Fractured Borders: Reading Women's Cancer LiteratureWomen have been writing about cancer for decades, but since the early 1990s, the body of literature on cancer has increased exponentially as growing numbers of women face the searing realities of the disease and give testimony to its ravages and revelations. Fractured Borders: Reading Women's Cancer Literature surveys a wide range of contemporary writing about breast, uterine, and ovarian cancer, including works by Marilyn Hacker, Margaret Edson, Carole Maso, Audre Lorde, Eve Sedgwick, Mahasweta Devi, Lucille Clifton, Alicia Ostriker, Jayne Anne Phillips, Terry Tempest Williams, and Jeanette Winterson, among many others. DeShazer's readings bring insights from body theory, performance theory, feminist literary criticism, French feminisms, and disability studies to bear on these works, shining new light on a literary subject that is engaging more and more writers. "An important and useful book that will appeal to people in a variety of fields and walks of life, including scholars, teachers, and anyone interested in this subject." --Suzanne Poirier, University of Illinois at Chicago "A book on a timely and important topic, wisely written beyond scholarly boundaries and crossing many theoretical and disciplinary lines." --Patricia Moran, University of California, Davis |
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Page 11
... fear about cancer to fossilize into yet another silence , nor rob me of whatever strength can lie at the core of this experience , openly acknowledged and exam- ined . -Audre Lorde , The Cancer Journals IN Illness as Metaphor ( 1977 ) ...
... fear about cancer to fossilize into yet another silence , nor rob me of whatever strength can lie at the core of this experience , openly acknowledged and exam- ined . -Audre Lorde , The Cancer Journals IN Illness as Metaphor ( 1977 ) ...
Page 42
... fear of death translates into the fear of Woman , who , for man , is death . She is constructed as the place of mystery , of not knowing , Freud's " dark continent , " as the site of silence but also of the horrifying void that " cas ...
... fear of death translates into the fear of Woman , who , for man , is death . She is constructed as the place of mystery , of not knowing , Freud's " dark continent , " as the site of silence but also of the horrifying void that " cas ...
Page 183
... fear ? This buoyancy ? This free sailing , all of a sudden ? A certain restlessness . What is this improbably , this unlikely lightness ? This fluency ? I am unbur- dened , dying , free . I think of those dancers and how hard they ...
... fear ? This buoyancy ? This free sailing , all of a sudden ? A certain restlessness . What is this improbably , this unlikely lightness ? This fluency ? I am unbur- dened , dying , free . I think of those dancers and how hard they ...
Contents
Women Cancer Writing I | 1 |
Embodying Cancer | 52 |
Resistance | 82 |
Copyright | |
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acknowledges African American agency amputated breast Ann's argues Audre Lorde autobiography Ava's bodily body breast cancer Cancer Journals cancer literature cancer narratives cancer patients carcinogens Carson chemotherapy claims Clifton confront critique cultural daughter death desire diagnosis discourse disease dying Ellen embodiment environmental erotic evokes experience explore feel female femininity feminism Feminist Theory foreground Garland Thomson gender healing ical illness Illness as Metaphor Isabel Jashoda Kate leaky lesbian literary lives Lorde Lorde's Louise Louise's lover lumpectomy Maso Maso's mastectomy memory metaphors metastasized Minot mother narrator narrator's novel nurse Ostriker ovarian cancer pain Picardie's poems poet poetry politics posthuman postmastectomy postmodern prosthesis prosthetic protagonists readers reconstruction representations resistance reveals romance romance novels Ruth Sandra Sandra Steingraber scar sexual Shildrick silence Silent Spring Sistahs Sontag Stacey Steingraber surgery Susan texts themes tion tives trauma treatment tropes Vivian Winterson woman women's cancer writing York Zodiac Killer