Teratologies

Embodying our deepest fears, cancer is seen as a disease of society as well as of the individual, of the spirit as well as of the body. personality.Teratologiesis a distinctively feminist look at how cancer is imagined and experienced in contemporary society. Beginning with powerful personal accounts of her own illness, aw well as self-help manuals and patients' personal stories, Jackie Stacey explores changing beliefs about the causes and treatments of cancer in both biomedicine and its increasingly popular alternative counterparts. Using the case of cancer as a way of understanding some of the wider issues such as the feminist debates about the history of science, the place of consumer culture in health practices and the status of patients and of health professionals in postmodern society. Stacey reminds us that cancer is more than an illness--it is a cultural phenomenon.