Anita Wohlmann
Biographic Data
| ID | 645936 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anita Wohlmann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anita |
| FAMILY NAME | Wohlmann |
| SIGNATURE | WOHLMANN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7480-5790 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Abortion narratives in contemporary Denmark
The Danish welfare state provides safe, easily accessible abortions that are free of charge, and the majority of Danes support abortion rights. For these reasons, elective abortions are generally considered a non-issue. Despite this normalisation, the Danish public discourse on abortion is embedded in a culture of silence. This article analyses five Danish books, published between 2023 and 2025, which address this silence through autobiographical…
Th Anniversary of Age, Culture, Humanities
This year, Age, Culture, Humanities launched its 10th issue, and we want to use this momentous occasion to look back and forward.
Polarization and Literary Aesthetics
This article analyzes two conversion narratives on abortion to explore the role of cultural forms and literary aesthetics in representations of polarized topics.The first memoir, The Hand of God (1996/ 2013) by Bernard N. Nathanson (1926-2011), is the personal account of a medical doctor who was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) in the late 1960s and then became an outspoken anti-abortionist before h…
Dementia as a Critical Lens on the Role of Narrative in Medical Training and Practice
Narrative holds an important place within medicine and medical education, but an uncritical use of narrative can have troubling consequences for the care of patients who have limited or no capacity for self‐narration, such as those living with dementia. We argue that the guiding principles in the use of narrative within medicine and medical education must be inclusivity and opportunity. We illustrate how medical training can benefit from a more i…
A real old man
A Serious Joke About Memoir and Memory”
Introduction
This introduction lays out the basic claim of the special issue, namely that postcritical ideas of the uses of literature can fruitfully be applied to understanding (auto)biographical writing in new ways. It does so by relating this claim to the longstanding controversy concerning the role of the author in literary studies. The introduction also summarizes the articles in the special issue
So Typical! Philip Roth's Age Stereotypes
Stereotypes and clichés about older age typically evoke criticism and resistance. Rightly so, given that they simplify, overgeneralize, distort, and limit. This article treats stereotypes and clichés as forms that can indeed have powerful and harmful meanings; however, it claims that a focus on content may overlook some of the surprising and unpredictable affordances these forms can also have: stereotypes can help order experience, offer guidelin…
Metaphor in Illness Writing
Defends conventional and even problematic illness metaphors by emphasizing their varied usability Offers a more capacious understanding of metaphors by considering the varied, unpredictable, and surprising usability of metaphors Uses a doubled approach to metaphors that is grounded in metaphor theory and narrative theory in order to illustrate the nuanced and complex ways in which even problematic metaphors can be engaged with Identifies the dist…
Thinking with Metaphors in Medicine
The gains of reduction in translational processes
Translational processes in clinical contexts and literature studies are ubiquitous. This article first outlines three different models of translation, which describe how source text and target text relate to one another, namely as sameness, reduction, and production. The article makes a case for understanding translation as a relational ontology and focuses on the role of reduction in translational processes. Rather than condemning reduction a pr…
To Be Continued
This article explores the representation of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease in the television series The Good Wife and The Michael J. Fox Show. We suggest that serial narration offers intriguing ways to rethink the function and meaning of narratives in health contexts, and that the episodic narrative form of television series may afford insights into the structure of medical encounters. Specifically, we examine to what extent serial narratio…
Of Termites and Ovaries on Strike
This article explores how problematic or detrimental metaphors of the female body can be reimagined. Metaphors that compare the body to a machine or factory influence the ways in which women understand their bodies (e.g., its potentials and limits) and the decisions they make (e.g., in view of reproductive technologies, education, and careers). Feminist research has investigated and denounced the problematic sociocultural connotations of metaphor…
Rewinding Frankenstein and the body-machine
While the separation of body and mind (and the entailing metaphor of the body as a machine) has been a cornerstone of Western medicine for a long time, reactions to organ transplantation among others challenge this clear-cut dichotomy. The limits of the machine-body have been negotiated in science fiction, most canonically in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Since then, Frankenstein's monster itself has become a motif that permeates both medic…
Living autobiographically
Approaches to (Auto)biography from History, Sociology, Media, and Literary Studies in Two German Publications
The interdisciplinary approaches that are suggested in the two German studies reviewed here certainly advance the notion, as Thomas Etzemuller notes, that biography is a surprisingly complex genre
Conclusion
Conflicts of Timing
Age and Aging in Theory and Practice
Mental Health and Age
Positive Age Metaphors
Living Across the Life Course
Aged Young Adults
When Toula's father in »My Big Fat Greek Wedding« says to his daughter (age 30) »you look so old« or when Don DeLillo's protagonist (age 28) »feels old« in »Cosmopolis«, these young characters are attributed an age awareness that has received little attention in age studies so far. Leaving aside chronological or biological dimensions of age, this study approaches age as a metaphoric practice, suggesting that »feeling old« is not to be taken liter…
Let the countdown begin — Aging experiences of young adults in countdown blogs
Metaphor in Illness Writing
Defends conventional and even problematic illness metaphors by emphasizing their varied usability Offers a more capacious understanding of metaphors by considering the varied, unpredictable, and surprising usability of metaphors Uses a doubled approach to metaphors that is grounded in metaphor theory and narrative theory in order to illustrate the nuanced and complex ways in which even problematic metaphors can be engaged with Identifies the dist…
Rewinding Frankenstein and the body-machine
