Unravelling crip temporalities: epilepsy, chronic illness and Elodie Durand’s Parenthesis

ABSTRACT

Throughout history, epilepsy has been subject to spiritual or supernatural interpretations and is often construed as a form of possession, divine retribution, or even a mystical endowment. However, from a medical perspective, epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder. Elodie Durand’s graphic memoir, Parenthesis (2021), offers a personal narrative documenting the complexities of epilepsy. Through a meticulous analysis of Durand’s memoir, this article aims to investigate the intersections of crip temporalities and the affective dimensions of epilepsy as experienced and depicted by Durand, encompassing her epileptic seizures and neuropsychological evaluations, as well as her attempts at narrative reconstruction. Situated within the conceptual framework of crip time developed by Ellen Samuels, this essay examines the concealed nature of epilepsy as a chronic illness and its implications as an invisible disability. This study in graphic medicine conveys the embodied and experiential nature of epilepsy visualised through the medium of comics.

KEYWORDS:

• Epilepsy
• crip time
• chronic illness
• invisible disability
• graphic medicine

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See Masia, Shawn L., and Orrin Devinsky. ‘Epilepsy and Behavior: A Brief History.’ Epilepsy & Behavior, vol. 1, no. 1, 5 Nov. 1999, pp. 27–36, https://doi.org/10.1006/ebeh.1999.0021.

2. The content of this text has been obtained from an English translation generated by Google Translate, an automated machine translation tool, from the original French.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Sathyaraj Venkatesan

Sathyaraj Venkatesan is a Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (India). His research concentrates on graphic medicine, comic studies, and American literature. He is the author of nine books and over hundred research articles that span African American literature, health humanities, graphic medicine, film studies, and other literary and cultural disciplines. His recent co-edited book is Pandemics and Epidemics in Cultural Representation (Singapore: Springer, 2022)

Prerna Tolani

Prerna Tolani is a PhD graduate student in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (India). Her research concentrates on health humanities and graphic medicine.