Elizabeth Klaver, ed. The Body in Medical Culture. Albany SUNY Press, 2009
Elizabeth Klaver, ed. The Body in Medical Culture. Albany SUNY
Press, 2009. ix + 255 pp. $74.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4384-2585-6;
$24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4384-2586-3.
Reviewed by Ian Miller (University of Manchester)
Published on H-Disability (December, 2009)
Commissioned by Iain C. Hutchison
The construction and objectification of the medicalized body.
Within "The Body in Medical Culture", Elizabeth Klaver and her
contributors engage with themes related to how concepts and
constructions of the body ultimately shape people's experiences of
agency and objectification within medical culture. It is argued
throughout that the medicalized body is central to the work of
doctors, nurses, medical examiners, and other professionals as an
object of scrutiny, and that these groups mediate broader cultural
understandings of pathology, illness, and physical transformation
during their interaction with the body. Metaphors and models of the
body are frequently used to understand medical phenomena, research,
and diagnosis. Klaver carefully situates her collection at a
mid-point between culture and medicine, adopting a constructivist
realism approach, which suggests that an external reality exists
outside of cultural representation. In other words, she recognizes a
place for the body's materiality as distinct from the medicalized
body.
One of the most impressive features of this volume is the wide range
of disciplines represented throughout. It is essentially an
interdisciplinary collection, with scholarly contributions drawing
from English literature, women's studies, medical humanities,
folklore, sociology, history, and cultural studies. The themes
covered are equally diverse, and include discussion of polio and
masculinity, sex reassignment surgery, drug marketing, endography,
"designer vaginas," and hospital humor. In relation to disability,
the volume is successful in opening up "other" places and "other"
people as being included in a much larger set of questions about
Western medicine in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Similarly, a diverse range of time periods are covered throughout,
ranging from analysis of early modern texts to visual cinematography
of the present era.
One of the most notable contributions is Hilary Nunn's discussion of
matters related to weight in Renaissance women's medical manuals,
within which she challenges the view that obesity was perceived to be
a desirable condition representing access to money and leisure.
Instead, she observes that maintaining a more svelte body size was
considered to be a highly significant health issue at the time. A
further outstanding contribution is made by Hayley Mitchell Haugen,
who expands our historical understandings of the patient experience
by analyzing the "disabled imagination" of American author Leonard
Kriegel. She explores his fascination with a masculine ideal to which
he aspires, but can ultimately never achieve. The most fascinating
part of this chapter concerns his reflections on the disability and
death of Christopher Reeves, who famously played the character
Superman, which provide us with a unique insight into the dialogues
existing between sufferers of particular conditions.
Catherine Belling offers an insightful analysis of the themes raised
within Robin Cook's novel "Coma" (1977), within which the body's
living interior is established as a site where doctors can tell
gripping stories. The context of a mystery plot concerning coma
patients emerged in a time of uncovering of hospital-managed
conspiracy to induce coma in healthy patients in order to remove
their organs and to sell them. The gendered potency of the 1970s
medical profession is also creatively considered, and the novel (and
subsequent film) is situated within the context of the rise of
bioethics, which incorporated an insistence on patient autonomy and
informed consent. This had its roots in the women's rights movement,
which called into question paternalistic power, as well as the power
over knowledge of the physician.
Finally, Lisa Gabbert and Antonio Salud II's piece on hospital humor
is particularly noteworthy, challenging Foucauldian ideals of
rationalized order, and suggesting instead that human bodies don't
always follow institutional scripts in practice. Humor is often found
in high-stress occupations, being an important communicative strategy
for doctors and health-care professionals in the hospital setting,
and subverting biomedical discourses. Hospital humor is notoriously
off-color, scatological, sexual or gallows-orientated, and is
typically directed at patients, their diseases, their bodies,
necessary medical procedures, and even medical workers themselves.
Overall, Klaver's collection of essays on the body in medicine is
interesting, intelligent, and readable, as well as being a good take
on an important topic in both cultural studies and the medical
humanities.
