Illness as Narrative

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American
Cover of the book Illness as Narrative by Ann Jurecic, University of Pittsburgh Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Ann Jurecic ISBN: 9780822977865
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press Publication: March 12, 2012
Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press Language: English
Author: Ann Jurecic
ISBN: 9780822977865
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication: March 12, 2012
Imprint: University of Pittsburgh Press
Language: English

For most of literary history, personal confessions about illness were considered too intimate to share publicly. By the mid-twentieth century, however, a series of events set the stage for the emergence of the illness narrative. The increase of chronic disease, the transformation of medicine into big business, the women’s health movement, the AIDS/HIV pandemic, the advent of inexpensive paperbacks, and the rise of self-publishing all contributed to the proliferation of narratives about encounters with medicine and mortality.
      While the illness narrative is now a staple of the publishing industry, the genre itself has posed a problem for literary studies. What is the role of criticism in relation to personal accounts of suffering? Can these narratives be judged on aesthetic grounds? Are they a collective expression of the lost intimacy of the patient-doctor relationship? Is their function thus instrumental—to elicit the reader’s empathy?
      To answer these questions, Ann Jurecic turns to major works on pain and suffering by Susan Sontag, Elaine Scarry, and Eve Sedgwick and reads these alongside illness narratives by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Reynolds Price, and Anne Fadiman, among others. In the process, she defines the subgenres of risk and pain narratives and explores a range of critical responses guided, alternately, by narrative empathy, the hermeneutics of suspicion, and the practice of reparative reading.
       Illness as Narrative seeks to draw wider attention to this form of life writing and to argue for new approaches to both literary criticism and teaching narrative. Jurecic calls for a practice that’s both compassionate and critical. She asks that we consider why writers compose stories of illness, how readers receive them, and how both use these narratives to make meaning of human fragility and mortality.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

For most of literary history, personal confessions about illness were considered too intimate to share publicly. By the mid-twentieth century, however, a series of events set the stage for the emergence of the illness narrative. The increase of chronic disease, the transformation of medicine into big business, the women’s health movement, the AIDS/HIV pandemic, the advent of inexpensive paperbacks, and the rise of self-publishing all contributed to the proliferation of narratives about encounters with medicine and mortality.
      While the illness narrative is now a staple of the publishing industry, the genre itself has posed a problem for literary studies. What is the role of criticism in relation to personal accounts of suffering? Can these narratives be judged on aesthetic grounds? Are they a collective expression of the lost intimacy of the patient-doctor relationship? Is their function thus instrumental—to elicit the reader’s empathy?
      To answer these questions, Ann Jurecic turns to major works on pain and suffering by Susan Sontag, Elaine Scarry, and Eve Sedgwick and reads these alongside illness narratives by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Reynolds Price, and Anne Fadiman, among others. In the process, she defines the subgenres of risk and pain narratives and explores a range of critical responses guided, alternately, by narrative empathy, the hermeneutics of suspicion, and the practice of reparative reading.
       Illness as Narrative seeks to draw wider attention to this form of life writing and to argue for new approaches to both literary criticism and teaching narrative. Jurecic calls for a practice that’s both compassionate and critical. She asks that we consider why writers compose stories of illness, how readers receive them, and how both use these narratives to make meaning of human fragility and mortality.

More books from University of Pittsburgh Press

Cover of the book Queen for a Day by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Paper Anniversary by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Toward a Civil Discourse by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Producing Good Citizens by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Let's All Die Happy by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics and the Average Men of Science, 1796-1874 by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Seeking the Greatest Good by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Fado and Other Stories by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book The Book of Life by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Bird Odyssey by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Primer by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Mister Rogers Neighborhood by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book New World Postcolonial by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Knowledge in Translation by Ann Jurecic
Cover of the book Art and Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba by Ann Jurecic
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy