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Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory

Name: Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory
Brand: New York University Press
SKU: 9781479810789
Price: 35.99 USD
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Contributors:

Cristina Mejia Visperas

Publisher:

New York University Press

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

Science, Medical, Social Science

Book Subcategory:

History, Emergency Medicine, Cultural & Ethnic Studies

Book Topic:

American

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The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Specifications +

Release Date:

2022-07-26

ISBN 13:

9781479810789

Weight:

0.8 lbs

Size:

8.90 x 5.83 x 0.87 inches

Pages:

256

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

Honorable Mention, Rachel Carson Prize, given by the Society for the Social Studies of Science

Finalist, 2023 ASAP Book Award, given by the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present

Studies the intersections of incarceration, medical science, and race in postwar America

In February 1966, a local newspaper described the medical science program at Holmesburg Prison, Philadelphia, a "golden opportunity to conduct widespread medical tests under perfect control conditions." Helmed by Albert M. Kligman, a University of Pennsylvania professor, these tests enrolled hundreds of the prison's predominantly Black population in studies determining the efficacy and safety of a wide variety of substances, from common household products to chemical warfare agents. These experiments at Holmesburg were hardly unique; in the postwar United States, the use of incarcerated test subjects was standard practice among many research institutions and pharmaceutical companies. Skin Theory examines the prison as this space for scientific knowledge production, showing how the "perfect control conditions" of the prison dovetailed into the visual regimes of laboratory work. To that end, Skin Theory offers an important reframing of visual approaches to race in histories of science, medicine, and technology, shifting from issues of scientific racism to the scientific rationality of racism itself.

In this highly original work, Cristina Mejia Visperas approaches science as a fundamentally racial project by analyzing the privileged object and instrument of Kligman's experiments: the skin. She theorizes the skin as visual technology, as built environment, and as official discourse, developing a compelling framework for understanding the intersections of race, incarceration, and medical science in postwar America.

About the Author
Cristina Mejia Visperas is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California.

Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory

Description

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