{"id":1455,"date":"2018-03-20T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=1455"},"modified":"2018-03-01T12:20:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T11:20:07","slug":"catherine-oakley-cultural-materialism-medical-humanities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2018\/03\/20\/catherine-oakley-cultural-materialism-medical-humanities\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Oakley on Cultural Materialism in the Medical Humanities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Catherine Oakley&#8217;s article <a href=\"http:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/content\/44\/1\/5\">&#8216;Towards Cultural Materialism in the Medical Humanities: the Case of Blood Rejuvenation&#8217;<\/a> is available through open access in <a href=\"http:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/content\/44\/1?current-issue=y\">the current issue of\u00a0<\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/content\/44\/1?current-issue=y\">Medical Humanities<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1456\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2018\/03\/medhum-2018-March-44-1-1-F1.medium-225x300.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2018\/03\/medhum-2018-March-44-1-1-F1.medium-225x300.gif 225w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2018\/03\/medhum-2018-March-44-1-1-F1.medium-300x400.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Oakley takes the shifting cultural, symbolic and scientific meanings of blood as her starting point, a shift that is, she argues, often understood as a consequence of changes to scientific understandings of the role that blood plays in the human body; from humoural conceptions of blood to a modern, more mechanistic understanding of blood&#8217;s purpose. Oakley argues that such a teleology underestimates the value of other factors on the creation of the meaning of blood. Instead, she draws the reader&#8217;s attention to &#8216;historicist, materialist readings that are alert to the nexus of social, scientific, economic and cultural factors that have informed its shifting meanings&#8217;. Oakley uses blood rejuvenation as a way into this topic, focusing on the regenerating powers that have been attributed to blood, comparing discourses on blood rejuvenation from the late-nineteenth century and in our contemporary period &#8211; something that has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/shortcuts\/2017\/aug\/21\/ambrosia-the-startup-harvesting-the-blood-of-the-young\">in the news recently<\/a> as a California start-up appears to be offering older people a chance of rejuvenation through blood transfusions from young people and rumours are circulating that PayPal founder Peter Thiel believes in the process&#8217;s efficacy. Building on the movement towards a <a href=\"http:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/content\/41\/1\/2\">critical medical humanities<\/a>, Oakley argues for the importance of a cultural materialist approach in the medical humanities &#8211; or, as she defines it, a &#8216;medicocultural materialist&#8217; approach &#8211; and demonstrates its possibilities through the example of blood rejuvenation.<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Catherine Oakley&#8217;s article &#8216;Towards Cultural Materialism in the Medical Humanities: the Case of Blood Rejuvenation&#8217; is available through open access in the current issue of\u00a0Medical Humanities.\u00a0 Oakley takes the shifting cultural, symbolic and scientific meanings of blood as her starting point, a shift that is, she argues, often understood as a consequence of changes to [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2018\/03\/20\/catherine-oakley-cultural-materialism-medical-humanities\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal-announcements"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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