In the Shadow of No Memories? The Role of Dementia in Contemporary Aftermath Writing

The mechanisms of our metaphorical conceptualisation of dementia have been the subject of extensive scrutiny in recent research at the intersection of neuroscience, sociology and pathography studies. Foregrounding the “range of emotionally charged metaphors about dementia” that “pervades the popular imagination” (Zeilig 2014a, 258) in contemporary Western societies – from the media and political discourse to film and literature but also medico-scientific terminology – current work in this area has been aimed at sensitising us to the assumptions informing the cultural narratives we tell ourselves about this complex of disorders that remains empirically and medically beyond our full grasp. Particularly in the contact zone between dementia studies and gerontology, significant advances have been made in exploring how the interrelation between social construction and biomedical condition has coloured not only cultural images but also the clinical picture of dementia. In highlighting “the problematic consequences of popular discursive practices that associate dementia with disaster” (Zeilig 2014b, 88) and frame it “as a dread disease and major public health crisis” (Ballenger 2017, 716) in a society on the brink of being overwhelmed by the “apocalyptic demography” (Robertson 1990) of its growing older dependent population, these investigations are contributing in essential ways to an emerging trend in the theory of dementia care away from an emphasis on cognitive and mental deterioration and towards a more embodied approach to notions of subjectivity and personhood. And yet, running counter to this push for an embodied, decatastrophising approach, an apocalyptically heightened figurative use of dementia in popular culture not only persists but is apparently proliferating to the point where, two decades into the twenty-first century, dementia seems to have come to represent “the locus of and repository for all society’s fears” (Zeilig 2014b, 89). Accordingly, while investigations to date have concentrated primarily on the metaphors through which we evoke dementia, a secondary research focus on our invocation of dementia as metaphor is taking shape. The scope of the enquiry is expanding to take