Towards a Theory of Unexplained Illness: Shame, Pride, and Johanna Hedva's "Sick Woman Theory"

This article offers a reading of Johanna Hedva's "Sick Woman Theory" in relation to shame and pride in the context of unexplained illness—illness, that is, for which there is no found organic marker in relation to the symptoms experienced by the patient, and which is often chronic. People with unexplained illness find themselves without discursive backing and are especially prone to shame and stigmatization. Hedva politicizes their illness against the backdrop of a capitalist ideology, identifying chronic illness as a material-discursive phenomenon and uncoupling it from individual blame and responsibility. Bridging queer and crip discussions on shame and pride with approaches to illness within the medical humanities, I read Hedva's iconic "Sick Woman Theory" as an activist strategy for the emancipation of people with unexplained illness.