Synopses & Reviews
One of the most relevant social problems in contemporary American life is the continuing HIV epidemic in the Black population. With vivid ethnographic detail, this book brings together scholarship on the structural dimensions of the AIDS epidemic and the social construction of sexuality to assert that shifting forms of sexual storiesandmdash;structural intimaciesandmdash;are emerging, produced by the meeting of intimate lives and social structural patterns. These stories render such inequalities as racism, poverty, gender power disparities, sexual stigma, and discrimination as central not just to the dramatic, disproportionate spread of HIV in Black communities in the United States, but to the formation of Black sexualities.
Sonja Mackenzie elegantly argues that structural vulnerability is feltandmdash;quite literallyandmdash;in the blood, in the possibilities and constraints on sexual lives, and in the rhetorics of their telling. The circulation of structural intimacies in daily life and in the political domain reflects possibilities for seeking what Mackenzie calls intimate justice at the nexus of cultural, economic, political, and moral spheres. Structural Intimacies presents a compelling case: in an era of deepening medicalization of HIV/AIDS, public health must move beyond individual-level interventions to community-level health equity frames and policy changes
Review
"This compelling book addresses the social, political, and economic dimensions of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the Black population in America, making a unique contribution to the topic that will fill a significant gap in scholarly literature."
Richard G. Parker
Review
andldquo;This compelling book addresses the social, political, and economic dimensions of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the Black population in America, making an extremely important contribution to the scholarly literature on the intersections among HIV/AIDS, race and racism, and gender and sexuality. Mackenzieandrsquo;s notion of structural intimacies is a very novel and innovative contribution. This book will have a major impact.andrdquo;
Review
"This book is the best treatment we have of the American catastrophe c
Review
"The intent [of Katrina's Imprint] is to reveal the human consequences of the city's devastation and to offer a moral perspective on what has been viewed too often as a failure of government, a 'natural' breakdown of technological systems. This volume reminds us of the persistence of racial divisions in American society and the many ways that African Americans are vulnerable to harm. Recommended."
Review
"
Katrina's Imprint is a unique book that makes critical contributions to our understanding not only of the event itself but also of the ongoing production of social inequalities in our society as a whole. The strong blend of empirically-based social science and textual and cultural analyses of
Katrina's Imprint leads to a holistic understanding of the ways that structural inequalities are reproduces, but also resisted and challenged."
Review
"
Katrina's Imprint provides some of the most valuable scholarly insights yet published regarding the 2005 disaster. It serves as an exemplary record of interdisciplinary scholars whose research illuminates Katrina's larger lessons."
Review
"With skilled use of primary and secondary sources,
Katrina's Imprint effectively shakes us out of our 'blissful ignorance' and fulfills its stated aim to broaden and deepen our understanding of Katrina.
Katrina's Imprint is important reading."
Review
andquot;The South has been the epicenter of the U.S. HIV epidemic for the last decade, and the authors have used a balanced set of information from both surveys and personal observations to present a poignant and accessible portrait of the complexities of human health and disease.andquot;
Review
andquot;Expertly linking patientsandrsquo; pasts to their current struggles to obtain health care and support, the stories related here contextualize AIDS within the lived experiences of the poor and marginalized communities that bear the greatest burden of HIV in the American South. This book offers indispensable insight into the ways that large-scale socialand#160;forces shape the lives of those facing AIDS.andquot;
Review
"Two groundbreaking, indispensable guides for serious scholars of sexualities who wish to understand both the heterogeneous sexualities of African Americans and Latinos as well as how greater attention to race, ethnicity, class and culture provides important new directions for the field."
Review
"Filled with provocative arguments and illuminating insights, Black Sexualities marks a new and exciting epoch in the study of human sexuality and its interactions with race and class; a must-read for scholars and students of ethnic studies and human sexuality."
