Health, Illness and Culture: Broken Narratives

Recognizing the existence of the subculture of disability is an important part of an interdisciplinary field reborn in the 1980s. These ten essays cover some of the most dynamic ranges of study and largely work within the societal model, although some touch on appropriation of disability and the medical model. They begin with a consideration of the passage from the retold narrative about wellness and not-wellness to the performed story, then comment about dialog on trauma, the importance of broken and vicarious voices in narrative, the instance of neurotrauma and the associated response to catastrophe, the stories that do not end in a return to "normalcy," silence and talk about HIV, narratives of death by survivors and mourners, the case of contested illness and the traditional fight against the medical, the narratives compelled by emotions behind breaking up, and the strange promise of dementia. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lars-Christer Hyden is Professor of Health Communication at Linkoping University, Sweden. His main focus is on the role of narrative in the cultural interplay of illness and health.

Jens Brockmeier, a Senior Researcher at Free University Berlin, Germany, is a Visiting Professor in the Psychology Department of the University of Manitoba, Canada, and at the Center for Narrative Research of the University of East London's School of Social Science, Media, and Cultural Science.