Wild Science investigates the world-wide boom in health culture. While self-help health books and medical dramas are popular around the globe; we are bombarded with daily media images of DNA research; and news reports about cloning; the fight against AIDS; cancer and depression. With popular culture now the principal means through which the non-scientific population encounters science why do certain images of science get promoted above others?Contributors examine the public meanings of science; revealing the frictions and contradictions within popular representations of what medicine can and should do. Focusing on the visual culture of medicine; they show how representations of science have a direct impact on popular perceptions of the limits of science; and ultimately on health education; funding and research; and examine the belief that media literacy in popular representations of medicine makes an ethical public discourse on the aims of science possible.With sections addressing the new visual technologies which make the human body into a virtual territory; the diagnostic and medical practices centered around womens bodies; and popular debates around genetics and identity; Wild Science argues that science is a practice bound in values and institutions; and argues for a responsible engagement with the public cultures of science and health.
#1179815 in eBooks 2013-11-05 2013-11-05File Name: B00G8BADIO
Review
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Three StarsBy Eve LappIt was ok0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Not as exploitive as TV fund raising.By Larry BThis harks back to the days when people were honestly curious and allowed those with deformities to make an honest living. The circus; the stage and the side show required imagination and thought to appreciate.Today we have blatant exploitation of the unfortunate by so called help organisations. One cannot enjoy evening TV without ads featuring human misery by: The Shriners; Disabled American Veterans; Wounded Warriors; and St. Judes Hospital. They often double or triple up on these ads. They never change them. PT Barnum at least varied the fare. I would rather have my deformities viewed by a dozen rubes; than have them displayed in millions of homes.The Barnums paid a fair wage. Some of these so called help organizations pass along less than 10% of the take.It is interesting to read about these stars of yesteryear. Perhaps someone will do a book on the limbless and scarred people used in begging TV ads.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Oddities on ParadeBy RCMOne does not need to be a fan of the cirucs or amusements along those lines to be intrigued by Robert Bogdans examination of freak shows. In "Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit;" Bogdan traces the roots and heyday of freak shows with alacrity; intelligence; and respect. This thoroughly researched work is filled with pictures and artifacts (some rather gruesome in their subject) that furthers Bogdans examination of freak show history.Beginning in the mid-1800s to around 1940; freak shows were a staple of amusement in the United States. At a time when strange creatures and humans from foreign coutries were unknown to those in other countries it was easy to startle and entertain with these fascinating exhibits. Who now can imagine what it would be like to live in a world where a giraffe was an unknown; fascinatingly strange creature. It is so common to us today that at times it is hard to conceive how people could be taken in by some of the fabricated freaks (or gaffs as they were known as). The lack of scientific and medical knowledge allowed freak shows to propser; especially those that featured people we now know as mentally handicapped; because their conditions were unidentified at the time. True; real oddities existed - the super-tall or super-small; the armless or legless wonders; the Siamese twins - but freak shows also cast their lot in created freaks - fake "savages" from foreign lands; "wild" children; island cannibals; and tattooed marvels in a day and age when tattooing was not common; but rather a sure sign of savage heathens.Bogdan covers the real as well as the fake; those who made themselves feaks and those who were forced to be labled as freaks. Knowing what we do today; it is incredible to think that this was allowed to happen; but humans are so curious and so struck by differences that we find it hard not to gawk at these oddities; whether they are on stage or passing us on the street. At times Bogdans work reads a lot like a thesis and it is a little redundant and recursive at times; but that is likely due to the fact that the author had a lot of ground to cover. It is evident that Bogdan is not attempting anything like exploitation of his topic; for he treats it with profound respect and honestly; even assessing the freak shows ancestors of today. It is an interesting; although sometimes dry; read about a fascinating topic even for someone who has no interest in the circus whatsoever.