Description
Book SynopsisBody, Capital and Screens: Visual Media and the Healthy Self in the 20th Century brings together new research from leading scholars from Europe and North America working at the intersection of film and media studies and social and cultural history of the body. The volume focuses on visual media in the twentieth century in Europe and the U.S. that informed and educated people about life and health as well as practices improving them. Through a series of in-depth case studies, the contributors to this volume investigate the relationships between film/television, private and public actors of the health sector and economic developments. The book explores the performative and interactive power of these visual media on individual health understandings, perceptions and practices.
Body, Capital and Screens aims to better understand how bodily health has evolved as a form of capital throughout the century.
Trade Review"From the mid-twentieth century onwards, televisual media has actively shaped relations between human bodies, health practices and market forces. By paying close critical attention to the nuances of these connections,
Body, Capital and Screens makes an important intervention in the field of European and global health history, and presents a convincing argument for the value of engaging with visual resources in historiographic research."
- Fiona Johnstone, Durham University,
European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health (2021)
"Die beiden Wissenschaftler_innen, die bereits zuvor in Co-Autorenschaft veröffentlichten, verbinden elf Beiträge, die auf der Mikroebene visuelle Kommunikationsformen analysieren. Dabei bearbeiten die Autor_innen dokumentarische Filme, Lehrfilme und Fernsehformate ebenso wie Amateurvideos. So passt sich das Buch perfekt in die Reihe „Media Matters“ der Amsterdam University Press ein, die den Fokus auf die Verflechtungen von Materialität und Performativität in alten und neuen Medien legt. [...] Den Herausgeber_innen gelingt es, strategische Gesundheitskommunikation und Medienwissenschaft zu vereinen. Diese interdisziplinäre Forschungsperspektive findet im deutschsprachigen Raum erst selten Anwendung."
- Charmaine Voigt (Leipzig),
MEDIENwissenschaft 03-04/2021
"Der von Christian Bonah und Anja Laukötter herausgegebene Sammelband ist ein überaus gelungenes Beispiel für die Implementierung der Funktionsprinzipien des zeitgemäßen historisch-kulturwissenschaftlichen Denkens in eine interdisziplinäre und international ausgerichtete Veröffentlichung. [...] Die immense Vielfalt an inhaltlichen Positionen und Ergebnissen, die vor diesem Hintergrund an konkreten thematischen Beispielen deutlich werden, macht den Sammelband in seiner Gänze zu einem höchst anregenden und lesenswerten Text."
- Stefan Zahlmann, Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien,
H-Soz-Kult, 2021
Table of ContentsBody, Capital, and Screens: An Introduction
Christian Bonah and Anja Laukötter
Chapter One
Playing the Doctor, Playing the Patient: The Performance of Health Identities in Live Medical Television, 1958
Timothy M. Boon
Chapter Two
The BBC's Children in Need Telethon: The Currencies of Compassion
Karen Lury
Chapter Three
Let's Talk about S=: The Influence of Cinema Verité on Sex Education in French National Television around 1968
Christian Bonah
Chapter Four
Measuring Subjectification: The Reception of Health Education Campaigns and the Evaluation Conundrum
Luc Berlivet
Chapter Five
Swimming the Crawl to Educate the Modern Body-Visual Material and the Expanding Market for Participatory Sports in the USA, 1890s-1930s
Olaf Stieglitz
Chapter Six
Inside Magoo (1960): Cancer and Comedic Commentary on 1950s America
David Cantor
Chapter Seven
'One Feels so Much in These Times!': Emotional Education and the Construction of New Subjectivities: Sex Education Films in Early 1960s GDR
Anja Laukötter
Chapter Eight
Revealing Norms and Sowing Confusion: VALIE EXPORT's Body
Sophie Delpeux
Chapter Nine
'Before Education, Good Food, and Health': World Citizenship and Biopolitics in UNESCO's Post-war Literacy Films
Zoë Druick
Chapter Ten
From Colonial to Global: Visuals and the Historiography of Body Government beyond Europe
Jean-Paul Gaudillière
Chapter Eleven
Zika Virus, Global Health Communication, and Dataveillance
Kirsten Ostherr
Index
