Elbow Lecture: Jennifer Nish

Join us for the Elbow Lecture with Jennifer Nish (Michigan Tech)!

Title: Epistemic Injustice and Boundary Work in Rhetorics of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)

Description: ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) is a neuroimmune disease that affects multiple body systems (e.g., nervous, immune, gastrointestinal). Like other Infection-Associated Chronic Conditions (e.g., Long Covid, Fibromyalgia), it is poorly understood by clinicians and regularly misrepresented in public discourse, leading to experiences of invalidation, medical trauma, and long-term physical harm from inappropriate treatment. In this talk, I will explore how epistemic injustice has shaped the experiences of people with ME, using the concept of “boundary-work” from sociology and rhetorics of science to explore some of the rhetorical strategies that people with ME use to assert agency in response to this injustice.