Language, Politics, and the Culture of Illness

Delving into the controversial relationship between illness and art, philosophy and politics.

TREATMENTS: Language, Politics, and the Culture of Illness
Lisa Diedrich
University of Minnesota Press | 288 pages | 2007
ISBN 978-0-8166-4697-5 | hardcover | $67.50
ISBN 978-0-8166-4698-2 | paperback | $22.50

Lisa Diedrich considers illness narratives, demonstrating that these texts not only recount symptoms but also describe illness as an event that reflects wider cultural contexts, including race, gender, class, and sexuality. Looking at narratives including Susan Sontag’s Illness As Metaphor, Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “White Glasses,” Diedrich demonstrates how language both captures and fails to capture these “scenes of loss”.

“This powerful and illuminating study examines the myriad stories of illness that increasingly shape modern understandings of disease and suffering. In the compelling vision of Treatments, illness is no longer what patients have; it is also what they do.” —Paula Treichler

“Treatments makes an important and relevant contribution in the cultural contextualization of illness narratives. It will add to the ongoing debate about the worth and place of illness narratives in medicine and social science research.” —Alan Radley

For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/D/diedrich_treatments.html

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