Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture (Race, Gender, and Science) [Paperback]

Jennifer Terry (Editor), Jacqueline L. Urla (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 1995 | Series: Race, Gender, and Science

"... 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"... 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

About the Author

JENNIFER TERRY, assistant Professor of Values in Science and Technology in the Division of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University, has written articles on queer theory, women and medical surveillance, and the history of sexual science in the United States. She is at work on a book entitled Siting Homosexuality: A History of Surveillance and the Scientific Production of Deviant Bodies. JACQUELINE URLA is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is working on a collaborative research project exploring the representation of whiteness in native peoples' art, material culture, and visual media.

Product Details

• Paperback: 424 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (December 22, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253209757
• ISBN-13: 978-0253209757
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Philosophy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good study in power-knowledge, September 26, 2008

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture (Race, Gender, and Science) (Paperback)

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.

2 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing special, December 20, 2005

By 

Pen Name "maniacal college student" (U.S.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture (Race, Gender, and Science) (Paperback)

I'm usually not a big fan of postmodern scholarship, and this book is no exception. It was a decent book for my class, in that it introduced students to the implications of various kinds of bodily deviance (deafness, race, sex, body type, etc.) as well as various (arguably) non-anatomical categories that were reified as anatomical difference (Jewishness, various mental illnesses, etc.). Most of the articles are not all that great, however.

Proctor's essay on the Holocaust is excellent, and is probably the high-point of the book. But you can get that elsewhere. The more postmodern essays are interesting but their conclusions shouldn't be taken very seriously, since they are just asserted; sometimes, their conclusions are directly contradicted by the evidence cited in the text! A lot of this book is ideological rather than investigatory, and when Fausto-Sterling asserts a link between anatomy and capitalism or tells me (despite evidence to the contrary) that specific anatomists did their work to support a global colonialist project, I shook my head in disgust and ripped into the essay the next day in class.

There's better stuff out there.