Confessing Excess

Carole Spitzack is Associate Professor of Communication at Tulane University. She is co-editor of Studying Women's Communication: Perspectives in Theory and Method.

"Dr. Spitzack has employed and clarified the works of some of the primary thinkers of our time, especially Michel Foucault. Distinctions between reality and reality structures are particularly difficult to write about meaningfully, and Spitzack has done that. I especially like the extent to which she offers women's own words as text."The best testament to a book is that it makes the reader think. I feel that Spitzack has enlightened my thinking, forcing me to reconsider my assumptions and challenge my own conclusions." — Elizabeth Jean Nelson, University of Minnesota, Duluth"I like the methodological orientation to analyzing discourse that combines strong theoretical discussion with empirical data. The sophisticated analysis results in an original application of Foucault's confession to a particular dimension of women's experience—an application that articulates both the power of discourse and the resistance of women's body talk." — Kristin Langellier, University of Maine, Orono

• Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Transgressions and Cures Chapter 1 Curative Voices: Anti-Diets and Expects Chapter 2 The Aesthetics of Women's Health: "Watching Yourself Until You're Sixty-Five" Chapter 3 Speaking Transgressions: "Making a Believer of Me" Part II: Others in Relation to Bodies Chapter 4 Family Relationships: "Mother Criticizes, Father Compliments" Chapter 5 Women's Friendships: "Going Down to the Depths of You" Chapter 6 Romantic Relationships: "Getting Him to See Me" Part III: Wisdom from the Margins Chapter 7 Seeing the Mythology of Resolution: "I Could Write a Book About This" Chapter 8 Political Solutions: "Wait a Minute, This is Crazy" Appendix Notes References Index