scholarly journals Embodied practices of prosthesis

2021 ◽  
pp. 40-53
Author(s):  
Maria Bee Christensen-Strynø ◽  
Camilla Bruun Eriksen

While the prosthesis is often thought of as a technology or an artefact used to ‘fix’ or make ‘whole’ a disabled body, it has also become an important figuration and metaphor for thinking about disabled embodiment as an emblematic manifestation of bodily difference and mobility. Furthermore, the ambiguity and broadness of prosthesis as an object and a concept, as well as its potential as a theoretical and analytical thinking tool, show up in widely different areas of popular culture, art and academic scholarship. In this article, we explore the opportunities of the ways in which prosthesis might be a helpful and productive fi gure in relation to framing, analyzing and understanding certain healthcare-related practices that are not traditionally associated with disability. Our aim is to suggest new ways of building onto the idea of the performative value of the prosthetic fi gure and its logics as a continuum through which very different forms of embodied practices could be meaningfully understood and analyzed. Thus, we argue that the logic of the prosthesis can be helpful in uncovering tensions related to idealistic and dominant ideas about health and embodiment. First, we engage with the theoretical discussions from cultural studies, including critical disability studies, in which we broaden the scope of the concept of prosthesis. Second, we introduce and discuss two illustrative case examples in the form of dance therapeutic practices for people with Parkinson’s disease and group therapeutic practices in male-friendly spaces. In doing so, we seek to raise new questions about the ongoing cultivation of bodily and health-related interventions through the lens of the prosthetic spectrum, which we have labelled embodied practices of prosthesis.

Paragraph ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-244
Author(s):  
Hannah Thompson

Author(s):  
Nisha P R

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.


Author(s):  
Robert Paul Seesengood

This essay is an examination of scholarship on the Bible and (American) popular culture. It reviews the history and assumptions of cultural studies and maps how this body of work influenced biblical scholarship after 1990. It surveys an array of examples of scholarship on the Bible and popular culture and concludes with some suggestions for future work. Specifically, this essay asks the following: How has interest in Bible and popular culture affected academic publishing? How did these trends emerge, and what assumptions prompt them? What new journals or series or reference works have appeared that are specifically devoted to this broad topic, and what are some ways that the Bible and popular culture have been treated therein?


Politics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandria J Innes ◽  
Robert J Topinka

This article examines the ways in which popular culture stages and supplies resources for agency in everyday life, with particular attention to migration and borders. Drawing upon cultural studies, and specific insights originating from the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, we explore how intersectional identities such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender are experienced in relation to the globalisation of culture and identity in a 2007 Coronation Street storyline. The soap opera genre offers particular insights into how agency emerges in everyday life as migrants and locals navigate the forces of globalisation. We argue that a focus on popular culture can mitigate the problem of isolating migrant experiences from local experiences in migrant-receiving areas.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-299
Author(s):  
Michael Kelly

This article introduces the special number of French Cultural Studies commemorating the role of Brian Rigby as the journal’s first Managing Editor. It situates his contribution in the emergence of cultural history and French cultural studies during the rapid expansion of higher education from the 1960s in France, the UK, the US and other countries. It suggests that these new areas of study saw cultural activities in a broader social context and opened the way to a wider understanding of culture, in which popular culture played an increasingly important part. It argues that the study of popular culture can illuminate some of the most mundane experiences of everyday life, and some of the most challenging. It can also help to understand the rapidly changing cultural environment in which our daily lives are now conducted.


Tempo ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (274) ◽  
pp. 22-32
Author(s):  
Ben Jameson

AbstractThe electric guitar is one of the most iconic musical instruments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and, due to its ubiquitous use in much rock and popular music, it has developed a strong cultural identity. In recent years, as the electric guitar has become increasingly common in contemporary concert music, its cultural associations have inevitably shaped how composers, performers and listeners understand music performed on the instrument. This article investigates various issues relating to the electric guitar's cultural identity in the context of Tristan Murail's Vampyr! (1984), in the hope of demonstrating perspectives that will be useful in considering new music for the electric guitar more generally. The article draws both on established analytical approaches to Murail's spectral oeuvre and on concepts from popular music and cultural studies, in order to analyse the influence that the electric guitar's associations from popular culture have in new music.


2015 ◽  
pp. 108-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimi Hamraie

In this article, I argue for historical epistemology as a methodology for critical disability studies (DS) by examining Foucault’s archaeology of cure in History of Madness. Although the moral, medical, and social models of disability frame disability history as an advancement upon moral and medical authority and a replacement of it by sociopolitical knowledge, I argue that the more comprehensive frame in which these models circulate—the “models framework”—requires the more nuanced approach that historical epistemology offers. In particular, the models framework requires greater use of epistemology as an analytical tool for understanding the historical construction of disability. Thus, I turn to Foucault’s History of Madness in order to both excavate one particular archaeological strand in the text—the archaeology of cure—and to demonstrate how this narrative disrupts some of the key assumptions of the models framework, challenging DS to consider the epistemological force of non-medical fields of knowledge for framing disability and procedures for its cure and elimination. I conclude by arguing that DS must develop historical epistemological methodologies that are sensitive to the complex overlays of moral, medical, and social knowledge, as well as attend to the social construction of scientific and biomedical knowledge itself.


Lateral ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jina B Kim

Response to Julie Avril Minich, "Enabling Whom? Critical Disability Studies Now," published in Lateral 5.1. Kim elaborates upon a crip-of-color critique, which has possibilities to both criticize structures that inherently devalue humans and to take action to work toward justice. Kim’s final call is to identify and act against the inequalities and harm of academic labor, urging readers to take seriously a “politics of refusal” that might help academics of color survive through alternative collectivities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1145-1168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikko Riikkinen ◽  
Hannu Saarijärvi ◽  
Peter Sarlin ◽  
Ilkka Lähteenmäki

Purpose Recent technological and digital developments have opened new avenues for customer data utilization in insurance services. One form of this data transformation is automated chatbots that provide convenient access to data leveraged through a discussion-like interface. The purpose of this paper is to uncover how insurance chatbots support customers’ value creation. Design/methodology/approach Three complementary theoretical perspectives – artificial intelligence, service logic, and reverse use of customer data – are briefly discussed and integrated into a conceptual framework. The suggested framework is further shown through illustrative case examples that characterize different ways of supporting customers’ value creation. Findings Chatbots represent a new type of interaction through which companies can influence customers’ value creation by providing them with additional resources. Based on the proposed conceptual framework and the illustrative case examples, four metaphors are identified that characterize how insurance chatbots can support customers’ value creation. Research limitations/implications The study is conceptual in nature, and the case examples are used for illustrative purposes. No representative data from those users who will eventually determine whether chatbots are of value was used. Practical implications Using the suggested framework, which is aligned with provider service logic, insurance companies can consider what kind of a role they wish to play in customers’ value-creating processes. Originality/value Automated chatbots provide convenient access to data leveraged through a discussion-like interface. This study is among the earliest to address their value-creating potential in insurance.


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