Caregiving fiction as remedium. Healthcare communication and literary aesthetics in Anders N. Kvammen’s Jeg husker ikke... Historier om demens (2021)

Abstract

This article explores the intersection between healthcare communication and the aesthetics of the comics medium by looking at how the role of next of kin is thematized in Anders N. Kvammen’s graphic novel Jeg husker ikke... Historier om demens (2021) (I can’t remember… Stories about dementia). The graphic novel, which contains three stories about families where a parent is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, was commissioned by the Church City Mission. We use the term remedium, playing on a triple meaning of literature as tool, medicine and aesthetic medium, to reflect on the comics medium in light of different ‘uses of literature’ and to discuss what kind of knowledge about the role of next of kin Jeg husker ikke... conveys, for whom, and in what ways. In our analysis, the informative and the aesthetic dimensions of the comics medium are inextricably linked. Using the remedium concept as a prism, we propose directions for interpretive and analytical practices that aim to investigate how the literary text’s dissemination of knowledge and potentially therapeutic or healing powers are anchored in its aesthetics and media specificity.