Lost Memories: Subjectivity and Temporality in Narratives of Cognitive Decline

Amnesiac Mild Cognitive Impairment, or MCI, is an underdiagnosed, debilitating memory-loss condition and frequent precursor to dementia that affects millions of people worldwide while remaining largely unfamiliar to the public, though early detection can slow progression (Mattke, et al). Yet, even as the field of MCI studies grows, the condition has rarely, if ever, been specifically addressed in literary works or examined in literary studies. This paper asks how experimentations with MCI might animate and offer new futures in literary fiction. Building upon scholarship by Lugea and the Queen’s University Dementia Fiction Project—which analysed the “mind styles” of cognitive impairment fiction—this talk extends their findings with a “mind style” analysis of amnesiac fiction, such as The Interrogation by J.M.G. Le Clezio, along with non-fictional diaries of real people with MCI. I then move towards a practice-oriented account of my own fiction writing, as I develop an emergent lexicon depicting the mindset of an MCI-afflicted character in my novel-in-progress. This talk reflexively narrates my methods of creating a fictional voice for the subjective terrain of cognitive impairment, demonstrating how that voice can negotiate the uncertain futures provoked by MCI as lived experience and challenge to representational modes and literary conventions.