Att gestalta sjukdom

Grafiska självbiografier om cancer

Abstract

Re-presenting Illness: Cancer in Graphic Pathographies

In this article, the aim is to analyze how the often low-valued comic media is used to re-present experiences of serious illness, more specifically cancer. The article is situated in the field of medical humanities, and especially in the field of graphic medicine. Mainly, it focuses on the strategies to depict the cancer experience in two recent graphic pathographies of breast cancer, published in North America: Teva Harrison’s In-Between Days: A Memoir About Living with Cancer (2016), and Jennifer Hayden’s The Story of My Tits (2015). In addition to investigating how the cancer experience in itself is depicted in text and images, the article highlights the ways these artists engage in a dialogue with cultural notions of cancer in general, and in particular, breast cancer.