Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2025
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program
Women's and Gender Studies
Advisor
Red Washburn
Committee Members
Dana-Ain Davis
Subject Categories
Women's Studies
Keywords
Illness Narratives, Women's Autobiographies, agency, subjectivity
Abstract
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.
Recommended Citation
Salehkarimi, Golnaz, "The "Self" in Crisis: A Study of Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals" (2025). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6232