Review
"A path breaking contribution and the definite resource for interdisciplinary scholars in the growing field of Black sexualities. A highly sophisticated intervention that fills the existing void of empirical research in this area, while drawing from and critically engaging with the social and behavioral science literature. This volume will forever challenge us to rethink the categories, methods and approaches scholars use in this rapidly developing field of study."
Review
"Excellent for courses in black, Latino/a, women's, and LGBT studies, and sociology. Highly recommended."
Review
andquot;This book is analytical, nostalgic, sensitive, and just plain fun. Bert Hansen's meticulous privileging of the visual is a pathbreaking achievement for methods in the social and cultural history of medicine. You can be rewarded simply by looking at the wonderful pictures, but you will 'see' so much more in his lively prose.andquot;
Review
andquot;Even as a long-time collector of medical prints, I learned a lot from this extraordinary book. Hansen's digging has turned up many discoveries, providing a new perspective on graphic art in popular culture. The images are wonderful, but this is not just a picture book; it's a great read as well, filled with remarkable insights.
andquot;
Review
andquot;Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio is an authoritative, well-written account that will be a significant contribution not only to the history of American medicine, but to the history of American popular culture.andquot;
Review
andquot;This skillfully written volume reminds us how books such as Microbe Hunters, films such as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, and even some of the old comic books and Life magazines in our basements once celebrated medical history and inspired the young to study science and medicine. Bert Hansen's rich exploration of the intersection of popular culture and the history of medicine opens wide a window on a time between the 1880s and the 1950s when physicians, nurses, and scientists were highly regarded warriors against disease and human suffering. It is a major contribution to our understanding of how medicine's cultural authority was established and expanded in the United States, vital to scholars and valuable to those who hope to spark a renewed enthusiasm among Americans for the study of science and medicine.andquot;
Review
andquot;That doctors and their work routinely populate all forms of popular American culture is a historical aberration. Bert Hansen begins his illustrated account of the start of this phenomenon with the observation that until late in the 19th century, no one really wanted any more contact with doctors than was necessary-certainly not in publications intended to entertain. Louis Pasteur changed all that. As scientific triumphs accumulated, the hagiography of the doctor spread throughout the media, from print advertisements to radio spots, from comic books to adoring photo essays in Life magazine.andquot;
Review
andquot;Hansen's narrative reveals a remarkably rich engagement between laboratory work and the curiosity of ordinary citizens. Hansen's work is well grounded in primary research and includes the footnotes expected by medical historians, but at the same time it is completely accessible to any reader interested in the history of medicine. Hansen has done an admirable job of excavating the role played by images of medical progress in the popular media. Picturing Medical Progress From Pasteur to Polio is both a remarkable work of medical history and an entertaining account of medicine's golden age viewed through the eyes of the public.andquot;
Review
andquot;At the start, the practice of medicine is accorded little positive public recognition. The medical profession as pictured in magazines and newspapers is ineffective and unprofessional, in collusion with the funeral industry, and tolerant of inferior public health. By the 1950s, with the advent of the Salk polio vaccine, medicine has become a highly esteemed profession grounded in scientific research. Hansen documents the transition, making a detailed examination of images in both print and film media. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;For historians of all kinds, whether of science, of medicine, or of media, Hansen's book provides a strong argument for paying more attention to images.andquot;
Review
andquot;This is the best synthetic treatment we have of the role the mass media played in shaping and promoting the high esteem enjoyed by the American medical profession across the first half of the twentieth century. Hansen has given us both a richly detailed account of the images widely circulated to the public and a convincing analysis of the aggregate image those pictures of medicine fostered.andquot;
Review
andquot;Hansen presents material previously unexplored by medical historians, while maintaining a clear narrative style.andquot;
Synopsis
Structural Intimacies brings together scholarship on the structural dimensions of the AIDS epidemic and the social construction of sexuality to address the continuing HIV epidemic in the Black population, It asserts that shifting forms of sexual stories, structural intimacies, are emerging and presents a compelling argument: in an era of deepening medicalization of HIV/AIDS, public health must move beyond individual-level interventions to community-level health equity frames and policy changes.
