Suchergebnisse

Introduction: the problem with obesity -- Defining obesity -- Obesity and human adaptation -- The distribution of risk -- Culture and body ideals -- Big-body symbolism, meanings, and norms -- Conclusion: the big picture

Anthropology and complexity -- Genetic adaptation -- Developmental adjustment and epigenetic change -- Emergence of culture and people like us -- Global expansion, human variation, and the invention of 'race' -- Foraging : a human baseline -- Agricultural revolution : another great divide -- Epidemics and immunities -- Political economy of health disparities -- Stress, meaning, and health -- Culture in practice : embodying gender -- Body ideals and outcomes -- Kinship : so relative -- Conclusion. Respecting connections.

"In an era when human lives are increasingly measured and weighed in relation to the medical and scientific, notions of what is "normal" have changed drastically. While it is no longer useful to think of a person's particular race, gender, sexual orientation, or choice as "normal," the concept continues to haunt us in other ways. In The End of Normal, Lennard J. Davis explores changing perceptions of body and mind in social, cultural, and political life as the 21st century unfolds. The book's provocative essays mine the worlds of advertising, film, literature, and the visual arts as they consider issues of disability, depression, physician-assisted suicide, medical diagnosis, transgender, and other identities. Using contemporary discussions of biopower and biopolitics, Davis focuses on social and cultural production...particularly on issues around the different body and mind. The End of Normal seeks an analysis that works comfortably in the intersection between science, medicine, technology, and culture, and will appeal to those interested in cultural studies, bodily practices, disability, science and medical studies, feminist materialism, psychiatry, and psychology"