Against Metaphor – Against Interpretation: Widerständige Sprachfiguren der Verkörperung

The coincidence of the discourse of medicine and aesthetics has been a specific interplay since the enlightenment which is characterized by diagnostics, observation and determination. Psychological diagnostics and classification are unthinkable without social agreement and fixation of pathological indicators. The specific criteria for the classification of illness depend on the thinking of origin, sexuality, inheritance and evolution which determine the physiological and psychological standards and disorders particularly represented in the aesthetics of body and soul. These iconic and linguistic representations of disorder are strikingly relevant in contemporary literature as well as in the arts. Based on Illness as metaphor by Susan Sontag I try to figure out an alternative reading of illness as text. It’s about the materiality of the human body and the stories it tells. My project outlines the contradictions encountered when literally configurations of bodies elude the determinations of diagnosis and interpretation.