46-3115 Dis-ease in American Culture

Individuals with chronic illness suffer a double burden: they must cope with disabling disorders and also contend with the stigmas affiliated with those disorders. The radical subjectivity of pain destroys language, the primary tool necessary in self-care and in combating the propagation by the media and medical community of socially-constructed myths and interpretations of chronic illness and pain. Ironically, through the metaphors and symbols of creative acts the voices of the ill are heard in new ways. A new language is evolving that can provide insight into the Culture of Illness and Pain.

3 Credits
SS
Requisites PREREQUISITES: 46-2100 Cultural Theories