A multidisciplinary approach to human resilience as a social and narrative construct.

Be resilient! Today, we hear this line in almost any context. The term resilience is among the most repeated buzzwords. But why, simply, do we need to be resilient? Hamideh Mahdiani presents answers to this question by challenging a reductionistic understanding of resilience from single disciplinary perspectives; by questioning the dominance of life sciences in defining an age-old concept; and by problematizing the neglected role of life writing in fostering resilience. In so doing, through a multidisciplinary frame of reference, the book works with various examples from life writing and life sciences, and testifies to the focal role of narrative studies in resilience research.

Autorentext

Hamideh Mahdiani, born in 1986, works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine, university medical centre, Mainz. Trained in English and American Literary and Cultural Studies, she has been studying the topic of human resilience as a narrative form.__Her research focuses on human resilience as a social and narrative construct.