The Transboundary Body : Illness Narrative, Intermediality, and Medical Technology
Arvidson, Mats LU
(2026)
- Abstract
- Narratives in Medicine: Human Dimensions in a Tech-Driven
Healthcare and Society
Mats Arvidson, Ph. D., Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, Lund University
The Transboundary Body: Illness Narrative, Intermediality, and Medical
Technology
This paper explores how contemporary treatment technologies reshape the possibilities of illness narrative across lived experience, philosophy, and film. Emerging partly from my own experience of medical treatment, the presentation brings together autoethnographic reflection, intermedial studies, and medical humanities through a case study of the philosophical and artistic dialogue between philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s brief essay book The Intruder (2024) and Claire... (More) - Narratives in Medicine: Human Dimensions in a Tech-Driven
Healthcare and Society
Mats Arvidson, Ph. D., Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, Lund University
The Transboundary Body: Illness Narrative, Intermediality, and Medical
Technology
This paper explores how contemporary treatment technologies reshape the possibilities of illness narrative across lived experience, philosophy, and film. Emerging partly from my own experience of medical treatment, the presentation brings together autoethnographic reflection, intermedial studies, and medical humanities through a case study of the philosophical and artistic dialogue between philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s brief essay book The Intruder (2024) and Claire Denis’s movie inspired by this book. Focusing on Nancy’s writings on transplantation and illness alongside Denis’ cinematic engagement with his work, I examine how illness experience moves between autobiographical testimony, philosophical reflection, and filmic reinterpretation. Denis’
work can be understood as an intermedial adoption of Nancy’s writing—one that transforms lived bodily experience into a sensory and fictional narrative form. Rather than approaching technology primarily as digital media or AI, the paper proposes an open understanding of technology through medical intervention itself: transplantation, treatment, and the clinical conditions that reshape embodiment, temporality, and narrative voice. These technologically mediated conditions produce what I call a transboundary body—a body negotiated between self and other, biology and technology, vulnerability and survival. The paper argues that contemporary illness narratives develop new aesthetic forms through these crossings between body, media, and medical technology.
Bio: Mats Arvidson is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Intermedial Studies. His research brings together narrative theory, intermediality, autoethnography, and medical humanities, with a particular interest in illness narratives, embodiment, and the aesthetic and narrative dimensions of medical experience. This paper is based on a project financed by the Erik Philip-Sörensen Foundation. (Less)
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- author
- Arvidson, Mats
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- in press
- keywords
- Jean-Luc Nancy, Claire Denis, Medical humanities, Intermedial Studies, Phenomenology, Jean-Luc Nancy, Claire Denis
- host publication
- Narratives in Medicine : Human Dimensions in a Tech-Driven Healthcare and Society - Human Dimensions in a Tech-Driven Healthcare and Society
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a00039a8-3e87-477f-92c3-91c7a38c3b19
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-22 14:44:36
- date last changed
- 2026-07-03 12:00:02
@inproceedings{a00039a8-3e87-477f-92c3-91c7a38c3b19,
abstract = {{Narratives in Medicine: Human Dimensions in a Tech-Driven<br/>Healthcare and Society<br/><br/>Mats Arvidson, Ph. D., Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, Lund University<br/>The Transboundary Body: Illness Narrative, Intermediality, and Medical<br/>Technology<br/><br/>This paper explores how contemporary treatment technologies reshape the possibilities of illness narrative across lived experience, philosophy, and film. Emerging partly from my own experience of medical treatment, the presentation brings together autoethnographic reflection, intermedial studies, and medical humanities through a case study of the philosophical and artistic dialogue between philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s brief essay book The Intruder (2024) and Claire Denis’s movie inspired by this book. Focusing on Nancy’s writings on transplantation and illness alongside Denis’ cinematic engagement with his work, I examine how illness experience moves between autobiographical testimony, philosophical reflection, and filmic reinterpretation. Denis’<br/>work can be understood as an intermedial adoption of Nancy’s writing—one that transforms lived bodily experience into a sensory and fictional narrative form. Rather than approaching technology primarily as digital media or AI, the paper proposes an open understanding of technology through medical intervention itself: transplantation, treatment, and the clinical conditions that reshape embodiment, temporality, and narrative voice. These technologically mediated conditions produce what I call a transboundary body—a body negotiated between self and other, biology and technology, vulnerability and survival. The paper argues that contemporary illness narratives develop new aesthetic forms through these crossings between body, media, and medical technology.<br/><br/>Bio: Mats Arvidson is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Intermedial Studies. His research brings together narrative theory, intermediality, autoethnography, and medical humanities, with a particular interest in illness narratives, embodiment, and the aesthetic and narrative dimensions of medical experience. This paper is based on a project financed by the Erik Philip-Sörensen Foundation.}},
author = {{Arvidson, Mats}},
booktitle = {{Narratives in Medicine : Human Dimensions in a Tech-Driven Healthcare and Society}},
keywords = {{Jean-Luc Nancy; Claire Denis; Medical humanities; Intermedial Studies; Phenomenology; Jean-Luc Nancy; Claire Denis}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{The Transboundary Body : Illness Narrative, Intermediality, and Medical Technology}},
year = {{2026}},
}