.
Koenig, Regula
2010 8th Interdisciplinary Conference on Communication, Medicine and Ethics (COMET) in Boston (USA), Public School of Management and College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences. Participant in roundtable meeting on: “Teaching Communication to Health Care Professionals: Identity Construction.” Other presenters: Alexandre José Pinto Cadilhe de Assis Jácome (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil) and Branca Ribeiro (Lesley University, USA). Paper on: “Identity Construction in Reports by Medical Students.”
Koenig, Regula
2010 JASGIL Best Practice Workshops with Prof. Salikoko Mufwene, English Seminar, University of Basel. Brief input presentation on the PhD workshop. Project participants: Miriam Locher and Regula Koenig.
Koenig, Regula
2012 Kommuniation im Gesundheitswesen -- Möglichkeiten und Grenzen. Invited speaker at a round table discussion. Berner Fachhochschule für Gesundheit. Bern.
Koenig, Regula
2013 'It made me realise that as doctors we can only do the best that we can [...]' - 'Expert' identity in medical students' reflective writing texts. Paper presented at the conference I-Mean. Bristol.
Koenig, Regula, Miriam A. Locher, and Victoria Tischler
2011 'Is it okay if I ask you a few question?' Reflective writing on a memorable patient encounter by medical students. Paper presented at the conference Communication, Medicine and Ethics. Nottingham.
Koenig, Regula, Miriam A. Locher and Victoria Tischler
2011 Dilemmas of identity construction in reflective writing on a memorable patient encounter by medical students. Paper presented at the conference ALAPP. Cardiff.
Koenig, Regula, Miriam A. Locher, and Victoria Tischler
2012 Identity Construction in Medical Students' Reflective Writing Texts. Work-in-progress presented at the conference Communication, Medicine, and Ethics. Trondheim
Locher, Miriam A.
2012 'Life (beyond) writing': Illness Narratives; Reflective writing for BA medical students -- First results from two linguistic analyses (topic and identity construction). Paper presented at the Colloquium of the English Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Locher, Miriam A.
2013 Teaching communication skills at a medical school: From keeping eye contact to creating rapport. Paper presented at the Symposium of Politeness. SOAS, London.
Locher, Miriam A.
2017 Reflexives Schreiben in medizinischen Zusammenhängen, Workshop „Sprache im Kontext von Trauer und Lebensende“, Göttingen.
Locher, Miriam A. and Regula Koenig
2012 Reflective writing for BA medical students - -First results from the linguistic analyses. Paper presented at the conference JASGIL, Strasbourg.
Locher, Miriam A. and Regula Koenig
2013 Reflective writing texts by medical students: A genre analysis. Paper presented at the Symposium Narrative Matters in Literature, Linguistics, Psychology and Medicine. University of Basel.
Locher, Miriam A. and Regula Koenig
2013 'All I could do was hand her another tissue' – Handling emotions as a challenge in reflective writing texts by medical students. Paper presented at the SAUTE meeting. University of Lausanne.
Tischler, Victoria
2013 'Its something a bit different' —Reflections on introducing narrative writing into a medical curriculum. Paper presented at the Symposium Narrative Matters in Literature, Linguistics, Psychology and Medicine. University of Basel.
Tischler, Victoria, Franziska Gygax, Regula Koenig and Miriam Locher
2013 "Life (beyond) writing: illness narratives". Research colloquium, Englisches Seminar, University of Basel.