Citation: Ian Miller. Review of Klaver, Elizabeth, ed., "The Body in
Medical Culture". H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. December, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25858
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.
Press, 2009. ix + 255 pp. $74.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4384-2585-6;
$24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4384-2586-3.
Reviewed by Ian Miller (University of Manchester)
Published on H-Disability (December, 2009)
Commissioned by Iain C. Hutchison
The construction and objectification of the medicalized body.
Within "The Body in Medical Culture", Elizabeth Klaver and her
contributors engage with themes related to how concepts and
constructions of the body ultimately shape people's experiences of
agency and objectification within medical culture. It is argued
throughout that the medicalized body is central to the work of
doctors, nurses, medical examiners, and other professionals as an
object of scrutiny, and that these groups mediate broader cultural
understandings of pathology, illness, and physical transformation
during their interaction with the body. Metaphors and models of the
body are frequently used to understand medical phenomena, research,
and diagnosis. Klaver carefully situates her collection at a
mid-point between culture and medicine, adopting a constructivist
realism approach, which suggests that an external reality exists
outside of cultural representation. In other words, she recognizes a
place for the body's materiality as distinct from the medicalized
body.
One of the most impressive features of this volume is the wide range
of disciplines represented throughout. It is essentially an
interdisciplinary collection, with scholarly contributions drawing
from English literature, women's studies, medical humanities,
folklore, sociology, history, and cultural studies. The themes
covered are equally diverse, and include discussion of polio and
masculinity, sex reassignment surgery, drug marketing, endography,
"designer vaginas," and hospital humor. In relation to disability,
the volume is successful in opening up "other" places and "other"
people as being included in a much larger set of questions about
Western medicine in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Similarly, a diverse range of time periods are covered throughout,
ranging from analysis of early modern texts to visual cinematography
of the present era.
One of the most notable contributions is Hilary Nunn's discussion of
matters related to weight in Renaissance women's medical manuals,
within which she challenges the view that obesity was perceived to be
a desirable condition representing access to money and leisure.
Instead, she observes that maintaining a more svelte body size was
considered to be a highly significant health issue at the time. A
further outstanding contribution is made by Hayley Mitchell Haugen,
who expands our historical understandings of the patient experience
by analyzing the "disabled imagination" of American author Leonard
Kriegel. She explores his fascination with a masculine ideal to which
he aspires, but can ultimately never achieve. The most fascinating
part of this chapter concerns his reflections on the disability and
death of Christopher Reeves, who famously played the character
Superman, which provide us with a unique insight into the dialogues
existing between sufferers of particular conditions.
Catherine Belling offers an insightful analysis of the themes raised
within Robin Cook's novel "Coma" (1977), within which the body's
living interior is established as a site where doctors can tell
gripping stories. The context of a mystery plot concerning coma
patients emerged in a time of uncovering of hospital-managed
conspiracy to induce coma in healthy patients in order to remove
their organs and to sell them. The gendered potency of the 1970s
medical profession is also creatively considered, and the novel (and
subsequent film) is situated within the context of the rise of
bioethics, which incorporated an insistence on patient autonomy and
informed consent. This had its roots in the women's rights movement,
which called into question paternalistic power, as well as the power
over knowledge of the physician.
Finally, Lisa Gabbert and Antonio Salud II's piece on hospital humor
is particularly noteworthy, challenging Foucauldian ideals of
rationalized order, and suggesting instead that human bodies don't
always follow institutional scripts in practice. Humor is often found
in high-stress occupations, being an important communicative strategy
for doctors and health-care professionals in the hospital setting,
and subverting biomedical discourses. Hospital humor is notoriously
off-color, scatological, sexual or gallows-orientated, and is
typically directed at patients, their diseases, their bodies,
necessary medical procedures, and even medical workers themselves.
Overall, Klaver's collection of essays on the body in medicine is
interesting, intelligent, and readable, as well as being a good take
on an important topic in both cultural studies and the medical
humanities.
Citation: Ian Miller. Review of Klaver, Elizabeth, ed., "The Body in
Medical Culture". H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. December, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25858
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.