High theory/mass markets: Newsweek magazine and the circuits of medical culture.
Medicine is driven by much more than science and reason (ethics); it is also driven by the circuits of culture within which it operates. This article examines how postmodern theory deconstructs standard ideals of science and reason and allows medical humanities scholars to better contextualize the world of medicine. As such, postmodern theory provides an invaluable tool for understanding the circuits of popular culture and medicine's place within these circuits. Using a recent issue of Newsweek magazine devoted to health and technology to illustrate the main points, this essay argues that contemporary popular influences on medicine are deeply problematic, and that through an appreciation of the dynamics of culture, medical humanities scholars can join the struggle over medical culture. This perspective allows medical humanities to make important contributions toward alternative circuits of medical representation, consumption, and identification.
Gallatin School of Individiaulized Study, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA. bl466@nyu.edu
Bradley
B
Lewis
D003469:Culture; D006266:Health Education; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006809:Humanities; D006801:Humans; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D033302:Postmodernism