To shape perception, to transform care through Literature

Interview with Gérad Danou

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21814/2i.6900

Abstract

This interview between Maria de Jesus Cabral and Gérard Danou explores the role of the Medical Humanities in education and clinical practice. A physician and Doctor of Letters, essayist, and former associate researcher at Université Paris-Diderot, Gérard Danou was among the first scholars in France, as early as the 1990s, to reflect on the intersections between Literature and Medicine. His research on physician-writers and on the poetry of Henri Michaux highlights a clinic of language, shaped by the legacy of Jean Starobinski and by the notion of “becoming a physician.” The following conversation addresses these theoretical and pedagogical issues while also opening onto contemporary challenges, from the technologization of care to the perspectives of global health.

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Author Biography

  • Maria de Jesus Cabral, University of Aveiro

    Specialised in 19th–20th century French Literature, with a thesis on the theatre of Mallarmé and Maeterlinck (2005), published by Brill, Maria de Jesus Cabral is  Professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures at the University of Aveiro, and an integrated researcher at the CLLC – the University’s Center for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, where she coordinates the research subgroup “Itinerancies: texts, discourses, contexts.”
    Her research follows the continuity of Symbolist and Modernist poetics from a comparative and cross-border perspective, exploring the relationship between theatre and literary reading, as well as its extension to contemporary practices and current poetic thought.
    She coordinates the LEA ! – Lire en Europe Aujourd’hui network and launched the European Erasmus+ project Reading Communities Shaping Identities in 2023, leading a consortium of ten European universities. A strong advocate for scientific Francophonie in Portugal, she co-founded the APEF – Portuguese Association for French Studies in 2003 and is currently its Honorary President.
    Since 2012, her research and teaching bridges literature and medicine. She has coordinated and takes part in various research programmes, training initiatives, and fieldwork in Narrative Medicine and Medical Humanities, in Portugal and abroad, with a particular focus on France, Canada, and Brazil. She explores the applications of theatre and literary reading in medical education, promoting them as spaces for reflection and care, understood in its ethical and relational dimension.

References

Danou, G. (1994). Le Corps souffrant: littérature et médecine. Champ Vallon.

Danou, G. (2008/2016). Langue, récit, littérature dans l’éducation médicale. Lambert-Lucas.

Danou, G., & Cabral, M. de J. (Eds.). (2015). Maux écrits, mots vécus: traitements littéraires de la maladie. Lambert-Lucas.

Danou, G., & Cabral, M. de J. (Eds.). (2019). Le Toucher: prospections médicales, artistiques et littéraires. Lambert-Lucas.

Danou, G., & Cabral, M. de J. (Eds.). (2025). Écrire (dans) la tourmente: l’écrivain-médecin face à la guerre. Lambert-Lucas.

Starobinski, J. (1961). L’Œil vivant. Gallimard.

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Published

2025-12-08

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 12 (2025): Medical Humanities and Global Health: Literature, Ethics and Contemporary Challenges

Section

Interviews

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Maria de Jesus Cabral

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

To shape perception, to transform care through Literature: Interview with Gérad Danou. (2025). Journal 2i: Identity and Intermediality Studies, 7(12), 181-187. https://doi.org/10.21814/2i.6900

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