Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison: Transforming Breast Cancer Stories Into ActionRutgers University Press, 2004 - 197 pages Depending on one's vantage point, breast cancer can be a very different experience, and indeed, a very different concern. It is, for some, a personal struggle; for others, it is a disease posing scientific and environmental challenges; and for others it is a highly charged and politicized issue around which policy wars rage. Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison brings a unique perspective to breast cancer by recognizing the overlapping relationship of all these realities. Drawing on the writings of Rachel Carson, Betty Ford, Rose Kushner, and Audre Lorde, this book explores the various ways in which patient-centered texts continue to leave their mark on the political realm of breast cancer and, ultimately, the disease itself. Ordered chronologically, the selections trace the progression of discussions about breast cancer from a time when the subject was kept private and silent to when it became part of public discourse. The texts included are personal accounts, written by women struggling to play an active role in their healing process and, at the same time, hoping to help others do the same. Knopf-Newman also shows us how these writings eventually changed public opinion and the underlying tendency to blame women for their illness. She argues that changes in medical practice and public policy are linked to textual interventions, and makes a case for the politicization of cultural studies of disease through personal and literary expression. Passionately written and well-researched, Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison transforms how we think about breast cancer. Rather than facilitating forums for separate discussions, this book brings conversations into dialog with each other. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with breast cancer and its history, as well as for those interested in the effect of the environment on public health and the role that literature plays in public policy and medicine. |
From inside the book
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... patients ' writings , American . I. Title . RC280.B8K58 2004 362.196'99449′0092273 - dc22 2004000298 British Cataloging - in - Publication information for this book is available from the British Library . Copyright © 2004 by Marcy Jane ...
... patient chemotherapy . Then , after admitting her into the hospital , the doctors extracted her bone marrow and harvested it ; infused her with the experimental biological GM - CSF ( granulocyte macrophage - colony stimulating factor ) ...
... patient accounts of a mastectomy . Although most women with breast cancer in the early nineteenth century discovered their illness after the lump became visible , Burney discovered hers when she felt a small , painful swelling in her ...
... patients who face a diag- nosis of breast cancer turn to memoirs for advice , catharsis , and commis- eration . SILENT SURGERY ? Because Burney wrote so boldly about her breast cancer almost two hundred years ago , it may seem that she ...
... patients when he authored two pivotal books : Cancer and Common Sense ( 1955 ) and , after he retired , What Women Should Know about the Breast Cancer Controversy ( 1973 ) . Both were unique in medical history because he wrote for lay ...
Contents
Miss Carson Goes to Washington Rachel Carsons Public Silence | 27 |
Media Medical Interventions Betty Fords Publicity Pedagogy | 58 |
Rose Kushner versus the Medical Establishment Defending a Womans Right to Choose | 86 |
Toward Truth and Reconciliation Audre Lordes Revision of Breast Cancer Narratives | 109 |
Taking Action | 145 |
Notes | 157 |
175 | |
187 | |
Other editions - View all
Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison: Transforming Breast Cancer Stories Into Action Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman No preview available - 2004 |