Teratologies: A Cultural Study of Cancer Contributor(s): Stacey, Jackie (Author) |
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ISBN: 0415149592 ISBN-13: 9780415149594 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $152.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 1997 Annotation: Embodying our deepest fears, cancer is seen as a disease of society as well as of the individual, of the spirit as well as of the body. personality." Teratologies" is a distinctively feminist look at how cancer is imagined and experienced in contemporary society. Beginning with powerful personal accounts of her own illness, aw well as self-help manuals and patients' personal stories, Jackie Stacey explores changing beliefs about the causes and treatments of cancer in both biomedicine and its increasingly popular alternative counterparts. Using the case of cancer as a way of understanding some of the wider issues such as the feminist debates about the history of science, the place of consumer culture in health practices and the status of patients and of health professionals in postmodern society. Stacey reminds us that cancer is more than an illness--it is a cultural phenomenon. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Medical | Health Care Delivery - Social Science | Sociology - General |
Dewey: 362.196 |
LCCN: 96037055 |
Series: International Library of Sociology |
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.4" W x 9.4" (1.30 lbs) 304 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Stories of cancer are full of monster and marvels; the monstrousness of the disease and the treatments, the marvels of the cures and the saved lives. Still one of the most dreaded diseases to haunt our imaginations, cancer is more than an illness - it is a cultural phenomenon. People who have cancer are bombarded with competing explanations of their conditions: it is genetically inherited; it is environmentally produced; it is the result of their personality. Teratologies - A Cultural Study of Cancer investigates how this disease is perceived, experienced and theorised in contemporary society. It explores changing beliefs about the causes of, and the cures for, cancer in both biomedicine and its increasingly popular alternative counterparts. |