‘Body horror,’ a subgenre devoted to corporeal transgressions, is undergoing a rebirth with films like Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024)—a cautionary tale challenging the beauty industry and the gendered double standards of ageing. This emerging biopolitical discourse concerned with body dysmorphia, loss of control, abjection, susceptibility to illness and mutation is not limited to film. From classics like Frankenstein to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the Grand Guignol ghastly extends its arms to the literary sphere with emerging works like Mona Awad’s Rouge or Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation. These works confront readers with uncomfortable questions: How far are we willing to go when it comes to altering the body? When does metamorphosis and evolution cross the border between human and non-human? And when does transformation become monstrous?

Engagement with the body and medicine extends well beyond the confines of the corporeal to transformative potentialities and complications of medicine. The field of medical humanities is particularly crucial in this era of unprecedented scientific potential. As medical innovations promise to alter human life in ways previously unimaginable, the humanities remind us of the ethical, cultural, and personal dimensions of healthcare. Rita Charon’s work in narrative medicine, for example, reveals the power of storytelling in healthcare, underlining the need for a patient-centred approach that sees individuals as whole beings, not merely diagnoses. Likewise, bibliotherapy harnesses the power of reading to promote emotional well-being and personal growth. Allan Peterkin explores how fiction and poetry can support psychological healing, while Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin prescribe fiction to address life’s ailments, using literature as a ‘curative balm’ to support mental and emotional well-being.

In this issue of FRAME, we invite scholars of literary studies and other related fields to engage with the topic of medicine and the body in literature. How does literature engage with questions regarding medicine and the body? How can literature reveal the unintended ‘side effects’ of medical progress? In what ways do they challenge or reinforce cultural understandings of health, illness, and the medical system? Themes and topics related to these questions might include, but are not limited to:

• Genetic engineering and the posthuman body 

• Care ethics and practices in medicine

• Mental health and therapy

• Disability studies

• Death and Dying: perspectives on mourning, loss and decay

• Non-Western and traditional medicine

• Literature as a tool for science communication

• Cruel health studies

• The grotesque and body dysmorphia

• Reproductive rights and bodily autonomy

• Marginalised bodies in medicinal knowledge (queer, disabled, racialised, female)

• Animal bodies in medicine                                                                             

• Sickness, othering and abjection 

• The use of pharmaceuticals in literature

• Reconstructing the body, and ideals of eternal youth

• Critical perspectives on healthcare policy

• Fictional futures of medicine

• Biopolitics and governmentality

• Metamorphosis and transformation

The above questions and concerns are only a few of the many themes that could be explored in the upcoming issue. However, we would like to stress that while FRAME encourages interdisciplinary and creative approaches, every submission should show a clear connection to literary studies, as we are a literary journal first and foremost.

If you are interested in writing for FRAME, please submit a brief abstract of max. 300 words, accompanied by a structured outline by 21 February 2025. Proposals should include a thesis statement, general structure, and a preliminary reflection on the argument’s theoretical framework. On the basis of all proposals, contributors whose proposals are accepted will be notified by 28 February 2025, and asked to submit a draft version of the paper by 2 May 2025. Be mindful that we hold the right to reject draft versions to ensure consistency and coherence across all contributions to the issue. 

The deadline for the article’s first full version is 13 June 2025, after which the editing and peer review process begins. Articles in our main section, which is reserved for scholars with a doctoral degree, have a word limit of 6000 words, including bibliography and footnotes. For our Masterclass section, graduate and PhD students are invited to write up to a maximum of 4000 words. Please feel free to contact us at info@frameliteraryjournal.com, should you have any questions. Proposals can also be submitted to this email address. More information about our journal, as well as our submission guidelines, can be found on our website: www.frameliteraryjournal.com

Works Cited

Awad, Mona. Rouge. Simon & Schuster, 2024.

Berthoud, Ella, and Susan Elderkin. The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You. 

Penguin, 2013.​​

Charon, Rita. Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Fargeat, Coralie, director. The Substance. Working Title Films, 2024.

Peterkin, Allan, and Smrita Grewal. “Bibliotherapy: The therapeutic use of fiction and poetry in mental health.” 

International Journal of Person Centered Medicine 7.3 (2018): 175.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text. Penguin, 2018.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Penguin Classics, 2012.

Vandermeer, Jeff. Annihilation. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.