While the separation of body and mind (and the entailing metaphor of the body as a machine) has been a cornerstone of Western medicine for a long time, reactions to organ transplantation among others challenge this clear-cut dichotomy. The limits of the machine-body have been negotiated in science fiction, most canonically in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Since then, Frankenstein's monster itself has become a motif that permeates both medic…
Living autobiographically
Approaches to (Auto)biography from History, Sociology, Media, and Literary Studies in Two German Publications
The interdisciplinary approaches that are suggested in the two German studies reviewed here certainly advance the notion, as Thomas Etzemuller notes, that biography is a surprisingly complex genre
Let the countdown begin — Aging experiences of young adults in countdown blogs
Conclusion
Conflicts of Timing
Age and Aging in Theory and Practice
Mental Health and Age
Positive Age Metaphors
Living Across the Life Course
Aged Young Adults
When Toula's father in »My Big Fat Greek Wedding« says to his daughter (age 30) »you look so old« or when Don DeLillo's protagonist (age 28) »feels old« in »Cosmopolis«, these young characters are attributed an age awareness that has received little attention in age studies so far. Leaving aside chronological or biological dimensions of age, this study approaches age as a metaphoric practice, suggesting that »feeling old« is not to be taken liter…
Approaches to (Auto)biography from History, Sociology, Media, and Literary Studies in Two German Publications
The interdisciplinary approaches that are suggested in the two German studies reviewed here certainly advance the notion, as Thomas Etzemuller notes, that biography is a surprisingly complex genre
Rewinding Frankenstein and the body-machine
While the separation of body and mind (and the entailing metaphor of the body as a machine) has been a cornerstone of Western medicine for a long time, reactions to organ transplantation among others challenge this clear-cut dichotomy. The limits of the machine-body have been negotiated in science fiction, most canonically in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Since then, Frankenstein's monster itself has become a motif that permeates both medic…
Living autobiographically
Of Termites and Ovaries on Strike
This article explores how problematic or detrimental metaphors of the female body can be reimagined. Metaphors that compare the body to a machine or factory influence the ways in which women understand their bodies (e.g., its potentials and limits) and the decisions they make (e.g., in view of reproductive technologies, education, and careers). Feminist research has investigated and denounced the problematic sociocultural connotations of metaphor…
To Be Continued
This article explores the representation of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease in the television series The Good Wife and The Michael J. Fox Show. We suggest that serial narration offers intriguing ways to rethink the function and meaning of narratives in health contexts, and that the episodic narrative form of television series may afford insights into the structure of medical encounters. Specifically, we examine to what extent serial narratio…
The gains of reduction in translational processes
Translational processes in clinical contexts and literature studies are ubiquitous. This article first outlines three different models of translation, which describe how source text and target text relate to one another, namely as sameness, reduction, and production. The article makes a case for understanding translation as a relational ontology and focuses on the role of reduction in translational processes. Rather than condemning reduction a pr…
Thinking with Metaphors in Medicine
Metaphor in Illness Writing
Defends conventional and even problematic illness metaphors by emphasizing their varied usability Offers a more capacious understanding of metaphors by considering the varied, unpredictable, and surprising usability of metaphors Uses a doubled approach to metaphors that is grounded in metaphor theory and narrative theory in order to illustrate the nuanced and complex ways in which even problematic metaphors can be engaged with Identifies the dist…
So Typical! Philip Roth's Age Stereotypes
Stereotypes and clichés about older age typically evoke criticism and resistance. Rightly so, given that they simplify, overgeneralize, distort, and limit. This article treats stereotypes and clichés as forms that can indeed have powerful and harmful meanings; however, it claims that a focus on content may overlook some of the surprising and unpredictable affordances these forms can also have: stereotypes can help order experience, offer guidelin…
A Serious Joke About Memoir and Memory”
Introduction
This introduction lays out the basic claim of the special issue, namely that postcritical ideas of the uses of literature can fruitfully be applied to understanding (auto)biographical writing in new ways. It does so by relating this claim to the longstanding controversy concerning the role of the author in literary studies. The introduction also summarizes the articles in the special issue
Polarization and Literary Aesthetics
This article analyzes two conversion narratives on abortion to explore the role of cultural forms and literary aesthetics in representations of polarized topics.The first memoir, The Hand of God (1996/ 2013) by Bernard N. Nathanson (1926-2011), is the personal account of a medical doctor who was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) in the late 1960s and then became an outspoken anti-abortionist before h…
Dementia as a Critical Lens on the Role of Narrative in Medical Training and Practice
Narrative holds an important place within medicine and medical education, but an uncritical use of narrative can have troubling consequences for the care of patients who have limited or no capacity for self‐narration, such as those living with dementia. We argue that the guiding principles in the use of narrative within medicine and medical education must be inclusivity and opportunity. We illustrate how medical training can benefit from a more i…
A real old man
Abortion narratives in contemporary Denmark
The Danish welfare state provides safe, easily accessible abortions that are free of charge, and the majority of Danes support abortion rights. For these reasons, elective abortions are generally considered a non-issue. Despite this normalisation, the Danish public discourse on abortion is embedded in a culture of silence. This article analyses five Danish books, published between 2023 and 2025, which address this silence through autobiographical…
Th Anniversary of Age, Culture, Humanities
This year, Age, Culture, Humanities launched its 10th issue, and we want to use this momentous occasion to look back and forward.
Art (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Literature (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · History (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Empathy and Medical Education (5 works) · Aging and Gerontology Research (4 works) · Art history (4 works) · Medicine (4 works)