Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality

228 Pages·2010·5.618 MB·English

by  Jonathan M. Metzl, Anna Kirkland (eds.)

Against Health
Biopolitics
Medicine, Technoscience, and Health in the 21st Century
General Editors: Monica J. Casper and Lisa Jean Moore
Missing Bodies: The Politics of Invisibility
Monica J. Casper and Lisa Jean Moore
Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality
Jonathan M. Metzl and Anna Kirkland, Editors
Against Health
How Health Became the New Morality
Jonathan M. Metzl and Anna Kirkland
editors
a
NEW Y ORK UNIVERS ITY P RESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2010 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Against health : how health became the new morality /
edited by Jonathan M. Metzl and Anna Kirkland.
p. cm. — (Biopolitics, medicine, technoscience, and health in the 21st century)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–8147–9592–7 (cl : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–0–8147–9593–4 (pb : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–0–8147–6110–6 (e-book : alk. paper)
1. Health—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Medical ethics.
3. Health services accessibility. 4. Social medicine.
I. Metzl, Jonathan, 1964– II. Kirkland, Anna Rutherford.
RA418.A53 2010
362.1—dc22 2010018812
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Carol Boyd, with deep gratitude
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction: Why “Against Health”? 1
Jonathan M. Metzl
Part I: What Is Health, Anyway?
2 What Is Health and How Do You Get It? 15
Richard Klein
3 Risky Bigness: On Obesity, Eating, and the Ambiguity of “Health” 26
Lauren Berlant
4 Against Global Health? Arbitrating Science, 40
Non-Science, and Nonsense through Health
Vincanne Adams
Part II: Seeing Health through Morality
5 The Social Immorality of Health in the Gene Age: 61
Race, Disability, and Inequality
Dorothy Roberts
6 Fat Panic and the New Morality 72
Kathleen LeBesco
7 Against Breastfeeding (Sometimes) 83
Joan B. Wolf
Part III: Making Health and Disease
8 Pharmaceutical Propaganda 93
Carl Elliott

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9 The Strangely Passive-Aggressive History of 105
Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder
Christopher Lane
10 Obsession: Against Mental Health 121
Lennard J. Davis
11 Atomic Health, or How The Bomb Altered 133
American Notions of Death
Joseph Masco
Part IV: Pleasure and Pain after Health
12 How Much Sex Is Healthy? The Pleasures of Asexuality 157
Eunjung Kim
13 Be Prepared 170
S. Lochlann Jain
14 In the Name of Pain 183
Tobin Siebers
15 Conclusion: What Next? 195
Anna Kirkland
About the Contributors 205
Index 209

viii | Contents
Acknowledgments
Against Health was a concept, and a conference, before it was a
book. The editors express tremendous gratitude to the many people whose
dedication, skill, generosity, and foresight enabled this transformation. From
the beginning, Carol Boyd and David Halperin envisioned and supported
the Against Health conference, which took place in October 2006 at the Uni-
versity of Michigan. Colleagues including Wendy Bostwick, Anne Esacove,
Sasha Feirstein, Sean McCabe, Michele Morales, Justin Schmant, Lisa Kane
Low, and Michelle McClellan served on the conference planning commit-
tee. In addition to the authors in this volume, Paul Campos, John Carson,
Kenneth Warner, Susan Kippax, Paula Allen-Mears, Joycelyn Elders, Rod-
dey Reid, Rebecca Herzig, Libby Bogdan-Lovis, Ray De Vries, Petra Kuppers,
Magdalena Harris, Bernice Hausman, Michele Morales, Moya Bailey, Nich-
olas King, Brad Lewis, Lisa Kane Low, Susan Love, Elizabeth Roberts, and
Kane Race contributed to the conference conversation in brilliant and chal-
lenging ways. Sacha Feirstein and Terri Torkko coordinated the whole event
through the offices of the Univrsity of Michigan’s Institute for Research on
Women and Gender. At NYU Press, editor Ilene Kalish, and editorial assis-
tant Aiden Amos, served as amazing advocates. And, perhaps most impor-
tant, our remarkable and extraordinary graduate student assistant, Burke
Hilsabeck, pulled the chapters into final coherence and, ultimately, pulled us
through. Thank you all.

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