Synopsis
This extensively revised second edition presents twenty-five different case studies and incorporates research from the authorsandrsquo; recent quantitative study, andldquo;Coping with HIV/AIDS in the Southeastandrdquo; (CHASE). CHASE includes 611 HIV-positive patients from eight clinics in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. This is the first cohesive compilation of up-to-date evidence on the unique and difficult aspects of those living with HIV in the Deep South.
Synopsis
Why does society have difficulty discussing sexualities? Where does fear of Black sexualities emerge and how is it manifested? How can varied experiences of Black females and males who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), or straight help inform dialogue and academic inquiry?
From questioning forces that have constrained sexual choices to examining how Blacks have forged healthy sexual identities in an oppressive environment, Black Sexualities acknowledges the diversity of the Black experience and the shared legacy of racism. Contributors seek resolution to Blacks' understanding of their lives as sexual beings through stories of empowerment, healing, self-awareness, victories, and other historic and contemporary life-course panoramas and provide practical information to foster more culturally relative research, tolerance, and acceptance.
Synopsis
Katrina's Imprint highlights the power of this sentinel American event and its continuing reverberations in contemporary politics, culture, and public policy. Published on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the multidisciplinary volume reflects on how history, location, access to transportation, health care, and social position feed resilience, recovery, and prospects for the future of New Orleans and the Gulf region. Essays examine the intersecting vulnerabilities that gave rise to the disaster, explore the cultural and psychic legacies of the storm, reveal how the process of rebuilding and starting over replicates past vulnerabilities, and analyze Katrina's imprint alongside American's myths of self-sufficiency. A case study of new weaknesses that have emerged in our era, this book offers an argument for why we cannot wait for the next disaster before we apply the lessons that should be learned from Katrina.
Synopsis
Today, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, insurance carriers, and the health care system in general may often puzzle and frustrate the general publicand#249;and even physicians and researchers. By contrast, from the 1880s through the 1950s Americans enthusiastically embraced medicine and its practitioners. Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio offers a refreshing portrait of an era when the public excitedly anticipated medical progress and research breakthroughs.
This unique study with 130 archival illustrations drawn from newspaper sketches, caricatures, comic books, Hollywood films, and LIFE magazine photography analyzes the relationship between mass media images and popular attitudes. Bert Hansen considers the impact these representations had on public attitudes and shows how media portrayal and popular support for medical research grew together and reinforced each other.
About the Author
KEITH WAILOO is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers University, and the author and editor of several books, among them
Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health.
KAREN M. O'NEILL is a sociologist and associate professor of human ecology at Rutgers University, and the author of Rivers by Design: State Power and the Origins of U.S. Flood Control.
JEFFREY DOWD is a Ph.D. candidate in the sociology department at Rutgers University.
ROLAND V. ANGLIN is the director of the Initiative for Regional and Community Transformation (IRCT) at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University.
Table of Contents
Identity Theories and New Frameworks
Nontraditional, Nonconforming, and Transgressive Gender Expression and Relationship Modalities in Black Communities
Creation Out of Bounds
On the Fear of Small Numbers
Blackness, Sexuality, and Transnational Desire
Part II
Pathologizing Black Sexuality
Dangerous Profiling
Revisiting Black Sexualities in Families
To Be Fluent in Each Other's Narratives
Part III
Prison, Crime, and Sexual Health in the United States
Black and Latino Same-Sex Couple Households and the Racial Dynamics of Antigay Activism
Racialized Justice Spreads HIV/AIDS among Blacks
Black Sexual Citizenship
Part IV
Blacks and Racial Appraisals
When Secrets Hurt
Black Female Sex Workers
Yes, Jesus Loves Me-A Case Study
Part V
Black Mother-Daughter Narratives about Sexuality
Black Youth Sexuality
"I'll Be Forever Mackin'"
Black Senior Women and Sexuality
Epilogue