The Rhetorics of Recovery: an (E)Merging Theory for Disability Studies, Feminisms, and Mental Health Narratives
THE RHETORICS OF RECOVERY: AN (E)MERGING THEORY FOR DISABILITY STUDIES, FEMINISMS, AND MENTAL HEALTH NARRATIVES DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Wendy L. Chrisman, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2008 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Advisor Professor Nan Johnson _________________________ Professor Cynthia L. Selfe Adviser Graduate Program in English Copyright by Wendy L. Chrisman 2008 ABSTRACT My dissertation project explores different discursive spaces (memoirs, online magazines, local art galleries) in which women and men narrate their recoveries from various mental disorders. I argue that these narratives, and the discursive spaces in which they are told, are rhetorically strategic, and ultimately allow the authors agency within a broader climate of surveillance, oppression, and stigmatization. These writings resist, transgress, and at times, (re)construct the medical model of recovery and sociocultural expectations of people, particularly women, with disorders. Their narratives also complicate our current understandings of writing spaces, especially those coupled with the power of digital technology. Memoirs and online discursive spaces mark a shift in the voices of women with mental disorders, from persons oppressed by their illness, doctors, and society at large, to women challenging the medical model of mental illness, and ultimately creating their own models of recovery. These recovery narratives engage the medical model in interesting ways, such as by resisting it from within, as with those medical practitioners diagnosed with mental disorders themselves (Jamison, Slater) who write about their experiences in very public spaces (memoirs).
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