The Embodied Path: Telling the Story of Your Body for Healing and Wholeness

Roscher (Play Like a Girl) shares the story of her body in its varied iterations—from broken to transcendent—and weaves her personal narrative together with the stories of other bodies in an effort to textually transform embodied experiences into meaningful reflections and representations of identity. The book draws on the scholarship of activists like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, as well as the more recent surge of political, philosophical, and personal body writing produced since 2020 by scholars and activists striving to reclaim bodies during a time of fragmentation, isolation, dehumanization, and more. Roscher has crafted a collection interspersed with journal-style prompts and space for reflection designed to slow readers down so they can take stock of where their bodies were and are in time and space. Much like Rachel Ricketts’s Do Better and Sebene Selassie’s You Belong, this book encourages readers to resist disembodiment. At times, the author seems to veer away from the activist history of embodiment and focuses on a gentler, safer modality of self-care.