Esmé Weijun Wang and Corrine Fitzpatrick: The Collected Schizophrenias | Triple Canopy

“When the self has been swallowed by illness, isn’t it cruel to insist on a self that is not illness?” asks Esmé Weijun Wang in her essay “Perdition Days.” “Is this why so many people insist on believing in a soul?” In sickness, our bodies and minds become the focal points of a swirl of medical, social, political, and metaphysical attentions. How might we navigate, let alone represent, such an overwhelming situation, such a swallowing of the self?
Wang reads “Perdition Days,” included in her exhaustively researched and deeply affecting book The Collected Schizophrenias, which opens with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, goes on to explore disagreements within the medical community about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and examines the manifestations of schizophrenia and compounding chronic illness in her own life. Writer and Triple Canopy guest editor Corrine Fitzpatrick joins Wang in conversation.
The Collected Schizophrenias is part of Risk Pool, an issue that asks: how are sickness and wellness defined, and by whom? What are the effects of these definitions, these acts of naming and describing?
The Collected Schizophrenias was presented at Kadist in San Francisco on December 5, 2018. www.canopycanopycanopy.com/co...
Esmé Weijun Wang is the author of the novel The Border of Paradise, which was called a Best Book of 2016 by NPR. Learn more at: www.canopycanopycanopy.com/co...
Corrine Fitzpatrick is a writer based in Inverness, California. She teaches for the Low Residency MFA Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more at: www.canopycanopycanopy.com/co...
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