Chekhov’s Ethical Heritage in the Contemporary American Medical Humanities

• Published in: Studia Litterarum
• Main Author: Eugenyia M. Butenina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French; Russian
• Published: A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2017
• Subjects: A. Chekhov; ethics; medical humanities; LitMed; J. McConkey; W. Percy; Literature (General); PN1-6790; Percy; Sakhalin
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2017-2-4-146-155; https://doaj.org/article/1ac98722764c4bd98f64edd8afe3e461

The paper discusses Chekhovian ethical discourse in American fiction and non-fiction that forms part of an emerging literary canon of medical humanities in the USA. Besides Chekhov’s “medical” stories, special attention is given to his book Sakhalin Island seen as an object of “moral cartography.” The analysis of contemporary medical humanities in the USA shows that Chekhov’s ethical heritage has entered this field at several levels. One is teaching “medical” stories and Sakhalin Island as part of the future doctors’ ethical education. The other is expanding the literary-medical context by including these texts in comparative studies and anthologies. Finally, there is the overall level of developing the method of literary “diagnostic” bearing on Chekhov’s ethical heritage that is important for the study of both fiction and non-fiction authored by doctors-writers.