"I did not feel the same as before surgery": How Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals turned Disidentification into Reidentification

Alicia Hüls

doi:10.5283/copas.390

"I did not feel the same as before surgery"

How Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals turned Disidentification into Reidentification

Authors

Alicia Hüls Ruhr-Universität Bochum

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.390

Keywords:

Audre Lorde, Disidentification, Reidentification, The Cancer Journals, Memoir, Jose Munoz

Abstract

This paper examines Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals (2020) and her journey post-mastectomy, in relation to José Muñoz’s theory of disidentification, which he discusses in his book Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999). For Muñoz, disidentification is a survival strategy of stepping away from predominant societal ideologies. Muñoz’s theory is particularly fruitful for analyzing Lorde’s intersectional experiences and identity struggles of being a queer woman of color with breast cancer, but lacks an element of reidentification. This paper expands on the concept of disidentification and claims that Lorde does not take this passive stand Muñoz proposes but instead reidentifies herself in the face of prevailing gender norms.

Author Biography

Alicia Hüls, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Alicia Hüls is currently finishing her degree in English at the Ruhr University in Bochum. She is currently obtaining her bachelor’s degree with a focus on American Literature. With a strong interest in World Literature and especially the literary productions of the United States, she focused her first academic pursuit on the notion of identification in Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals.

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Published

2025-03-12

Issue

Vol. 25 No. 2 (2024): Dis/Connection: Relations, Interactions, Disruptions

Section

Articles

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.

How to Cite

“‘I Did Not Feel the Same As before surgery’: How Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals Turned Disidentification into Reidentification”. Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, Mar. 2025, pp. 8-23, https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.390.

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