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Pain studies / Lisa Olstein.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Bellevue Literary Press, 2020Edition: First editionDescription: 191 pages ; 19 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781942658689
  • 1942658680
Subject(s): Summary: "Pain Studies is a book-length lyric essay at the intersection of pain, perception, and language. Through the prism of migraine, Pain Studies episodically and idiosyncratically explores personal, cultural, medical, and literary histories of pain--how we experience, express, treat, and mistreat it--and undertakes extended engagements with a range of sources including the trial testimony of Joan of Arc, the television show House, M.D., rhetorical attributes of pre-Socratic philosophy and mathematical proofs, essays by Virginia Woolf and Elaine Scar[r]y, and the perception-based work of artists Donald Judd and James Turrell. Written from and into its own urgencies of both form and content, it is in conversation with recent books by Maggie Nelson, Eula Biss, Sarah Manguso, and Leslie Jamison, among others." -- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 616.0472 O52 Available 33111009597036
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A fascinating, totally seductive read!" -- Eula Biss , author of Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays and On Immunity: An Inoculation

"A book built of brain and nerve and blood and heart. . . . Irreverent and astute. . . . Pain Studies will change how you think about living with a body." -- Elizabeth McCracken , author of Thunderstruck and Bowlaway

"A thrilling investigation into pain, language, and Olstein's own exile from what Woolf called 'the army of the upright.' On a search path through art, science, poetry, and prime-time television, Olstein aims her knife-bright compassion at the very thing we're all running from. Pain Studies is a masterpiece." -- Leni Zumas , author of The Listeners and Red Clocks

In this extended lyric essay, a poet mines her lifelong experience with migraine to deliver a marvelously idiosyncratic cultural history of pain--how we experience, express, treat, and mistreat it. Her sources range from the trial of Joan of Arc to the essays of Virginia Woolf and Elaine Scarry to Hugh Laurie's portrayal of Gregory House on House M.D. As she engages with science, philosophy, visual art, rock lyrics, and field notes from her own medical adventures (both mainstream and alternative), she finds a way to express the often-indescribable experience of living with pain. Eschewing simple epiphanies, Olstein instead gives us a new language to contemplate and empathize with a fundamental aspect of the human condition.

Lisa Olstein teaches at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of four poetry collections published by Copper Canyon Press. Pain Studies is her first book of creative nonfiction.

"Pain Studies is a book-length lyric essay at the intersection of pain, perception, and language. Through the prism of migraine, Pain Studies episodically and idiosyncratically explores personal, cultural, medical, and literary histories of pain--how we experience, express, treat, and mistreat it--and undertakes extended engagements with a range of sources including the trial testimony of Joan of Arc, the television show House, M.D., rhetorical attributes of pre-Socratic philosophy and mathematical proofs, essays by Virginia Woolf and Elaine Scar[r]y, and the perception-based work of artists Donald Judd and James Turrell. Written from and into its own urgencies of both form and content, it is in conversation with recent books by Maggie Nelson, Eula Biss, Sarah Manguso, and Leslie Jamison, among others." -- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-189).

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