Profile of: Fawn Parker

Award Received: SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral

Awarded for the project: Indifference, The Unreliable Author—Writing By and About Mad Women

Department: English

Supervisor: Dr. Kasia Van Schaik

My doctoral project, a novel and accompanying critical introduction, deals with themes of Madness, psychiatric institutionalization, and womens' misdiagnosis and lack of access to medical care. My novel, INDIFFERENCE, is set in a small Canadian city where arts funding has been cut, and the psychiatric wing in the hospital has been closed down and replaced with a "longevity program" for extended lifespan. Local efforts to revitalize the artistic community continually overlook emotional and psychological challenges faced by many of the working artists, whose lack of available funding and lack of access to healthcare compound.

Both my novel and introduction will highlight problems of access and understanding in mental healthcare. The novel will demonstrate this through a plot following a middle-aged painter who has just made an attempt on her life, while the introduction will draw on research done by Mad Studies scholars and reference a number of Mad memoirs and novels such as those by Janet Frame, Bette Howland, and Jennifer Dawson.

A view of Madness as a temporary illness that requires cure (and most often behind a locked door) reduces and erases the complex humanity of the individual. My doctoral research and writing will highlight the vast array of varying needs and lifestyles experienced by those who identify as Mad or are involuntarily placed in a system designed to address Madness. As a writer, researcher, and person, I believe it is important that we rethink our approaches to mental "health" and arrive at a more collaborative—between patient and practitioner and between the arts and sciences—approach to mental healthcare.