Metagnosis: Revelatory Narratives of Health and Identity / Edition 1

by Danielle Spencer

Overview

Bridging memoir with key concepts in narratology, philosophy and history of medicine, and disability studies, this book identifies and names the phenomenon of metagnosis: the experience of learning in adulthood of a longstanding condition. It can occur when the condition has remained undetected (e.g. colorblindness) and/or when the diagnostic categories themselves have shifted (e.g. ADHD). More broadly, it can occur with unexpected revelations bearing upon selfhood, such as surprising genetic test results. Though this phenomenon has received relatively scant attention, learning of an unknown condition is often a significant and bewildering revelation, one that subverts narrative expectations and customary categories. How do we understand these revelations? In addressing this topic Danielle Spencer approaches narrative medicine as a robust research methodology comprising interdisciplinarity, narrative attentiveness, and the creation of writerly texts.

Beginning with Spencer's own experience, the book explores the issues raised by metagnosis, from communicability to narrative intelligibility to different ways of seeing. Next, it traces the distinctive metagnostic narrative arc through the stages of recognition, subversion, and renegotiation, discussing this trajectory in light of a range of metagnostic experiences-from Blade Runner to real-world mid-life diagnoses. Finally, it situates metagnosis in relation to genetic revelations and the broader discourses concerning identity. Spencer proposes that better understanding metagnosis will not simply aid those directly affected, but will serve as a bellwether for how we will all navigate advancing biomedical and genomic knowledge, and how we may fruitfully interrogate the very notion of identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197510766
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/11/2020
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 5.80(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Danielle Spencer, Ph.D. is a faculty member of the Columbia University Narrative Medicine Program. Co-author of Perkins-Prize-winning The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2017), her scholarly and creative work appears in diverse outlets from The Lancet to Ploughshares. Formerly David Byrne's Art Director, Spencer holds a B.A. from Yale University, an M.S. in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, a Ph.D. from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and is a 2019 MacDowell Fellow.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: Metagnosis
Chapter 1: Diagnosis
Chapter 2: Treatment

Part II: Sight
Chapter 3: Flatsight
Chapter 4: Halfsight
Chapter 5: Blindsight

Part III: Seeing Metagnosis
Chapter 6: Recognition
Chapter 7: Subversion
Chapter 8: Renegotiation

Part IV: Looking Forward
Chapter 9: Metagnostic Narratives
Chapter 10: Freedom

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Metagnosis has an intellectual sophistication that gives health humanities increased credibility by commanding a broad readership. Spencer moves beyond programmatic writing proclaiming the need for health humanities; she demonstrates what can be done in this new field. Her full length, intricately integrated book shows specifically medical issues as one aspect of how society is based on a distribution of knowledges that, by categorizing identities, affect who people think they are and who they believe they can be." — Arthur W. Frank, University of Calgary, Journal of Medical Humanities

"Danielle Spencer's Metagnosis: Revelatory Narratives of Health and Identity is a landmark and deeply imaginative contribution to work at the interfaces of biomedicine, psychiatry, humanities, literatures, popular culture, cultural studies, disability studies, memoir, and personal narrative. It fills an important niche in the interdisciplinary domains of health humanities, medical humanities, and narrative medicine and is a welcome contribution to these fields." — Bradley Lewis, Literature and Medicine

From the Publisher