The "Self" in Crisis: A Study of Audre Lorde's <i>The Cancer Journals</i>

<p>In this thesis, I focus on The Cancer Journals and explore how Audre Lorde articulates the chaos followed by breast cancer in her life: what is the nature of the crises? What aspects of her life are largely affected by it? How it unsettles her understanding of time and place, how her daily life, work, relationships, and future plans get affected, and how her self-image and her agency and subjectivity are threatened. Relying on theories of women’s autobiographies, women’s writings, and illness narratives, I explore Lorde’s ways of writing about her body and emotions to regain her sense of self in confrontation with the crisis. I compare Lorde’s feminist breast cancer narrative with the standards promoted by the Pink Ribbon ideology and demonstrate the liberating power of the former. Lorde illustrates how the female body with breast cancer becomes the object of dominant oppressive ideologies and discourses surrounding the disease.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Master

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Women's and Gender Studies

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2025

Author dc:creator

• Salehkarimi, Golnaz

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Red Washburn

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Dana-Ain Davis

• Women's Studies
• Illness Narratives
• Women's Autobiographies
• agency
• subjectivity

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6232

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-7357