Contagion
Subtitle: historical and cultural studies
By: edited by Alison Bashford and Claire Hooker
Contributors: Bashford, Alison, 1963-; Hooker, Claire, 1971-
Series: Routledge studies in the social history of medicine; Studies in the social history of medicine
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2001
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
Subjects: Communicable diseases -- Social aspects; Communicable diseases -- History -- 19th century; Communicable diseases -- History -- 20th century
Description: In the age of HIV, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the Ebola Virus and BSE, metaphors and experience of contagion are a central concern of government, biomedicine and popular culture. Contagion explores cultural responses of infectious diseases and their biomedical management over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also investigates the use of 'contagion' as a concept in postmodern reconceptualisations of embodied subjectivity. The essays are written from within the fields of cultural studies, biomedical history and critical sociology. The contributors examine the geographies, policies and identities which have been produced in the massive social effort to contain diseases. They explore both social responses to infectious diseases in the past, and contemporary theoretical and biomedical sites for the study of contagion.--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [227]-231) and index