Description
Book SynopsisBased on interviews, media analysis, and participant observation at research labs and conferences, this book analyzes how assumptions designed into and read out of the experimental process reinforce specific notions about human nature. It demonstrates how brain scans contribute to our social dependence on scientific authority.
Trade ReviewWinner of the 2005 Diana Forsythe Prize, American Anthropological Association "Picturing Personhood is one of the few visual-culture studies freed from lame textbook generalizations and predictable criticism... Given that brain imaging is on its way to becoming a decisive factor in the technologies of social control and selection, it is a question of political awareness to study the latest step in the conversion of human beings into visual information."--Tom Holert, Bookforum
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Interlude 1 Thinking about Reading 19 Chapter 2 Metaphors, Histories, and Visions of PET 22 Interlude 2 Reading Function 50 Chapter 3 Producing Brain Images of Mind 53 Interlude 3 Who Can Read Other Minds? 106 Chapter 4 Ways of Seeing Brains as Expert Images 109 Interlude 4 Reading into Images 134 Chapter 5 Traveling Images, Popularizing Brains 139 Interlude 5 Living One's Images 170 Chapter 6 Conclusion: Here Is a PET Image of a Person that Shows Depression 172 Notes 187 Bibliography 209 Index of Names 235 General Index 242
