Toward Intercultural Narrative Competence: Cultural Studies and Narrative Medicine for Affective Engagement and Care. A Higher-Education Pilot Project

Autori/Autrici

Parole chiave:

affect; care; intercultural narrative competence; Narrative Medicine

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of aesthetic reading and affective engagement with works of art and, more broadly, with stories of others in generating intersubjective encounters and other-oriented care. It also aims to illustrate a higher-education pilot project whose objective is to exploit the affective and intersubjective potential in artistic expression and in sharing stories. Firstly, we will address the issues of affect and care, focusing on how the sharing of stories—through cultural texts and intersubjective dialogue—can elicit affective responses and foster processes of care. Then, we will provide an empirical example of a higher education intervention, which integrates a literature module grounded in Cultural and Postcolonial Studies with a workshop embedded in Narrative Medicine, with the aim of strengthening what we define as ‘intercultural narrative competence’.

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Biografia autore/autrice

Paolo Caponi, University of Milan

Paolo Caponi is Associate Professor of English Literature at the Università degli Studi di Milano, where he teaches English Drama and English Culture. His studies have focused prevailingly on the Elizabethan and contemporary theatre. He has worked with the Piccolo Teatro and with Teatro Franco Parenti, Teatro Arsenale and Teatro Elfo-Puccini in Milan. He has worked with the Istituto Oncologico Europeo (IEO) and he is currently cooperating with the Istituto Tumori (INT) in Milan on several projects centred on the Medical Humanities and on the cultural mediation between foreign patients and Italian hospitals and asylums.

Maria Micaela Coppola, University of Trento

Maria Micaela Coppola is Associate Professor of English Literature in the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Trento (Italy). She has published on twentieth-century and contemporary women writers in English, lesbian literature, and feminist cultural periodicals. Her research focuses on literary and filmic representations of dementia syndrome, the psychological humanities, and Narrative Medicine. Coppola is coordinator of the University of Trento’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies and of the University Language Centre. In 2024, she earned the Certification of Professional Achievement in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University.

Francesca Di Blasio, University of Trento

Francesca Di Blasio teaches English Literature at the University of Trento. Her research interests include literary theory, transdisciplinarity in literary discourse, Australian Indigenous literature, Early Modern literature, and Modernism. For many years, she has focused on Indigenous literature and has authored several works on this subject. She has translated into Italian We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Trento 2013) and Auntie Rita by Rita and Jackie Huggins (Verona 2018).

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Pubblicato

2026-02-28

Come citare

Caponi, Paolo, Maria Micaela Coppola, e Francesca Di Blasio. 2026. «Toward Intercultural Narrative Competence: Cultural Studies and Narrative Medicine for Affective Engagement and Care. A Higher-Education Pilot Project ». Altre Modernità, febbraio, 142-64. https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline/article/view/30972.

Fascicolo

2026: NUMERO SPECIALE: 10 e lode!

Sezione

Saggi Ensayos Essais Essays

Licenza

Creative Commons License

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