In this soundbite, Alison Searle tells us about her article, published in our current issue, “Pain and its Paradoxes”. Searle’s article, “‘A Kind of Agonie in my Thoughts’: Writing Puritan and Non-Conformist Women’s Pain in 17th-Century England”, explores the ways in which pain transgresses the borders between the corporeal, the mental, and the spiritual, borders that were very much at stake in the religious beliefs and social organisations of Puritan and non-conformist communities during this period. Her paper draws on three case studies which use women’s writing and the writing of their communities to explore the ways in which pain was experienced, interpreted, and witnessed during this period by these marginalised religious groups.

Read the full article on the Medical Humanities Journal website.