• Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    "[Second Thoughts on Capitalism and the State is a] profoundly reflective book shows a pathway forward for academics and activists alike who are stymied by the disconnect between deep critical scholarship and emancipatory social change, yet who will still not give up the good fight."

    - Professor Diane E. Davis, Harvard University

Migraine, Words and Fiction

There are many migraine sufferers worldwide. However, the lack of confirmatory scan or blood test poses a major barrier to their diagnosis, which must be based on their account of the pain. As a consequence, language is of utmost importance in the diagnosis of migraine. This book deals with this relation between words and migraine, and considers how persons with migraine make their pain ‘readable’ and how fictional texts ‘perform’ migraine. Its analysis utilises the theories of Wittgenstein (‘beetle in the box’), Foucault, de Saussure and Scarry, as well as works of fiction including Hustvedt’s The Blindfold, Lasdun’s The Horned Man and Yalom’s When Nietzsche Wept.


Joost Haan is a neurologist and headache specialist working in the Leiden University Medical Centre and the Alrijne hospital Leiderdorp, the Netherlands. He has (co-)authored more than 100 articles and several books on headache, and holds a PhD in Literary Sciences. He was one of the editors of the Oxford Textbook of Headache Syndromes (2020). At present, his main scientific interests are the genetics of migraine, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, CADASIL and cluster headache.

“It has often been written that medical students and physicians may improve their skills by reading the literature. Haan mentioned that the well-known Canadian/American physician William Osler (1849–1919), when taking his students to the wards “made explicit analogies to reading skills and the patient as text.” Indeed lessons can be learned from reading novels and Haan’s book provides insights on how this works for the literature in relation to migraine patients. He is a neurologist and experienced headache specialist, who wrote his PhD dissertation on Hereditary Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy over 30 years ago and recently completed a second (!) PhD dissertation on a subject in the literary sciences. The present book is an adapted version of that dissertation, and it can be recommended to physicians and people interested in the literature.”
Peter J. Koehler
European Neurology

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-5275-8359-7

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-8359-7

Release Date: 17th May 2022

Pages: 240

Price: £67.99

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