English
3154: Literature, Medicine, and Culture
Spring
2008 CRN 12667
MWF 11:15-12:05, Derring 1090
Professor
Bernice Hausman
Paper #2
For this assignment, take your story of an illness, or the encounter with the medical profession, and discuss its “human elements.” Ask yourself—what is the “lesson” that this story tells about medicine, illness, health, or doctors? How is the story linked to historical or cultural contexts? What are its meanings?
First you need your story. This is your first paper. Look at what you've written, and look at my comments. Then, interpret the story in relation to its lesson, its historical embeddedness, or its impact on your idea of medicine itself. This interpretation is paper #2.
As an example, my story would probably be about wearing a back brace while I was a teenager. In the story I would describe the process of being diagnosed with scoliosis, the trips to get my back x-rayed, the trips to the people who made the brace (whose shops smelled like leather and WD-40 and who also made corsets for elderly women), etc. The experience was one that mixed the high-tech world of spinal research and the older, more down-to-earth world of prosthesis-making. In my analysis, I would talk about what it was like to be a teenage girl in those worlds, and I’d discuss how medicine is in fact enacted in this world between the highly technological and the artisanal—the x-ray technicians and the men who cut leather. My interpretation would have something to do with the body as something that can only be manipulated so much by highly developed technology—at some point, in working on it, doctors have to touch the flesh and work on it, and it is at this point that the high technology meets the resistance and unpredictability of humanity.
Things to remember: many of you did some analysis in the first paper. You don't need to replicate that in this paper. Indeed, think about whether you want to change the way you think about the incident, person, or illness that you represented in your first paper. Some of you wrote about infectious diseases--you could write about current cultural obsessions with these, and how media reports seemed to affect your own personal experience. Some of you wrote about cancer--your own or others' experiences with that illness. What are cancer's meanings in contemporary American society? How does the experience of chemotherapy affect human relationships? What is the experience of chemotherapy like at a physical level--and how does that experience interact with the normative ways of being a person in contemporary America?
Remember also that you don't want to ennoble your subject, even if the person you wrote about seems extra good or saintly to you. This is an old tradition in writing about the ill, and often serves to obscure the more interesting elements of their personhood and their experience from readers. As an example, if the person you wrote about seems like the one who is the "glue" that held the family together, don't focus on their goodness but on what happens to families when an important person becomes ill. Or what happened to this specific family. Sometimes good things happen (everyone pulls together). But sometimes bad things happen, and social relations within families begin to fall apart. Knowing how to tell and interpret this kind of story is an important skill that may help you later on be able to understand your patients' stories of illness and the fallout of illness.
If you want to revise your first paper: read my comments and make sure that you understand the problems that I identified for revision. Most of the papers were very good. Since the paper was only worth 10% of your grade, it may not be worth your while to revise, so think clearly about this. But if you do want to revise, hand in both the revised and original version with paper #2.
Paper formatting:
4 pages, although if you want to go longer, you can. 7 pages should be your limit though (remember, I have to read 50 of these)
See formatting pages for info about font size, etc.
Handing in paper #2:
Hand the paper in on March 24, in class. Use a folder with two pockets. On one side put the original paper #1 and its revision, if you choose to revise paper #1. On the other side, put paper #2. Put your name on the outside of the folder. I promise to give it back.