Claire Jeantils, 2024–25 Bridging Fellow in the Narrative Practices Lab, writes:
On Thursday, September 9th, the International Narrative Neurology Network held its second online meeting. The network, co-founded in June by Dr Claire Jeantils (Narrative Practices Lab), Dr Rong Huang (Peking University), and Dr Benjamin Dalton (Lancaster University), is an international and cross-sector initiative exploring the intersections of narrative, neurology, and clinical practice. This second gathering invited members to reflect on a central question: What is Narrative Neurology?
Five participants shared their thoughts in a series of concise and thought-provoking presentations, each offering a unique lens through which to consider this emerging field.
The first presentation, by Dr Elspeth Jajdelska (University of Strathclyde), explored narrative and the episodic memory system (i.e. memory for personally experienced events), and discussed fiction processing and world simulations.
Dr Benjamin Dalton (Lancaster University) followed with a personal and lively storytelling presentation, linking his lived experience with tectal plate glioma (a type of brain tumour) to his academic work on Malabou’s philosophy of neuroplasticity (i.e the brain’s capacity to transform itself throughout life) that approaches this plasticity as a resource for freedom, creativity and social liberation.
Dr Paula Muhr (University of Zurich) presented her research on how patients navigate the contested diagnosis of functional seizures, situating the discussion within a broader historical medical context.
Dr Claire Jeantils introduced the concept of Narrative Epileptology, highlighting a specific application of narrative practices within the neurology sub-speciality.
Dr Caroline Giroux, MD (UC Davis), shared a powerful personal narrative of synesthesia, offering deep reflections on her experience and its implications for understanding perception and identity.
We opened the floor to members’ questions and reflections, which encouraged deeper and more critical thinking about the concept of translation – its various applications across our respective projects, and how we might build on this theme within the network.
We then turned our attention to the future, discussing our goals for the year ahead and the kinds of activities we aim to co-create within this growing community. Members discussed possible collaborations with the voluntary and community sector to expand our reach.
The turnout was fantastic, and the conversations were nothing short of inspiring. We left the session with a wealth of ideas for future meetings and a lot of optimism about the network’s potential to make significant contributions to medical practice.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended and contributed so meaningfully to the conversation. Our next meeting is scheduled for January. In the meantime, if you’re interested in becoming part of this growing community, please reach out to network lead Dr Claire Jeantils.
