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Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2026.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2026
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| _version_ | 1867613771780849664 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Alhadeff, Lara |
| author2 | Van der Rede, Lauren |
| author_browse | Alhadeff, Lara Van der Rede, Lauren |
| author_facet | Van der Rede, Lauren Alhadeff, Lara |
| author_sort | Alhadeff, Lara |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2026. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/135546 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:41:26.849Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/135546 Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives Alhadeff, Lara Van der Rede, Lauren Oppelt, Riaan Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English. Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2026. Alhadeff, L. 2026. Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/1a5be05f-4726-4f3e-8fdf-bcbc7adf362a Located in the intersection between life writing and the stream of the medical humanities concerned with disability, this dissertation critically analyses representations of what I frame as the liminal position of Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) in women’s unconventional literature. Engagement with the literary, in its broad constellation – as a mode of reading and articulation that finds expression in various forms – affords a reflection on the realities of living with FMS, a syndrome that is marginalised in the persistent figuring of afflicted women as hysterical. I engage with Elinor Cleghorn in Unwell Women (2021) and Meghan O’Rourke in The Invisible Kingdom (2022) who unpack the persistent inflection of hysteria in women’s chronic, misunderstood illnesses. I suggest that there remains a problematic and inaccurate representation of FMS. I focus predominantly on Susan Greenhalgh’s autoethnography, Under the Medical Gaze (2001), Kristin K. Barker’s sociological study, The Fibromyalgia Story (2005); Nick Demos’ documentary, Invisible (2022); Amy Berkowitz’s lyric essay, Tender Points (2019); and a selection of blogs pertaining to FMS (hereafter collectively referred to as the selected texts). The selected texts portray the silencing of women through the labelling of FMS as a syndrome. This silencing negates the need for legitimate biomedical investigation into their health and bodies. I suggest FMS’s liminal position renders afflicted women as not sick enough to warrant care, embedded in hegemonic biomedical discourses and ableist societal narratives. I argue that the absence of known organic aetiology of FMS delegitimises and undermines afflicted women’s suffering. Furthermore, I submit that society takes its cue from hegemonic biomedical discourses to alienate women afflicted with FMS. I echo Sami Schalk, in Bodyminds Reimagined (2018), who suggests that historical “cultural bias” positions marginalised identities as outside of biomedical frameworks of wellness (65). I suggest that engagement with the literary, in its broad constellation, as a site of visibility for FMS as a lived condition, negates “the medical gaze”, theorised by Michel Foucault in The Birth of the Clinic (2003). Illness narratives enable the production of subjective and holistic accounts of patient experiences. I invoke Eric J. Cassell’s conception of “suffering”, in “The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine” (1998), where he argues biomedicine produces suffering in the denial of the person’s holistic self (131). This project proposes the concept, the postchronic-pathography, arguing that chronic illness narratives are incongruent with pathography which, according to Lars-Christer Hyden, in “Illness and Narrative” (1997), is typified by “regeneration” (60). Finally, this dissertation offers a theory of curation, specific to life writing, that suggests that the author constructs a particular life narrative and self. In the structure and content of the work, the author persuades the reader to accept their intended meaning. To articulate this theory, I draw on Michael J. Shott’s definition of curation as a utilitarian function, articulated in “An Exegesis of the Curatorial Concept” (1996 259), and Maria Pia Lara’s discussion of the “illocutionary force” that is embedded in women’s life writing, theorised in Moral Textures (1998 3). Doctoral 2026-04-01T09:47:03Z 2026-04-01T09:47:03Z 2026-03 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/135546 en Stellenbosch University 243 pages : ill. application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Alhadeff, Lara Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives |
| title | Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives |
| title_full | Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives |
| title_fullStr | Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives |
| title_full_unstemmed | Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives |
| title_short | Perceiving Hysteria: Representations of the Liminal Position of Fibromyalgia in Unconventional Women’s Narratives |
| title_sort | perceiving hysteria representations of the liminal position of fibromyalgia in unconventional women s narratives |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/135546 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT alhadefflara perceivinghysteriarepresentationsoftheliminalpositionoffibromyalgiainunconventionalwomensnarratives |