Bodies in a broken world : women novelists of color and the politics of medicine / Ann Folwell Stanford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stanford, Ann Folwell.

Series:

Studies in social medicine.

Studies in social medicine

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Medicine in literature.

Women and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Women and literature.

American fiction--Minority authors--History and criticism.

American fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.

Ethnic groups in literature.

Human body in literature.

Minorities in literature.

Sick in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (282 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this multidisciplinary study, Ann Folwell Stanford reads literature written by U.S. women of color to propose a rethinking of modern medical practice, arguing that personal health and social justice are inextricably linked. Drawing on feminist ethics to explore the work of eleven novelists, Stanford challenges medicine to position itself more deeply within the communities it serves, especially the poor and marginalized. However, she also argues that medicine must recognize its limits and join forces with the nonmedical community in the struggle for social justice. In literary representations of physical and emotional states of illness and health, Stanford identifies issues related to public health, medical ethics, institutionalized racism, women's health, domestic abuse, and social justice that are important to discussions about how to improve health and health care. She argues that in either direct or indirect ways, the eleven novelists considered here push us to see health not only as an individual condition but also as a complex network of individual, institutional, and social changes in which wellness can be a possibility for the majority rather than a privileged few. The novelists whose works are discussed are Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, Leslie Marmon Silko, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Sandra Cisneros, Bebe Moore Campbell, Sapphire, Ana Castillo, and Octavia Butler.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Notes

1. Wasted Blood and Rage: Social Pathologies and the Limits of Medicine in Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters, Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, and Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place

2. All We Have to Fight Off Illness and Death: Leslie Marmon Silko's Vision of the Restor(y)ed Community in Ceremony

3. Death Is a Skipped Meal Compared to This: Rememory and the Body in Toni Morrison's Beloved

4. Saving You the Doctor's Way Would Kill You: Seeing and the Racial Body in Louise Erdrich's Tracks and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

5. It Tried to Take My Tongue: Domestic Violence, Healing, and Voice in Sandra Cisneros's ''Woman Hollering Creek,'' Bebe Moore Campbell's Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, and Sapphire's Push

6. There Was Much Left Unexplained: Narrative Complications and Technological Limitations in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day and Ana Castillo's So Far from God

7. Human Debris: Border Politics, Body Parts, and Anatomies of Medicine in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead

8. A Dream of Communitas: Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents and Roads to the Possible

Coda: Trenchant Hope

Bibliography

Index

A-C

D-F

G-K

M-P

R-S

T-Z.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-260) and index.

ISBN:

9798890868268

9780807854808

0807854808

OCLC:

56356684