Surface Tensions

Surface Tensions is an expansive yet intimate study of how people remake themselves after catastrophic bodily change--the loss of limbs the loss of function the loss or replacement of organs. Against a sweeping cultural backdrop of art popular culture and the history of science and medicine Manderson uses narrative epistemology based on in-depth interviews with over 300 individuals to show how they re-establish the coherence of their bodies identities and biographies. In addition to offering important new insights into the care rehabilitation and rehabituation of post-trauma patients Manderson's work challenges conventional ideas about the nature of embodiment and is an important contribution to medical anthropology disability studies and cultural studies.