When Pain Strikes

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by Bill Burns, Cathy Busby and Kim Sawchuk

University of Minnesota Press

Due/Published August 1998, 336 pages, paper

ISBN 0816629498

I was about to let this one go when I thought of a few folks I know who both read theory and put up with physical pain. Maybe there's a connection. In any case, the more I thought about it, the more this looked intriguing. So, when pain strikes, do you raid the medicine cabinet? Read a self-help manual? Hit the roof? How we in North America respond to pain-what we think about it, what we say, and what we do-is the subject of this collection.
The book's five sections explore many complex responses to the occurrence of pain: ". . . measure it" discusses biomedical responses; ". . . scream and yell" explores therapeutic solutions; ". . . cut it open" takes up surgical interventions; ". . . take a pill" looks at pharmacology; and ". . . intensify it" examines positions that embrace pain. Each section includes original artwork, scholarly analyses, poetic and literary texts, and discussions by activists. Representing perspectives of the university, the gallery, and the community organization, the contributors--as TV watchers, recreational drug users, recipients of medical attention, caregivers, midwives, or the HIV positive-inhabit and reconfigure our contemporary painscape, offering a new approach to the puzzle of pain.
Contributors: Charles R. Acland; Barbara McGill Balfour; Isabelle Brabant; Stephen Busby; Millie Chen; Michael Fernandes; Bob Flanagan; Thyrza Nichols Goodeve; Kecia Larkin; Barbara Lounder; Marie-Paule Macdonald; Ronald Melzack; Margaret Morse; Celeste Olalquiaga; John O'Neill; Gerard PŠs; Elsie Petch; D. L. Pughe; Julia Scher; Cathy Sisler; Johanne Sloan; Jana Sterbak; Fred Tomaselli; Patrick D. Wall; Theodore Wan; Gregory Whitehead; Fred Wilson.