The stories that we tell about illness are almost entirely about overcoming it, but in the event that it can’t be overcome, they are about growing wiser as a result…
Archive for February, 2020
Ugly Stories, Boring Pictures, Invisible Illness
What does pain look like? Often, nothing at all. Many people experience illness and pain but don’t look sick, as the phrase goes. Visibility seems an insurmountable aim. It’s not….
Pain Studies
* All pain is simple. And all pain is complex. You’re in it and you want to get out. How can the ocean be not beautiful? The ocean is not…
The Job Market is Killing Me
It was midnight on Halloween. The muffled chants of frat boys clued me in to the scene outside. I shut my computer, my second big round of job market deadlines…
Puzzles with Pain Reports
We all know what pains are, don’t we? We act as if we do; we tell other people that we are in pain and we accept others’ reports of pain…
How is Pain Social?
I study those who study pain. For most of the past decade, I have conducted an ethnographic study on the neuroscience of pain, conducting observations in neuroimaging pain labs and…
Intro to Pain
Pain’s inexpressibility has dominated its discourse as long as people have attempted to write about it — yet we continue to do so, robustly. While completing a book manuscript on the…
Free and Unfeeling?
Pain has an element of blank.— Emily Dickinson Much of my work in recent years has been to think through the relationship between my scoliosis-related disabilities and my writing practice,…