Description
Inspired by Michel Foucault's writings about biopolitics and biopower, Cohen traces the migration of immunity from politics and law into the domains of medicine and science. Offering a genealogy of the concept, he illuminates a complex of thinking about modern bodies that percolates through European political, legal, philosophical, economic, governmental, scientific, and medical discourses from the mid-seventeenth century through the twentieth. He shows that by the late nineteenth century, "the body" literally incarnates modern notions of personhood. In this lively cultural rumination, Cohen argues that by embracing the idea of immunity-as-defense so exclusively, biomedicine naturalizes the individual as the privileged focus for identifying and treating illness, thereby devaluing or obscuring approaches to healing situated within communities or collectives.
Author: Ed Cohen
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 11/01/2009
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9780822345350
ISBN10: 0822345358
BISAC Categories:
- Science | History
- Medical | History
- Philosophy | Mind & Body
About the Author
Ed Cohen teaches cultural studies and directs the doctoral program in women's and gender studies at Rutgers University.