The Epistemic Status of Literary Memoirs in Philosophical Grief Research

Abstract Recently, research on grief has gained momentum in phenomenology and philosophy of mind. Grief, it is often assumed, is a temporally extended emotional experience of the irreversible, bereavement-induced loss of a significant person. On one interpretation, philosophical accounts frequently quote grief memoirs as if they were phenomenological evidence for the tenability of assumptions about the occurrence, structure, and unfolding of grief experiences. In this article, I argue that this observed research strategy is problematic. The reason is that it overlooks the epistemic status and artefactual configuration of grief memoirs. They are not phenomenological evidence of lived experiences, but carefully crafted and curated literary artefacts. As such, they explore and challenge the possibilities and limitations of autobiographical remembering, acts of remembrance, master narratives, and genre expectations. For this reason, grief memoirs are best understood as exemplars of literary griefworld technologies. The positive proposal is that the interdisciplinary investigation of grief memoirs could lead to new insights into the role of literary self-narrative practices for navigating and negotiating processes of grief.