Bryna Siegel Finer - Böcker

Women’s Health Advocacy brings together academic studies and personal narratives to demonstrate how women use a variety of arguments, forms of writing, and communication strategies to effect change in a health system that is not only often difficult to participate in, but which can be actively harmful. It explicates the concept of rhetorical ingenuity—the creation of rhetorical means for specific and technical, yet extremely personal, situations. At a time when women’s health concerns are at the center of national debate, this rhetorical ingenuity provides means for women to uncover latent sources of oppression in women’s health and medicine and to influence matters of research, funding, policy, and everyday access to healthcare in the face of exclusion and disenfranchisement. This accessible collection will be inspiring reading for academics and students in health communication, medical humanities, and women’s studies, as well as for activists, patients, and professionals.

Women’s Health Advocacy brings together academic studies and personal narratives to demonstrate how women use a variety of arguments, forms of writing, and communication strategies to effect change in a health system that is not only often difficult to participate in, but which can be actively harmful. It explicates the concept of rhetorical ingenuity—the creation of rhetorical means for specific and technical, yet extremely personal, situations. At a time when women’s health concerns are at the center of national debate, this rhetorical ingenuity provides means for women to uncover latent sources of oppression in women’s health and medicine and to influence matters of research, funding, policy, and everyday access to healthcare in the face of exclusion and disenfranchisement. This accessible collection will be inspiring reading for academics and students in health communication, medical humanities, and women’s studies, as well as for activists, patients, and professionals.

This book explores how women make meaning at various health flashpoints in their lives, overcoming fear, anxiety, and anger to draw upon self-advocacy, research, and crucial decision-making.Combining focus group research, content analysis, autoethnography, and textual inquiry, the book argues that the making and remaking of what we call “patient epistemologies” is a continual process wherein a health flashpoint—sometimes a new diagnosis, sometimes a reoccurrence or worsening of an existing condition or the progression of a natural process—can cause an individual to be thrust into a discourse community that was not of their own choosing.This study will interest students and scholars of health communication, rhetoric of health and medicine, women’s studies, public health, healthcare policy, philosophy of medicine, medical sociology, and medical humanities.

This book explores how women make meaning at various health flashpoints in their lives, overcoming fear, anxiety, and anger to draw upon self-advocacy, research, and crucial decision-making.Combining focus group research, content analysis, autoethnography, and textual inquiry, the book argues that the making and remaking of what we call “patient epistemologies” is a continual process wherein a health flashpoint—sometimes a new diagnosis, sometimes a reoccurrence or worsening of an existing condition or the progression of a natural process—can cause an individual to be thrust into a discourse community that was not of their own choosing.This study will interest students and scholars of health communication, rhetoric of health and medicine, women’s studies, public health, healthcare policy, philosophy of medicine, medical sociology, and medical humanities.

Confronting Toxic Rhetoric contributes to the extant scholarship on toxic rhetoric, specifically the negative and extreme political discourse surrounding the Trump years of campaigning, rallying, tweeting, holding office, and the ongoing culture war in the US (Duffy, 2020). Toxic rhetoric challenged the foundational purposes of teaching writing and rhetoric, such as ethical argumentation and critical thinking. Teachers’ narratives, case studies, and reflections bring to light the ruptures, resistance, and resilience of teaching amid the extreme polarization of partisan politics, distrust of science, and increased hate speech, among other issues associated with toxic rhetoric. Readers will learn from teachers who were challenged to cope with toxic rhetoric, using both rhetorical and extra-disciplinary lenses. Their experiences present a vulnerable yet resolved expression of coping, activism, and belief in the future of rhetoric and democracy."Toxic rhetoric is the proverbial fly in the soup of our political and public discourse, poisoning our politics, and by extension, our classrooms. Confronting Toxic Rhetoric takes up the arduous task of treating the contamination in our classrooms while encouraging us to advance the work of decontamination in our broader rhetorical ecosystems."—Ryan Skinnell, Editor of Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us About Donald J. Trump