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Medicine as Culture
Illness, Disease and the Body
Third Edition
- Deborah Lupton - University of New South Wales, Australia
April 2012 | 208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Medicine as Culture has become the classic text for the sociology of health and illness, combining perspectives drawn from a wide variety of disciplines including sociology, anthropology, social history and cultural studies. The books teases out how medicine and health care are sociocultural constructions, ranging from mass media and high cultural representations of illness, disease, and health care workers to the power dynamics of the doctor-patient relationship.
The Third Edition has been updated to cover new and emerging areas of interest including: the role of computerized communication technologies in providing access to medical information; new medical technologies and how they contribute to people's understandings of their bodies and selfhood; how bioethical issues and dilemmas are negotiated in clinical settings; the changing role of nurses in healthcare provision; and new research in neuroscience on the plasticity of the brain and the notion of 'brain types' and how this research contributes to novel understandings of the brain in lay and medical cultures.
Introduction
Theoretical Perspectives on Medicine and Society
The Body in Medicine
Representations of Medicine, Illness and the Body
The Lay Perspective on Illness and Disease
Power Relations and the Medical Encounter
Feminisms and Medicine
Conclusion
Superb cultural analysis of illness and corporeality in contemporary society.
Faculty of Art, University College Falmouth
May 30, 2012
