Overview

While breast cancer continues to affect the lives of millions, contemporary writers and artists have responded to the ravages of the disease in creative expression. Mary K. DeShazer’s book looks specifically at breast cancer memoirs and photographic narratives, a category she refers to as mammographies, signifying both the imaging technology by which most Western women discover they have this disease and the documentary imperatives that drive their written and visual accounts of it. Mammographies argues that breast cancer narratives of the past ten years differ from their predecessors in their bold address of previously neglected topics such as the link between cancer and environmental carcinogens, the ethics and efficacy of genetic testing and prophylactic mastectomy, and the shifting politics of prosthesis and reconstruction. Mammographies is distinctive among studies of contemporary illness narratives in its exclusive focus on breast cancer, its analysis of both memoirs and photographic texts, its attention to hybrid and collaborative narratives, and its emphasis on ecological, genetic, transnational, queer, and anti-pink discourses. DeShazer’s methodology—best characterized as literary critical, feminist, and interdisciplinary—includes detailed interpretation of the narrative strategies, thematic contours, and visual imagery of a wide range of contemporary breast cancer memoirs and photographic anthologies. The author explores the ways in which the narratives constitute a distinctive testimonial and memorial tradition, a claim supported by close readings and theoretical analysis that demonstrates how these narratives question hegemonic cultural discourses, empower reader-viewers as empathic witnesses, and provide communal sites for mourning, resisting, and remembering.

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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. Thespecific 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 --Cinzia Greco 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. <i>Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature</i>--Shelly A. Gregory Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature

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 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--Cinzia Greco Somatosphere (06/02/2014)

Author Information

Mary K. DeShazer is Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies, Wake Forest University.

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