African American Literature and the Critical Medical Humanities: Literary Precedence and Theoretical Lag as Exemplified in Toni Morrison’s Home

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to opening up a dialogue between African American literature and the field of the critical medical humanities. By so doing, the article highlights the value of African American literature as a contributor to the emergence of the critical medical humanities and an indispensable partner in the theorization about the racialization of medicine. We contend that African American literature’s interest in the intersection between medicine and race anticipates one of the most important tenets of the critical medical humanities. That anticipation is evident in such novels as Toni Morrison’s Home, in which Cee is exposed to the brutality of eugenic sterilization. We thus explore the way the novel—among other African American literary works—paves the way for engaging racialized medicine and unwittingly contributes to the rise of the critical medical humanities.