front cover of The Most Secret Quintessence of Life
The Most Secret Quintessence of Life
Sex, Glands, and Hormones, 1850-1950
Chandak Sengoopta
University of Chicago Press, 2006
Less than a century ago, physicians, scientists, and cultural commentators became fascinated by the endocrine glands and the effects of their secretions on our bodies and minds. Of all the characteristics supposed to be governed by them, the attributes of sex evoked the wildest interest. The gonads, it was revealed, secreted chemicals that not only influenced the biological expressions of sex, but seemed to generate the vitality and energy that made life worth living.
 
Through a series of case studies drawn from Central Europe, the United States, and Britain, The Most Secret Quintessence of Life explores how the notion of sex hormones enabled scientists to remap the human body, encouraging hopes that glandular interventions could cure ills, malfunctions, and even social deviance in ways inconceivable to previous generations. Many of these dreams failed, but their history, Chandak Sengoopta shows, takes us into the very heart of scientific medicine, revealing how even its most arcane concerns are shaped by cultural preoccupations and anxieties.
[more]

front cover of Plastic Bodies
Plastic Bodies
Sex Hormones and Menstrual Suppression in Brazil
Emilia Sanabria
Duke University Press, 2016
In Plastic Bodies Emilia Sanabria examines how sex hormones are enrolled to create, mold, and discipline social relations and subjectivities. She shows how hormones have become central to contemporary understandings of the body, class, gender, sex, personhood, modernity, and Brazilian national identity. Through interviews with women and doctors; observations in clinics, research centers and pharmacies; and analyses of contraceptive marketing, Sanabria traces the genealogy of menstrual suppression, from its use in population control strategies in the global South to its remarketing as a practice of pharmaceutical self-enhancement couched in neoliberal notions of choice. She links the widespread practice of menstrual suppression and other related elective medical interventions to Bahian views of the body as a malleable object that requires constant work. Given this bodily plasticity, and its potentially limitless character, the book considers ways to assess the values attributed to bodily interventions. Plastic Bodies will be of interest to all those working in medical anthropology, gender studies, and sexual and reproductive health.
[more]

front cover of Sex Science Self
Sex Science Self
A Social History of Estrogen, Testosterone, and Identity
Bob Ostertag
University of Massachusetts Press, 2016
In Sex Science Self, Bob Ostertag cautions against accepting and defending any technology uncritically—even, maybe even especially, a technology that has become integrally related to identity. Specifically, he examines the development of estrogen and testosterone as pharmaceuticals.

Ostertag situates this history alongside the story of an increasingly visible and political lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population. He persuasively argues that scholarship on the development of sex hormone chemicals does not take into account LGBT history and activism, nor has work in LGBT history fully considered the scientific research that has long attempted to declare a chemical essence of gender. In combining these histories, Ostertag reveals the complex motivations behind hormone research over generations and expresses concern about the growing profits from estrogen and testosterone, which now are marketed with savvy ad campaigns to increase their use across multiple demographics.

Ostertag does not argue against the use of pharmaceutical hormones. Instead he points out that at a time when they are increasingly available, it is more important than ever to understand the history and current use of these powerful chemicals so that everyone—within the LGBT community and beyond—can make informed choices.

In this short, thoughtful, and engaging book, Ostertag tells a fascinating story while opening up a wealth of new questions and debates about gender, sexuality, and medical treatments.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter