‘A research paper presented at the conference ‘Politics of Vulnerability in Contemporary Women’s Writing and Creative Practices’ at the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing, Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 19-20 May . The paper addressed a paradoxical and shifting site of resilience/vulnerability and forms of unmooring linked to my experience of illness and ageing as explored through my creative practice as an experimental filmmaker. Drawing on combined strategies of running, writing and filmmaking as a way to characterise doubt, uncertainty and vulnerability, I highlight ‘the fear of the other within’ through reference to Havi Carel’s concept of bodily doubt as it relates to an experience of illness and subsequently ‘disrupts the normal sense of being in the world’. I discuss how I have developed ‘interrupted narratives’ to highlight the limitations of language in describing an experience of vulnerability through my practice. I demonstrate how the work draws on autoethnographic research methods to move ‘beyond narrative’ and as Stella Bolaki observes ‘ to draw attention to the contingent nature and inadequacy of verbal forms of communication, and the affective excess that cannot be contained by them’.’
Janice Howard: Uncertain Surfaces: Running, Writing, Experimental Filmmaking and Parkinson’s
June 22, 2022