Difference and identity : a special issue of Literature and medicine

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Difference and identity : a special issue of Literature and medicine

edited by Jonathan M. Metzl and Suzanne Poirier

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005

  • : pbk

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Difference & identity

Available at  / 3 libraries

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Includes bibliographical references

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In an increasingly diverse society, it is essential that medicine be aware of matters of difference. Medical humanities programs promote awareness of the social aspects of medicine, and the Association of American Medical Colleges has recently instituted cultural competencies for clinical interaction for the training of medical students. Yet these efforts to impart understanding of the cross-cultural aspects of medicine are still hindered by a significant limitation: within a medical system whose currency is diagnosis, difference is primarily defined through disease. This special issue of Literature and Medicine focuses on difference and identity in the context of disease and disability. The articles collected here explore the complex ways in which notions of disease, disability, and difference are related and in which bodies marked by gender, race, disability, sexuality, and ethnic identities experience disease in specific ways. The essays take a humanities-based approach to the subject and emphasize an awareness and sensitivity to difference through forms of symbolic representation such as metaphor and narrative. This volume provides a heuristic lens through which relationships between individual expressions of identity and communal experiences of difference can be considered. Each article speaks to the process whereby individual stories and strategies shape, and are in turn shaped by, the institutions they seek to transform. Literature and Medicine is devoted to exploring interfaces between literary and medical knowledge and understanding. The journal showcases the creative and critical work of renowned physician-writers, leading literary scholars, and medical humanists.

Table of Contents

Preface: Difference and Identity in Medicine Part I: Dis-Ability Chapter 1. Disability as Masquerade Chapter 2. Meditation, Disability, and Identity Chapter 3. Fat as Disability: The Case of the Jews Chapter 4. Response to Section I: Dis-ability Part II: Dis-Sexuality Chapter 5. Where the Girls Are: The Management of Venereal Disease by United States Military Forces in Vietnam Chapter 6. Bug Chasing, Barebacking, and the Risks of Care Chapter 7. "Without us all told": Paul Monette's Vigilant Witnessing to the AIDS Crisis Chapter 8. Response to Section II: Dis-sexuality: Sexuality and Dis-Sexuality in the International Regime of Human Rights Part III: Dis-Embodiment Chapter 9. Memento Morbi: Lam Qua's Paintings, Peter Parker's Patients Chapter 10. Loss and the Persistence of Memory: "The Case of George Dedlow" and Disabled Civil War Veterans Chapter 11. Extrapolating Race in GATTACA: Genetic Passing, Identity, and the Science of Race Chapter 12. Response to Section III: Dis-embodiment Contributors

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