Care and Vulnerability in Delphine de Vigan and Martin Winckler

If care studies is sometimes dismissed as maternal and essentialist, Tronto argues that care is political and her concept of ‘caring with’ or solidarity has broadened out care. Some recent critics like Martha Fineman have favoured instead a vulnerability model which Daniel Engster applies to care studies to look at ontological vulnerability as part of the human condition and consider the obligations of the state to provide adequate provision. This article applies a vulnerability studies lens to care in a comparative reading of fictional works by Delphine de Vigan and Martin Winckler. In an analysis of the undertheorized role of doctors in care studies, I argue that literary studies can advance debates which have hitherto mainly taken place in healthcare and the social sciences and expose failings in institutional care. Medical practices are a reflection of society, and the texts critique the uncaring face of neoliberalism, with Winckler proposing an alternative relational model of patient-centred care.