Public Privates

Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum

Nonfiction, Health & Well Being, Medical, Specialties, Gynecology & Obstetrics, Health, Women&
Cover of the book Public Privates by Terri Kapsalis, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Terri Kapsalis ISBN: 9780822399629
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: August 1, 2012
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Terri Kapsalis
ISBN: 9780822399629
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: August 1, 2012
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

In Public Privates, a book about looking and being looked at, about speculums, spectacles, and spectators, about display, illumination, and reflection, Terri Kapsalis makes visible the practices and representations of gynecology. The quintessential examination of women, gynecology is not simply the study of women’s bodies, but also serves to define and constitute them. Any critical analysis of gynecology is therefore, as Kapsalis affirms, an investigation of what it means to be female. In this respect she considers the public exposure of female "privates" in the performance of the pelvic exam.
From J. Marion Sims’s surgical experiments on unanesthetized slave women in the mid-nineteenth century, to the use of cadavers and prostitutes to teach medical students gynecological techniques, Kapsalis focuses on the ways in which women and their bodies have been treated by the medical establishment. Removing gynecology from its private cover within clinic walls and medical textbook pages, she decodes the gynecological exam, seizing on its performative dimension. She considers traditional medical practices and the dynamics of "proper" patient performance; non-traditional practices such as cervical self-exam; and incarnations of the pelvic examination outside the bounds of medicine, including its appearance in David Cronenberg’s film Dead Ringers and Annie Sprinkle’s performance piece "Public Cervix Announcement."
Confounding the boundaries that separate medicine, art, and pornography, revealing the potent cultural attitudes and anxieties about women, female bodies, and female sexuality that permeate the practice of gynecology, Public Privates concludes by locating a venue from which challenging, alternative performances may be staged.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In Public Privates, a book about looking and being looked at, about speculums, spectacles, and spectators, about display, illumination, and reflection, Terri Kapsalis makes visible the practices and representations of gynecology. The quintessential examination of women, gynecology is not simply the study of women’s bodies, but also serves to define and constitute them. Any critical analysis of gynecology is therefore, as Kapsalis affirms, an investigation of what it means to be female. In this respect she considers the public exposure of female "privates" in the performance of the pelvic exam.
From J. Marion Sims’s surgical experiments on unanesthetized slave women in the mid-nineteenth century, to the use of cadavers and prostitutes to teach medical students gynecological techniques, Kapsalis focuses on the ways in which women and their bodies have been treated by the medical establishment. Removing gynecology from its private cover within clinic walls and medical textbook pages, she decodes the gynecological exam, seizing on its performative dimension. She considers traditional medical practices and the dynamics of "proper" patient performance; non-traditional practices such as cervical self-exam; and incarnations of the pelvic examination outside the bounds of medicine, including its appearance in David Cronenberg’s film Dead Ringers and Annie Sprinkle’s performance piece "Public Cervix Announcement."
Confounding the boundaries that separate medicine, art, and pornography, revealing the potent cultural attitudes and anxieties about women, female bodies, and female sexuality that permeate the practice of gynecology, Public Privates concludes by locating a venue from which challenging, alternative performances may be staged.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book A Revolution for Our Rights by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Becoming Reinaldo Arenas by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Crude Chronicles by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book MP3 by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book The Constitution Besieged by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Humanism and Secularization by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Photography's Other Histories by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Histories of Race and Racism by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Minor Transnationalism by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Land's End by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Race, Place, and Medicine by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Affective Communities by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Object Lessons by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book The Quality of Home Runs by Terri Kapsalis
Cover of the book Fixin to Git by Terri Kapsalis
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy