This is the second presentation that I’m giving at #cwcon this year (part of m1, “disability ftw! activism, embodiment, and online communities”). Although this is new work for me in terms of conference presentations, cancer and cancer discourses are something that I think about, blog about, and for a long time was part of my family…… Continue reading #cwcon: Cancer Rhetoric
This post (maybe like all my posts) is a mix of things: personal history, reading summary, analytical musings of cancer and a society that perpetuates assumptions about women’s bodies. Yesterday, I picked up Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals for the first time, and I couldn’t put it down until I was finished. I was surprised…… Continue reading The Cancer Journals
I was able to take a trip down to WV this summer, and I love driving through the mountains on winding interstate roads, watching the fog roll slowly through the valleys—pale gray against the dark green trees. Fog is admittedly not the best of driving conditions, but it’s beautiful and haunting. When your brain feels…… Continue reading Rhetorics of Overcoming
The first thing I read this morning while in bed, covers pulled up to my neck, eyes squinting at my phone, was Angelina Jolie’s new op-ed that is taking the internet by storm: “My Medical Choice.” When Sharon Osbourne had preventative double mastectomy surgery last fall, I was amazed. I was teaching a course themed around…… Continue reading Preventative Mastectomies & Overcoming Rhetoric
It’s very easy as a graduate student to get completely swept up in what seem like very important things: reading, studying, lesson planning, writing. My birthday, however, is a reminder to pause. Even if I haven’t been thinking about my mom consciously, it surprises me each year that she’s not here on my birthday. Each…… Continue reading On Loss
My mother died on May 8, 2009—23 days before her 56th birthday, 9 days before I graduated from my undergraduate institution, and 2 days before Mother’s Day. There are few occasions where I find myself angry that my mother is dead. Guilty? Sad? Totally overwhelmed? Of course. Mother’s Day makes me angry. Like many holidays,…… Continue reading Mother’s Day Rhetoric
When I was in grade school, my mother was diagnosed with, and recovered from, breast cancer. Two weeks before my high school graduation, after experiencing abdominal pain for about 4 months and trying to convince her doctors that something was wrong, my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer. After four years of chemo,…… Continue reading Komen for the Cure & the Power of Rhetoric
