Deviant Bodies

Book Overview

". . . the papers in Deviant Bodies reveal an ongoing Western preoccupation with the sources of identity and human character." --Times Literary Supplement

"Highly recommended for cultural studies . . . " --The Reader's Review

"It would be useful for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in the sociology of the body, the history and sociology of science and medicine, and women's studies courses, particularly those exploring the feminist critiques of science and medicine." --Contemporary Sociology

". . . a powerful deconstruction of the scientific gaze in configuring bodily deviance as a means of legitimating the social order within multiple historical and social contexts. . . . the many excellent selections will make for compelling reading for students of medical anthropology and the history of science." American Anthropologist

Deviant Bodies reveals that the "normal," "healthy" body is a fiction of science. Modern life sciences, medicine, and the popular perceptions they create have not merely observed and reported, they have constructed bodies: the homosexual body, the HIV-infected body, the infertile body, the deaf body, the colonized body, and the criminal body.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253209757
• ISBN13: 9780253209757
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (Ips)
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.2"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

good study in power-knowledge

I read this book several years ago as a grad student and now regularly recommend it to my doc students. The articles offer eye-opening studies on how bodies were and are read as sites of deviancy and used as the objects and justification for intervention through both acts against individuals and local and global politics. It offers really practical studies in how can power-knowledge function in "scientific" studies, particularly in colonialism, although there are more recent studies as well. As I am particularly interested in gender studies, I especially like Fausto-Sterlings article on the so-called "Hottentot Venus", Horn's piece on reading the female body, and Terry's piece on the search for the homosexual body. I also frequently cite Phelan's piece on differences in the imagined audiences of AIDS education material. Having cited these as my favorites, there isn't a piece in the book that I didn't like.