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Personal Experiences at the Intersection of Illness and Family: A Critical Rhetorical Analysis from Autoethnographic and Comic Memoir Perspectives

Button, Andrea Noel Guziec
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1552840464935061

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Communication Studies (Communication).
Illness can strike a person and family at any time. Although American culture is beginning to shift in how we talk about illness, there is still a cloud over how we communicate about illness; specifically that of our ill/aging parent(s). This study explores how personal experiences intersect with illness and family combining autoethnographic accounts of caring for an ill/aging parent with the works of three comic memoir authors. Seeking to address and analyze the experiences surrounding caring for an ill and/or aging parent, a critical rhetorical framework guided by the works of Raymie E. McKerrow and Michel Foucault is applied to our sociocultural understandings of health, illness, and caregiving. Findings explore both the experiences surrounding caring for an ill/aging parent as well as the systematic structures embedded in the caregiving experience. Chapter Two focuses on personal experiences from an `other’ and `self” orientation through autoethnographic accounts, specifically the influential nature of Pastoral Care (Foucault) of the body. Chapter’s Three and Four explore these same orientations `other’ and `self’ through a critical rhetorical analysis of three comic memoirs: Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast, Mom’s Cancer by Brian Fies, Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass by Dana Walrath. The analysis identifies key similarities and differences between each authors’ lived experiences. Chapter Five advances the central argument that each author is predispositioned to confirm to and operate within the power structures embedded in our sociocultural understandings of health. I conclude with a discussion of the two major discoveries connected to my central argument, and follow that following with the major contribution of the analysis, the significance of the stories told and used for the analysis, implications for future research, and lastly final reflections.
Raymie E. McKerrow (Advisor)
373 p.
Communication; Health; Rhetoric
Critical Rhetoric; Caregiving; Illness; Aging; Health; Comic Memoir; Graphic Novel; Autoethnography; Michel Foucault; Raymie E McKerrow;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Button, A. N. G. (2019). Personal Experiences at the Intersection of Illness and Family: A Critical Rhetorical Analysis from Autoethnographic and Comic Memoir Perspectives [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1552840464935061

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Button, Andrea. Personal Experiences at the Intersection of Illness and Family: A Critical Rhetorical Analysis from Autoethnographic and Comic Memoir Perspectives. 2019. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1552840464935061.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Button, Andrea. "Personal Experiences at the Intersection of Illness and Family: A Critical Rhetorical Analysis from Autoethnographic and Comic Memoir Perspectives." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1552840464935061

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.