Introduction:
Depression and Gender in the Age of Self-Care
1 Depression, a Rhetorical Illness
2 Articulate Depression
3 Strategic Imprecision and the Self-Doctoring Drive
4 Isolating Words
5 Telling Stories of Depression
6 Diagnostic Genres and the Reconfiguring of Medical
Expertise
Conclusion: Toward a Rhetorical Care of the Self
Subtitle: Depression
and Gender in the Age of Self-Care Author:
Kimberly K. Emmons Subject:Gender Studies,Health
and Medicine Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4720-6 Pages:
232 pages Publication Date: March 2010
Praise:
"Black
Dogs and Blue Words is written in an accessible, clear style
that will appeal to both experts and non-experts alike. In the
field of rhetoric, this book is a major addition that aims to open up
the gendered behaviors of depression in person/patient care.
Emmons's text crosses disciplines in a way that is comprehensible to a
wide audience."-Barbara Heifferon, professor, Department of English,
Rochester Institute of Technology
"Emmons writes insightfully about depression's gendered quality and the
popular inclination to 'self-doctoring.' With her notion of 'rhetorical
care of the self,' she offers a novel way of responding to the
experience known as depression."-Judy Z. Segal, author of Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine
[2005, Southern Illinois UP]
"Emmons' book offers a useful and illuminating contribution to the study of depression that will be of interest to sociologists."-Charles M. Anderson, executive editor, Sociology of Health and Illness
"Through finely nuanced rhetorical analysis, Emmons reveals and
dissects the mechanisms and social performances by which women
suffering from depression are identified, constrained, and constructed
by their physicians, their drug companies, the media, and even by
women’s own discourses. To the medical humanities community, Black Dogs
and Blue Words provides a remarkable set of tools for examining the
discursive practices of medicine and of medical humanities itself, and
to sufferers of depression, Emmons’ swork may provide considerable
relief."-Charles M. Anderson, executive editor, Literature and Medicine
"In
Black Dogs and Blue Words, Kimberly Emmons beautifully
articulates how depression is a nuanced form of communication that
calls upon a host of cultural metaphors, tropes, stories, and genres.
Brilliantly argued and clearly written, this book pushes understandings
of mental illness and its discontents into exciting new terrain. It is
required reading for anyone interested in understanding our minds, our
selves, and the ways we communicate with others."-Jonathan Metzl,
author of The Protest Psychosis
Description:
His “black dog”—that was how Winston
Churchill referred to his own depression. Today, individuals with
feelings of sadness and irritability are encouraged to “talk to your
doctor.” These have become buzz words in the aggressive promotion of
wonder-drug cures since 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration
changed its guidelines for the marketing of prescription
pharmaceuticals.
Black Dogs
and Blue Words analyzes the rhetoric surrounding depression.
Kimberly K. Emmons maintains that the techniques and language of
depression marketing strategies—vague words such as “worry,”
“irritability,” and “loss of interest”—target women and young girls and
encourage self-diagnosis and self-medication. Further, depression
narratives and other texts encode a series of gendered messages about
health and illness.
As depression and other forms of mental illness move from the
medical-professional sphere into that of the consumer-public, the
boundary at which distress becomes disease grows ever more
encompassing, the need for remediation and treatment increasingly
warranted. Black Dogs and Blue Words
demonstrates the need for rhetorical reading strategies as one response
to these expanding and gendered illness definitions.
About the Author:
KIMBERLY K. EMMONS is an associate professor of English and
director of composition at Case Western Reserve University. She has
contributed to medical rhetoric collections and writing journals.
