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AIDS and the Body Politic: Biomedicine and Sexual Difference (Writing Corporealities
First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
184 pages, Paperback
First published September 5, 1996
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About the author
Catherine Waldby
9 books2 followersCatherine Waldby is a Professorial Future Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney. She is coauthor, with Herbert Gottweis and Brian Salter, of The Global Politics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science: Regenerative Medicine in Transition and, with Robert Mitchell, of Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs, and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism.
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January 25, 2016
This text has interpreted AIDS as a symptom, not of the activity of a virus, but of a particular moment in the history of sexual politics. (140)
Hence the point of view which functions in AIDS epidemiology, while claiming to be panoptic, a neutral, centralised and evenly distributed gaze, can be seen to be a phallocentric one. Like all knowledges who claim panoptic neutrality, epidemiology is irretrievably perspectival, and its representation of the AIDS epidemic in assembled from the point of view of phallic body interests and their protection. (111)
A fascinating book which tackles AIDS rhetoric not from a social or political standpoint but from a biomedical one, meaning that the language of immunology, epidemiology, public health and screening programs are scrutinized for contributing to the conceptualization of AIDS as threatening the "general public" (read: heterosexual males) and targeting "risk groups" (read: permeable, non-phallic bodies, namely female and homosexual males). Of special interest is the final chapter, 'Technologies and the Body Politic: The HIV Antibody Test'. This is a thesis that I find particularly interesting--for a lot of my own academic interests lie in interrogating medical boundaries and definitions that we tend to take as absolutes when they are in reality culturally and contextually contingent (see also: "facts" are not "truths" but actually things that we have decided to agree on and call "facts")--and while I enjoyed Walby's argument, the prose leaves an awful lot to be desired. There are moments of intense and affective clarity, but the vast majority of the chapters are doused in complex language that is not entirely necessary. If I wasn't someone with a particular interest in the topic, or someone who has a background in these sorts of arguments, I'm not sure I would have got through the entire book; take that as you will, but the argument itself is certainly worth approaching, considering, and engaging with.
Hence the point of view which functions in AIDS epidemiology, while claiming to be panoptic, a neutral, centralised and evenly distributed gaze, can be seen to be a phallocentric one. Like all knowledges who claim panoptic neutrality, epidemiology is irretrievably perspectival, and its representation of the AIDS epidemic in assembled from the point of view of phallic body interests and their protection. (111)
A fascinating book which tackles AIDS rhetoric not from a social or political standpoint but from a biomedical one, meaning that the language of immunology, epidemiology, public health and screening programs are scrutinized for contributing to the conceptualization of AIDS as threatening the "general public" (read: heterosexual males) and targeting "risk groups" (read: permeable, non-phallic bodies, namely female and homosexual males). Of special interest is the final chapter, 'Technologies and the Body Politic: The HIV Antibody Test'. This is a thesis that I find particularly interesting--for a lot of my own academic interests lie in interrogating medical boundaries and definitions that we tend to take as absolutes when they are in reality culturally and contextually contingent (see also: "facts" are not "truths" but actually things that we have decided to agree on and call "facts")--and while I enjoyed Walby's argument, the prose leaves an awful lot to be desired. There are moments of intense and affective clarity, but the vast majority of the chapters are doused in complex language that is not entirely necessary. If I wasn't someone with a particular interest in the topic, or someone who has a background in these sorts of arguments, I'm not sure I would have got through the entire book; take that as you will, but the argument itself is certainly worth approaching, considering, and engaging with.
Displaying 1 of 1 review