Corpses in Clinical Space and the Preposterous Temporality of Pandemic Care

Articulations of the chasm between ideal and attainable forms of care surfacing throughout the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have highlighted the proliferation of unceremonious deaths associated with inequitable conditions. This paper reconsiders the preposterous temporality of pandemic care by following corpses in and out of clinical space. Written from the perspective of a MD/PhD student’s encounter with a corpse replacing the patient on the medicine ward prior to pandemic onset, this paper asks how corpses might interrupt narratives of clinical care. Sifting through Eugène Ionesco’s 1954 play “Amédée,” Édouard Glissant’s rejection of the tragic heroine, Achille Mbembe’s positing of viscerality as autopsy, and David Marriott’s theorization of blackness as corpsing among other engagements, I conceptualize how corpses might refigure clinical spaces as preposterous realms wherein distinctions between a before and after falter. Considering the continuities between an apparent before and after, I argue that the contemporary concerns punctuating the pandemic as a unique period in time might not be as contemporary as they first appear. Taking cues from literary analysis and fictional works, I engage the corpse as a figure that prompts a rethinking of what might constitute ideal as well as failed care. I argue that corpses in clinical space signal a critique of the ideal narrative arc, one that centers the medical provider as heroine/hero in the midst of tragedy. Turning to the corpse as an interruptive figure, I ask what this dominant narrative might ultimately demand of its cast of characters—protégé, provider, and patient.