4.14.2006
Modern Medicine and the "Uncertain Body" (History and Theory of the Body)
Title
Williams, Simon J. Modern Medicine and the "Uncertain Body": From Corporeality to Hyperreality?
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
This essay examines "the extent to which medical technology renders our bodies increasingly 'uncertain' ad the turn of the century...the analytical purchase which the notion of the (medical) cyborg provides regarding contemporary forms of human embodiment...at a broder level the issues this raises in relation to a (late) modernist or postmodernist reading of contemporary medical practice." (1041) "The body, in short, has become a 'project", one which is reflexively open to control amidst a puzzling diversity of imperative, choices and options. This, in turn, sets up something of a paradox, namely: the more control we have over our bodies, the less certain they become." (1041) "Medcine is still in fact, first and foremost, a modernist enterprise, steeped in a scientific tradition in which truth, order and progress are seen as paramount virtues. Seen in this light, current developments in medical technology represent a further extention of modernist imperatives centered on rational control and the domination of 'nature'." (1042) To this end the author looks at plastic surgeory, organ transplant, genetic engineering, and the use of robotics and other technological advances in surgery. "It is these very trends of rational control which, paradoxically, created the crisis of meaning and uncertain status of the body in late modernity. Modernity, in other words, as a reflexive social order, 'manufactures' its own (i.e. internally referential) risks and uncertainties. Medicine, as arch-modernity personified, reflects and reinforces these dilemmas in acute corporeal form. Perhaps on a more rhetorical note, it is also possible to argue that postmodernism is really only an option for the 'healthy' rather than the sick." (1048)
Other Thoughts
"the Foucauldian clinical gaze gives way to the Baudrillardian 'hyperreality of images without grounding". The upshot of this is that bodies become ever more elusive: instead of the patient's body being at the centre of contemporary medical practice and discourse, we find instead 'multiple images and codings' whereby the body is endlessly 'doubled and redoubled' through a self-referential chain of simulacra." (1047)
Other QE Works Cited
Haraway, D. Simians, Cyborgs and Women (History and Theory of the Body)
Joralemon, D. Organ Wars (History and Theory of the Body)
Lupton, D. Medicine as Culture (History and Theory of the Body)
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies (History and Theory of the Body)
Sharp, L. Organ Transplatation as Transformative Experience (History and Theory of the Body)
Baudrillard, J. Simulacra and Simulation (History and Theory of the Body)
Foucault, M. Birth of the Clinic (History and Theory of the Body)
Williams, Simon J. Modern Medicine and the "Uncertain Body": From Corporeality to Hyperreality?
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
This essay examines "the extent to which medical technology renders our bodies increasingly 'uncertain' ad the turn of the century...the analytical purchase which the notion of the (medical) cyborg provides regarding contemporary forms of human embodiment...at a broder level the issues this raises in relation to a (late) modernist or postmodernist reading of contemporary medical practice." (1041) "The body, in short, has become a 'project", one which is reflexively open to control amidst a puzzling diversity of imperative, choices and options. This, in turn, sets up something of a paradox, namely: the more control we have over our bodies, the less certain they become." (1041) "Medcine is still in fact, first and foremost, a modernist enterprise, steeped in a scientific tradition in which truth, order and progress are seen as paramount virtues. Seen in this light, current developments in medical technology represent a further extention of modernist imperatives centered on rational control and the domination of 'nature'." (1042) To this end the author looks at plastic surgeory, organ transplant, genetic engineering, and the use of robotics and other technological advances in surgery. "It is these very trends of rational control which, paradoxically, created the crisis of meaning and uncertain status of the body in late modernity. Modernity, in other words, as a reflexive social order, 'manufactures' its own (i.e. internally referential) risks and uncertainties. Medicine, as arch-modernity personified, reflects and reinforces these dilemmas in acute corporeal form. Perhaps on a more rhetorical note, it is also possible to argue that postmodernism is really only an option for the 'healthy' rather than the sick." (1048)
Other Thoughts
"the Foucauldian clinical gaze gives way to the Baudrillardian 'hyperreality of images without grounding". The upshot of this is that bodies become ever more elusive: instead of the patient's body being at the centre of contemporary medical practice and discourse, we find instead 'multiple images and codings' whereby the body is endlessly 'doubled and redoubled' through a self-referential chain of simulacra." (1047)
Other QE Works Cited
Haraway, D. Simians, Cyborgs and Women (History and Theory of the Body)
Joralemon, D. Organ Wars (History and Theory of the Body)
Lupton, D. Medicine as Culture (History and Theory of the Body)
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies (History and Theory of the Body)
Sharp, L. Organ Transplatation as Transformative Experience (History and Theory of the Body)
Baudrillard, J. Simulacra and Simulation (History and Theory of the Body)
Foucault, M. Birth of the Clinic (History and Theory of the Body)
# posted by SMRT : 4:03 PM
