Mammographies: The Cultural Discourses of Breast Cancer Narratives - Tapa dura

"Mary DeShazer applies a semiotic analysis with a feminist perspective to different media - texts, images, blogs, graphic works - achieving two important results. On one hand DeShazer's work presents some of the most significant narratives (textual and visual) of breast cancer - narratives that aim to extend the range of topics and approaches usually present in discourses about breast cancer. On the other, DeShazer's detailed analysis offers important elements to understanding both these narratives and the cultural context in which they were produced. The specific analyses presented in the book are constantly compared to previous narratives, anchoring the discussion in the past and allowing the reader to identify continuities and innovations in the way in which cancer is framed in cultural discourse. Mammographies is an important text for readers interested in illness narratives and textual and literary analysis." --Somatosphere-- (06/02/2014) "DeShazer is a courageous, tenacious writer who dares to map the progress of breast cancer studies for the first time, in all of its flaws and ugliness, and in all of its beauty and eloquence." --Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature--Shelly A. Gregory "Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature "

This book's compelling subject is the narratives of contemporary writers and artists who probe the ravages of breast cancer. Mary K. DeShazer's focus is on memoirs and photographic narratives of breast cancer, a category she calls mammographies to signify both the imaging technology by which most Western women discover they have thisdisease and the documentary imperatives that drive their written and visual accounts of it. Mammographies argues that contemporary breast cancer narratives differ from their predecessors in noteworthy ways, addressing neglected topics such as the links between cancer and environmental carcinogens, the ethics and efficacy of genetic testing and prophylactic mastectomy, and the shifting politics of prosthesis and reconstruction. DeShazer explores the ways in which the narratives constitute a distinctive testimonial and memorial tradition, a claim supported by close readings and theoretical analysis that demonstrate how these narratives question hegemonic cultural discourses, empower reader-viewers as empathic witnesses, and provide communal sites for mourning, resisting, and remembering.