The
Transparent Body: A Cultural Analysis
of Medical Imaging
by Jose Van Dijck
University of Washington Press, Seattle,
WA, 2005
208 pp., 20 illus. Paper, $24.95
ISBN: 0-295-98490-2.
Reviewed by Jan Baetens
KU Leuven, Fac. of Arts, Blijde Inkomst
21, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium
jan.baetens@arts.kuleuven.ac.be
In the endlessly growing field of studies
on the representation of the body, Jose
Van Dijcks book on medical imaging
should be welcomed for more than one reason.
Written from the triple background of
literary studies, cultural studies, and
science studies (more specifically the
SCOT or social construction of technology-approach),
The Transparent Body offers in
a sense the best of both worlds: on the
one hand a series of seducing and astute
close readings of very concrete and highly
diverse cultural artefacts such as Thomas
Manns Magic Mountain, the
classic science fiction film The Fantastic
Voyage, or the plastinated cadavers
of the touring exhibition Bodyworlds,
and on the other hand an over-all theory
of the way medical imaging techniques
such as X rays, endoscopy, or ultrasound
imaging of foetuses interact with cultural
interpretations and reuses of these techniques
outside the medical world.
In seven concise and well-illustrated
chapters, Jose Van Dijck accomplishes
the tour de force, first, to introduce
her readers to the (pre)history of the
most currently applied technical of medical
imaging and their social representations;
second, to explain their main issues and
stakes on a technical as well as on an
ethical and ideological level; third,
to relate these techniques to a broad
set of cultural longing, hopes, fears,
(mis)understandings, and reconstructions.
Following the basic claims of the SCOT-approach,
which already informed her two previous
books (Imagenation: Popular Genetics
and Manufacturing Babies and Public
Consent: Debating the New Reproductive
Technologies), Van Dijck demonstrates
the dialectical relationship of society
and technology, each of them constructing,
misconstructing, and reconstructing each
other.
The major qualities of this book are rooted
first of all in its acute awareness of
the very historicity of representation.
If The Transparent Body is much
more than a work of cultural studies,
it is not only because it exhibits through
a thorough knowledge of the technologies
involved in medical imaging, but also
because of the attention paid to the historical
frameworks that surround the invention
and the use of specific techniques. The
Transparent Body is, hence, also a
media history of medical imaging, and
the reader can only feel grateful for
the clarity of the authors journey
through modern Western representational
techniques inside and outside medicine.
In order to avoid information overkill
as well as the temptation of overwhelming
generalizations, Van Dijck has rightly
decided not to propose one single history,
however. Each chapter focuses neatly on
one specific medical imaging technique,
following a simple but very efficient
triadic scheme: a historical introduction,
a close reading of a particularly well-chosen
case study, a political reflection on
the contemporary cultural interpretations
and implications of the given technique.
Although not necessarily presented in
this order, this schema provides the reader
with an exemplarily didactic framework
that does never prevent the author from
giving many original insights on the phenomena
studied.
The real pleasure the reader takes from
this book is yet not only intellectual.
It should be stressed that Van Dijcks
style has a kind of elegance that has
become too rare in current scholarship.
The Transparent Body displays from
its very first to its very last sentence
a real sense of rhythm, of wit, of rhetorical
devices, a perfect balance of theory and
anecdote, a sound feeling of how to dispatch
information without ever giving the impression
of being too slow or too fast, and finally
a strong moral and political commitment
(yes, this is style too!).
Together with the wonderfully rich range
of objects treated, all these qualities
make The Transparent Body a fascinating
book for all readers eager to learn about
a crucial aspect of their daily life and
the technological culture that is impregnating
their body.