In early 2021, our team will host a series of reading groups, whose participants will read and discuss extracts from the fiction, all of which depict a character with dementia.
The aims is to discover if the features identified in our mind style analysis are significant for readers, and to understanding if – and how – literary representations can facilitate understanding of the dementia experience.
The series of 6 sessions will run separately for four different groups:
- people living with dementia
- caregivers
- trainee social workers
- general public
“…our enjoyment of fiction is predicated – at least in part – upon our awareness of our ‘trying-on’ mental states potentially available to us but at a given moment differing to our own.”
Lisa Zunshine, Why we read fiction: Theory of mind and the novel (OSH, 2006)
The Information Sheet for potential participants in the reading groups can be downloaded from here:
We have also compiled a list of Sources of Support, which may be useful to those affected by any of the issues raised in our reading groups:
Participants in our reading groups are invited to read the following to understand how they will be run: