Who's Afraid of Medical Semiotics?

Abstract: Kevis Goodman's Pathologies of Motion traces the intertwined trajectory of medical and literary thinking in the eighteenth century through the development of the fields of pathology and aesthetics. Disorders and dislocations of motion serve as case studies for subsequent effects on bodies and perceptions. The disciplinary coupling of pathology and poetics reveals fissures in the conceived body: inside/outside, voluntary/involuntary and continuous/discontinuous. Goodman presents symptomatic reading as a shared interpretive practice critical to medicine and rhetoric, one that allows scholars and researchers to resolve these paired oppositions. This approach presents an opportunity for aligning poetics and aesthetic projects with medical and scientific practices and pedagogy.