Life writing and illness : Auto/Bio/Theory by Eve Sedgwick, Jackie Stacey, and Jill Bolte Taylor

In the recent past a number of scholars, scientists, and university teachers have published autobiographical accounts of their experience of illness and integrated these texts into their exploration of theoretical concepts of construction of illness. This combination of two different discourses calls for particular attention because the dialogue established between the autobiographical act and the theoretical debate continuously generates new questions necessary for theory. Furthermore, experiencing a serious illness the narrator/patient/academic is confronted with possible death. Thus, these texts on the one hand provide evidence for some kind of survival and on the other hand explore a realm beyond the writer's knowledge, which can be seen as a stimulus for further inquiry. This essay explores the specific ways in which feminist academics like Eve Sedgwick, Jackie Stacey, and brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor integrate their experience of illness into their own theoretical study of illness