Title Skin theory : visual culture and the postwar prison laboratory / Cristina Mejia Visperas

Published New York : New York University Press, [2022]

Click on the following:
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource Contents Introduction: Science in Captivity -- The Skin Apparatus: Seeing Difference -- Skin Problems: Seeing Pain -- The Skin of Architecture -- Bioethics and the Skin of Words -- Coda: War Wounds Summary "During the postwar period, experiments on prison populations were standard practice among many universities, public health agencies, and major pharmaceutical manufacturers across the United States. Thus, the operative question in Skin Theory is: What was it about the US prison that made it so amenable to medical science research? A visual study for critically understanding entwined sites of imprisonment and scientific knowledge production, Skin Theory speaks directly to the crucial moments immediately before two large American industries, one carceral and the other pharmaceutical, saw their fantastic rise and dominance, honing in on when their interests and operations came together in explicit ways. It revisits the notorious dermatological experiments conducted between 1952 and 1974 at Holmesburg Prison, Philadelphia, analyzing skin in its technological, spatial, and discursive dimensions to illustrate a profound antagonism between knowledge and freedom made visible through the body of the captive test subject, a racialized subject whose boundless availability to scientific and cultural representation complicates the very notion of skin. This study offers an important reframing of critical approaches to race in histories of science, medicine, and technology, redefining science as already a fundamentally racial project. A visual analysis of how medical science and incarceration together formed a race-making technology and geography reconfiguring the nation's long history of captivity, from slavery to mass incarceration, Skin Theory shifts from issues of scientific racism to the scientific rationality of racism itself"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Description based on print version record Subject Holmesburg Prison. SUBJECT Holmesburg Prison fast Subject Human experimentation in medicine -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century Prisoners -- Health and hygiene -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century Dermatology -- Research -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- History -- 20th century Racism in criminal justice administration -- United States -- History -- 20th century Racism in medicine -- United States -- History -- 20th century SCIENCE / History. Dermatology -- Research Human experimentation in medicine Prisoners -- Health and hygiene Racism in criminal justice administration Racism in medicine Clinical & internal medicine. Health and Wellbeing. Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia United States Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781479810819 1479810819

  Permalink