Recovering the Nation's Body: Cultural Memory, Medicine, and the Politics of Redemption - Hardcover

Hogle, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813526442 ISBN 13: 9780813526447

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 1999

Synopsis

The body is both a site for medical practice and a source of therapeutic and scientific tools. As such, there are a variety of meanings ascribed to the body which both affect and are affected by cultural, economic, political and legal complexities. In order to access and use body parts, Linda F. Hogle states, transformative scientific and  cultural processes are brought into play. Nowhere is this more evident than present-day Germany, where the spectre of Nazi medical experimentation still plays a large role  in national policies governing the use of body parts and the way these policies are put into practice.  In their efforts to be perceived as not repeating atrocities of the past, German medical practitioners and policy-makers reformulate ideas of bodily violation.  To further confuse the issue, the reunification of East and West Germany has engendered new questions about the relationship between individuals’ bodies, science, and the state.

Hogle shows how “universal” medicine is reinterpreted through the lens of national and transnational politics and history, using comparative examples from her research in the United. States.  Recovering the Nation’s Body is the first book to analyze the actual practices involved in procuring human tissue, and the first to examine how the German past and the unique present-day situation within the European Union are key in understanding the form that medical practices take within various contexts.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The body is both a site for medical practice and a source of tools for therapeutic and scientific uses. There are many meanings ascribed to the body that both affect and are affected by numerous cultural, economic, political, and legal issues. In order to procure and use body organs and tissues, Linda F. Hogle states, scientists enlist a wide array of cultural assumptions. Nowhere is this more evident than in present-day Germany, where the specter of Nazi medical experimentation still plays a large role in national policies are put into practice. In their efforts themselves from the atrocities of the past, German medical practitioners and policy-makers have reformulated ideas of bodily violation. Furthermore, the reunification of East and West Germany has engendered new questions about the relationships among individuals' bodies, science, and the state.

Recovering the Nation's Body is the first book to analyze the actual practices involved in procuring human body parts, and the first to examine how the German past and the unique present-day situation within the European Union are keys to understanding the forms that medical practice takes within various cultural contexts.

About the Author

Linda F. Hogle is a fellow at the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics. She has written widely on the anthropology of science and on bioethics and cultural diversity.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0813526442
• ISBN 13: 9780813526447
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 242