Illness in the Academy: A Collection of Pathographies by Academics » (New Edition)

Kimberly Myers is an Associate Professor of English and Medical Humanities at Montana State University, where she teaches British and Irish literature and specialty courses. Myers has won numerous awards for university teaching.

Illness in the Academy investigates the deep-seated, widespread belief among academics and medical professionals that lived experiences outside the workplace should not be sacrificed to the ideal of objectivity those academic and medical professions so highly value. The 47 selections in this collection illuminate how academics bring their intellectual and creative tools, skills, and perspectives to bear on experiences of illness. The selections cross genres as well as bridge disciplines and cultures.

Foreword   Anne Hunsaker Hawkins     xi
Acknowledgments     xiii
Introduction   Kimberly R. Myers     1
Brancardier   Seamus Heaney     11
Illness and Identity: Dynamics of Self and Family     13
Well Children, Sick Parents
Manzanita   Sharon D. King     15
Some Questions to Consider   Patricia O'Hara     26
The Book of Ruth: A Pelvic Space   Ellin Ronee Pollachek     34
Breast Disease and Screening: My Mother's Story, My Story   Moya Lynn Alfonso     47
Ill Children, Spouses, and Extended Family
Unintended Research: A Sociologist's Experience with Illness and Death   Michael Rowe     55
Luck or Miracle: My Battle with Cancer   Michael J. Meyer     67
Over and Under and Back from Whence You Came   Michael Verde     73
Dual Identity: Family Member / Healthcare Professional
Reflections of a Chaplain and a Daughter   Tami L. Higdon     90
Stay of Execution   Susanna Black     101
Concealing Illness, Performing Health     109
Passing, The Closet, and Coming Out
Coming Out with My Academic Depression   Barbara J. Jago     110
Invisible Disorder:Passing as an Academic   Hilary Clark     123
The Manic-Depressive Professor   Rebecca Hogan     131
Sexuality, Body Image and Gender
The First Girl to Land on the Moon   Barbara J. Campbell     137
A Certain Remoteness: Telling Vaginismus   Fulvia Dunham     147
Breast Art   Lisa Katz     158
Agency and Advocacy     163
Invalids Rendered Invalid
When Pain Is the Other Dancer: Living with Migraine   Althea E. Rhodes     165
Pain in the Neck   Susannah B. Mintz     171
My Father's Illness: A Case Study in Ageism   Henry Abramovitch     179
The Prolapse   Rae Luckie     189
On Falling Up   Evelyn Scott     198
Double Trouble   Richard A. Ingram     209
Self-Advocacy and Political Activism
Climbing Mountains   Michael Edmond Donnelly     220
A Calculus of Advocacy: A Patient, Positionality, and Chronic Illness   Jane E. Schultz     226
White Coat Syndrome   Rebecca A. Pope     254
AIDS in Academe: A Story of Silence, Struggle and Success   Chris Bell     263
Disabled Identity in Academia   Christopher R. Smit      271
Language and Healing
Losing My Dirty Mind   Andrea T. Wagner     280
Making the Impossible Possible: Imagining Alternative Experiences of Pain   Elena Levy-Navarro     288
Of Blood and Guts   Kimberly R. Myers     297
Scheherazade Syndrome: Illness and Storytelling   Kristin Lindgren     308
The Treatment   Roxana Robinson     321
Panic   Ellen Samuels     330
Medicine at the Margins     337
The Indeterminacy of Illness
"Speak, Mild Fran": Panic Disorder and My Perverse Devotion to a Life of Public Speaking   Bonnie Blackwell     339
DSM-IV 300.30   Mikita Brottman     347
Mirror Image   Emma Burns     356
Liminal Spaces: Race, Ethnicity and Culture
A Brief Portrait of an Autistic as a Young Man   Ruth Elizabeth Burks     364
Her Reckoning: A Young Interdisciplinary Academic Dissects the Exact Nature of Her Disease   Wendy Marie Thompson     373
The Interstices of Illness: The Elasticity of Diagnostic Time   Tracy Curtis     381
More Than a Case   Ting Man Tsao     392
Medical Magic and Medicinal Cure: Manipulating Meanings of Disease   Laurence Marshall Carucci      402
Time Made Strange
Seeing Mt. Fuji   Maggie Griffin Taylor     414
Being Ill / Being Well: Reflections on an Illness   Susan Dick     421
Bone Scan / On the Lake   Ellen Goldsmith     436
Shaman   Lynda Hall     438
32 y/o Single Female with Stage IV Breast Cancer   Laurie Rosenblatt(   Juanita Jones)     444
Epilogue: Seasons   Abraham Verghese     451
Contributors     453
Index of Illnesses     467