Cancer Cultures in the United States
FAIN: FA-55540-10
Sarah Lochlann Jain
Stanford University (Stanford, CA 94305-2004)
Cancer, a central social and political trauma in the United States, remains under-researched and under-theorized. This is in large part because cancer has traditionally been seen as the domain of the sciences and medicine, and not a subject of inquiry for the humanities. Yet the set of diseases that come under the heading "cancer" has proliferated cultural forms since its emergence from the closet in the 1970s. Based on literature analysis and five years of fieldwork with survivors and oncologists, my book aims to understand these cancer cultures in relation to both the history of the medical treatment of cancer and broader issues of medical cultures in the United States. NEH funding would enable me to write the book.