Katherine May’s Wintering and the Care of the Self
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12648648 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stella Bolaki (0000-0003-0915-1385, University of Kent, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 311-328 |
| Publication date | 2022-04-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Life Writing (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1448-4528 • E-ISSN: 1751-2964 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14484528.2022.2064729 |
| OpenAlex | W4224278242 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 12 |
This essay focuses on Katherine May’s Wintering (2020), a self-help memoir that uses winter as a metaphor to explore an emotional state akin to depression. I situate the text in relation to autobiographical/critical work that reclaims rest and the restorative power of nature in contemporary life, as well as in relation to Michel Foucault’s ethic of the care of the self. Comparing Wintering more directly to Ann Cvetkovich’s experiment with memoir in Depression: A Public Feeling (2012), I examine how both writers’ focus on affective experience and everyday practices intervenes in contemporary understandings of self-care, a concept with a radical history but ambivalent character. Drawing inspiration from nature and its intricate system of survival is at the heart of the poetic/pragmatic resourcefulness of May’s memoir. I claim that rather than being a self-indulgent luxury, the process of wintering encourages a more generous stance to the world. However, I also address the limitations of May’s universalising natural analogies. I conclude with some theoretical reflections on ‘suspicious’ and ‘reparative’ readings of Wintering that show the importance of maintaining the internal tension of self-care as both a potential tool of ideological oppression and a vital practice of freedom carrying ethical and political possibilities
Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Art · Epistemology · Feeling · Ideology · Literature · Memoir · Metaphor · Narrative · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Psychoanalysis · Relation (database · Self · Sociology · Autobiographical and Biographical Writing · Contemporary Cultural and Social Studies · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |