paula kamen
Paula Kamen, a Chicago journalist, is the author of All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache. The book, released by Da Capo in March 2005, is a memoir and journalistic report about chronic pain in America, framing it as a long-neglected feminist issue. Salon.com said "it connects the dots on this issue of women and chronic pain in a way nobody else has done." Bitch Magazine wrote: "Her reporting and gender analysis are top-notch...Kamen knows how to assemble the facts compellingly, and her commentary on doctors' views of female pain patients is nicely nuanced. Her story is both gripping and terrifying. But it's her deadpan humor and fine, fine writing that make All in My Head so truly fantastic."
Her most recent book, Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition and the Loss of An Extraordinary Mind, published in 2007, is about her real-life search to connect the dots about the mysterious 2004 suicide of her friend, bestselling Chinese-American writer Iris Chang, the author of The Rape of Nanking. It also explores how journalists can survive in the long-term covering dark topics, without being harmed by the toxic effects of such topics.
Her commentaries and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Salon, Ms., Chicago Tribune, In These Times, and more than a dozen anthologies. She also was a contributor to the new 2005 edition of Our Bodies, Our Selves in a new section on chronic pain.
She is also the author of Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution, (NYU Press, 2000, Broadway Books, 2002), which was noted as the first comprehensive "big picture" journalistic report of Generation X women's changing and enhanced sexual attitudes and choices. "It's about time! Read this book," wrote researcher Shere Hite. Her first book, Feminist Fatale: Voices from Twentysomething Generation Explore Future Women's Movement, (Donald I. Fine, 1991), is recognized as the first post-boomer feminist book. Feminist scholar bell hooks called the book “one of the most well researched and thoughtful discussions of the factors that shape responses to feminist thinking among younger women.”
She has had three plays produced, including Jane: Abortion and the Underground -- about the legendary pre-Roe feminist abortion service. Jane has been produced throughout the country on college campuses. and was excerpted in several anthologies, including The Best Women's Stage Monologues of 1999 and The Best Stage Scenes of 1999 (Smith & Kraus, 2001).
Since 1994, she has held the position of "Visiting Research Scholar" with Northwestern University's Gender Studies Program. In the past decade, she has spoken at more than 70 universities, including the University of Texas-Austin, Virginia Tech, Bates College, Trinity College, and Williams College. Kamen is a 1989 graduate in journalism from the University of Illinois. She was born in Chicago and grew up in south-suburban Flossmoor, Illinois.
Areas of expertise:
- Overcoming post-boomer women's conflicts with "feminism"
- Post-boomer women's hidden sexual evolutions
- Women's health issues
- Chronic pain and fatigue as feminist issues.
