Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Breast Cancer: Narrating the Ill Self in Relation, Loss, and Grief

Abstract

At the age of 42, the literary scholar, poet, and artist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was diagnosed with breast cancer which instigated a recurrence of her depression and, consequently, her return to psychotherapy. Her 1999 memoir A Dialogue on Love^[1] emerged from the background of Sedgwick’s breast cancer experience in the course of which she underwent chemotherapy, double mastectomy, and metastasis. In the form of prose and poetry, A Dialogue contains Sedgwick’s intimate reflections on her life story, an intellectual account of her experience of breast cancer as well as the ongoing dialogue with her therapist Shannon.

As another genre form of life writing, Sedgwick’s . In the essay, she intricately juxtaposes Michael’s and her experience of breast cancer and AIDS, respectively, as the writing of the obituary coincides with Sedgwick’s sudden breast cancer diagnosis.