Imaging And Imagining Illness

Medical imaging technologies can help diagnose and monitor patients’ diseases, but they do not capture the lived experience of illness. In this volume, Devan Stahl shares her story of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis with the aid of magnetic resonance images (MRIs). Although clinically useful, Stahl did not want these images to be the primary way she or anyone else understood her disease or what it is like to live with MS. With the help of her printmaker sister, Darian Goldin Stahl, they were able to reframe these images into works of art. The result is an altogether different image of the ill body. Now, the Stahls open up their project to four additional scholars to help shed light on the meaning of illness and the impact medical imaging can have on our cultural imagination. Using their insights from the medical humanities, literature, visual culture, philosophy, and theology, the scholars in this volume advance the discourse of the ill body, adding interpretations and insights from their disciplinary fields. “”In this fascinating and quite unique book, Devan Stahl and some of those who love her offer a deep, rich, and at points quite moving insight into what it means to live into enduring forms of illness. The interdisciplinary approach is powerful in the way that it allows us to see Devan’s illness experiences from a variety of perspectives. . . .I commend this book and I pray that it both informs and changes people’s views on what it means to live humanly in the company of enduring illness.