Avrahami investigates an array of autobiographical testimonies of terminal illness ranging from Harold Brodkey’s poignant account of his struggle with AIDS to Hannah Wilke’s and Jo Spence’s gripping self-portraits of cancer. By challenging the artificial and contrived skepticism that critics and theorists bring to their concepts of the self, the author argues, these illness narratives constitute an "invasion of the real," confronting the notions of self-representation and self-invention on which current autobiographical studies are based.
The author’s examinations of these moving memoirs and photographs will engage not only the growing field of disability studies, but also a more general readership interested in the transition that occurs when one’s body suddenly falls out of step with one’s mind.
Avrahami investigates an array of autobiographical testimonies of terminal illness ranging from Harold Brodkey’s poignant account of his struggle with AIDS to Hannah Wilke’s and Jo Spence’s gripping self-portraits of cancer. By challenging the artificial and contrived skepticism that critics and theorists bring to their concepts of the self, the author argues, these illness narratives constitute an "invasion of the real," confronting the notions of self-representation and self-invention on which current autobiographical studies are based.
The author’s examinations of these moving memoirs and photographs will engage not only the growing field of disability studies, but also a more general readership interested in the transition that occurs when one’s body suddenly falls out of step with one’s mind.
![The Invading Body: Reading Illness Autobiographies](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.11.4)
The Invading Body: Reading Illness Autobiographies
224![The Invading Body: Reading Illness Autobiographies](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.11.4)
The Invading Body: Reading Illness Autobiographies
224Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780813926650 |
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Publisher: | University of Virginia Press |
Publication date: | 11/22/2007 |
Pages: | 224 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |