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Medical spectacle: Historical images of childbirth as a lens for…
Medical spectacle: Historical images of childbirth as a lens for contemporary conversations
Senses
senses of the practitioner vs. senses of the patient
Nihell - there are some discussions of discomfort / the experience of childbirth according to the birthing person, but also focusing on midwives' senses above birthing women's
Hunter
Smellie
"Panoptics of the womb," Freeman
"The object of sense and of the experiment," Bellis
How are the senses of the patients managed (or attempted to be managed) by these texts? Thinking about books for popular consumption
How is sense information communicated and how does that help define for the practitioner what senses should be attended to
Distance from the patient / between patient and practitioner?
How is this represented today?
VR?
Anatomy lab
sim labs
dissection
Senses of reader: flap anatomies and touch
affective experiences of looking at these texts
How this changes over time - what were reactions in the past vs. how do we look at these things now?
experience of using the flap anatomies: singular experience of the touch interaction --> how does that translate to a patient interaction if the books don't comment on the patient's sense experiences during procedures / exams?
"Viewing" - Teaching a particular way of viewing the body
surgical manuals for practitioners
anatomical atlases
Body as an object / objectification
Hunter (how patients died; how he acquired bodies)
body as a machine
erasure of other ways of knowing the body / childbirth
How were these received? What conversations did they spark or influence?
Fetus & "personhood"
Purposes of these books
Earlier time periods: giving bodies their own agency
Entertainment? spectacle? Information?
Estienne & pornography
Who is reading these? What are they doing with them?
What is being said vs. what is seen: Image are often keyed
differences between female and male-authored texts? (thinking specifically about Elizabeth Nihil)
Connect this with contemporary conversations around 'natural' birth? "Whose bodies?"
Professional politics in the medical marketplace; spaces of care; money; power
aesthetics / optics of care in cultures; social power of the ways people give birth (Queens Elizabeth II and Victoria)
whose names get attached to techniques and tools and how does that impact optics? Soviet story that Ozzie knows
spectacle**
"theater of anatomy"
Teaching a particular way of experiencing childbirth
Home manuals teaching women
creates expectations of women by men
What is the impact of these expectations?
Eugenics
Minder flaps
Richardson phrenological flap
Shifts in where care takes place
Economics
Changes from previous time period - biblical --> Victorian ideals
There are some female authors of these books, too! Offer a very classed understanding of what women are / should be
Eugenics volume
Primary sources
Estienne
Hunter
Smellie
Cuyer (intersex)
Ties between sensationalization & perceived objectivity
Current political conversations - what is the significance of historical moments for current politics / bioethics / legislation
Definitions of "normal" / emphasis on normative bodies
How "non-normative" bodies are highlighted or not
What is a fetus? Does it have agency? individuality? How is that represented?
humanization vs. dehumanization of particular groups of people dependent on their normativity or not
Examples:
Images of Madeleine-Marie Lefort: produced by someone who had never seen her; freak show-style image in a medical text. sensationalization and spectacle of a non-normative body. How much do we know about the people in these images? (and why do we know what we know / not know what we don't know)
Smellie books; lack of humanity of the images / brutality / lack of presence of the person doing the dissection. Thinking about norms for medical images and medical procedures (This could be a really good transition example between the "what do these texts do" section and this "normativity" section)
Spratt: Thinking about the flap anatomy that shows a healthy, wealthy, white woman in a nice nightgown. Stylized in a particular way that is very different from the bodies he would have been using. How do authors "normalize" the bodies they use for research into images for communicating medical knowlege
Hunter: Normativity of practice / of looking - shows the procedure really clearly; uses sensory information to provide stabilized experiences for his students (standardization for teaching).
Phrenological flap anatomy in the home manual. Normalizing medical understandings of the body in the home / for the general population.
Aesthetic of medicine is marked by class
Contemporary resonances to highlight
Inequity in maternal care, specifically re: Black and Brown folks; LGBTQ2S+;
Ozzie knows an example of a trans masc person who was pregnant and went to the ER
Black maternal and infant mortality
Status of midwifery as a professional practice
Technology
the fetus and "personhood"
Forceps
Anesthesia / general pain medication
administration & monitoring
Twilight sleep
epidurals
Imaging (ultrasound)
fetal heart monitors
pregnancy tests
speculums
Sims
Meaning
safety
comfort / discomfort
Davis-Floyd
Control / power
movement or lack of movement
Position
choice
Understandings of "success"
timing
Community - who gets to be present / make decisions / be involved
Ruff (16th C image of attended birth vs later individualized reps.)
Goode, "African-American Midwifery"
Indigent patients/ social class and community
Freeman, "Panoptics of the womb"
"The Drama of the Fetoplacental Unit" in Rethinking the Public Fetus
Social status
Who is represented in these images?
Whose bodies were actually used to produce this information and these images?
Who are the books for?
Whose experiences are being represented?
Spratt: flap anatomy of woman in nightgown vs indigent woman likely used to produce image