DIRECTIONS:
As noted in the syllabus:
Reading/Viewing Due:
● Sonya Huber, “Hydra-Headed Memoirs and Well-Connected Essays” in Assay
Journal of Nonfiction
● Pain Woman Takes Your Keys pp 50-59, 87-97, 100-103, 151-157, 171-177
At any point between today and tomorrow EOD you should answer the questions in this
document ON THE DOCUMENT focusing on ANY ONE specific chapter.
The goal of this assignment is to engage in the practice of close reading
(observation+interpretation). When we engage in close reading, we ask: What do we find
to be most exciting or interesting or telling? What moments are we most drawn to? And
then we ask—What might these moments mean? Why do they matter? How might they
address a bigger picture?
QUESTION 1:
In the chapter you reviewed, how does form (structure) and content intersect?
Patricia Quiroga (“Pain Woman Takes Your Keys”)
QUESTION 2:
(A) What writing strategies does Huber employ to describe pain? How does this (or does this?)
further the understanding of her experience?
(B) What moments in the chapter struck you as most interesting or compelling, and why?
QUESTION 3 (TWO PARTER):
(A) What central themes emerge in the chapter? (ex of themes: pride, maternity, sexuality,
fear, invisibility, etc.)
(B) What Disability Studies concepts emerge in the chapter? (ex of concepts:
interdependence; ableism; political/relational model, etc.)
QUESTION 4:
How does this chapter connect to any other reading (or readings) we’ve done thus far for class?
How might we put them in conversation? (Note: you can also place two chapters from the book
in conversation).
QUESTION 5:
Huber writes: “I’m interested in what it has meant for me to live in the back and forth space
between memoir and essay collection, to consider those not discrete containers but fluid
categories.”
How does Huber’s work complicate your understanding of memoir? Why might an essay
collection serve this material in a way a more linear narrative would not? (or does it not?)