Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Medicalized Body and Anesthetic Culture 1st ed. Edition Brent Dean Robbins full chapter instant download
The Medicalized Body and Anesthetic Culture 1st ed. Edition Brent Dean Robbins full chapter instant download
https://ebookmass.com/product/ireland-and-the-climate-crisis-1st-
ed-edition-david-robbins/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-mgh-textbook-of-anesthetic-
equipment-1st-edition-ebook-pdf-version/
https://ebookmass.com/product/biological-naturalism-and-the-mind-
body-problem-1st-ed-2022-edition-jane-anderson/
https://ebookmass.com/product/common-wealth-dividends-history-
and-theory-1st-edition-brent-ranalli/
Race, Culture, and Gender 1st ed. Edition Ava
Kanyeredzi
https://ebookmass.com/product/race-culture-and-gender-1st-ed-
edition-ava-kanyeredzi/
https://ebookmass.com/product/prosthetic-body-parts-in-
nineteenth-century-literature-and-culture-ryan-sweet/
https://ebookmass.com/product/ted-hughes-nature-and-culture-1st-
ed-edition-neil-roberts/
https://ebookmass.com/product/radio-critics-and-popular-
culture-1st-ed-edition-paul-rixon/
https://ebookmass.com/product/robbins-cotran-pathologic-basis-of-
disease-robbins-pathology-10th-edition-kumar/
BRENT DEAN ROBBINS
The Medicalized
Body and Anesthetic
Culture
The Cadaver, the Memorial Body, and the Recovery
of Lived Experience
Brent Dean Robbins
Department of Psychology
Point Park University
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
This book has been a long journey of over two decades of scholarship,
completed over a career as a graduate student in clinical psychology at
Duquesne University, and two tenure-track professorships at Daemen
College and Point Park University.
I am grateful to my mentors, Michael Sipiora and Eva-Maria Simms,
who introduced me to metabletic phenomenology through the work of
Robert Romanyshyn and J. H. van den Berg. At Daemen College, my
research on medical students would not have been possible without the
help of Ashley Tomaka, Gary Styn, Joel Patterson, and Cara Innus. At
Point Park University, my scholarship has been deeply enriched through
hours of conversation with my friend and colleague, Robert McInerney.
Seminal scholarship by others has been formative for my investiga-
tions, including Carolyn Merchant’s work on Enlightenment views of
women and nature, Martha Nussbaum’s taxonomy of forms of objec-
tification, Michael Allen Gillespie’s examination of the impact of nomi-
nalism on modern and postmodern thought, Nick Haslam’s theoretical
model of dehumanization, Katherine Park’s historical scholarship on the
history of cadaver dissection, Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman’s schol-
arship on liberation psychology, Ernest Becker’s existential theory,
and the many psychologists who have contributed to the empirical
investigation of terror management theory, including among them Jeff
Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski, Jamie Goldenberg, and
my former student from Allegheny College, Matt Motyl. Continental
philosophers have also been deeply formative for my thinking,
vii
viii Acknowledgements
warm my heart always. Thanks to Kelli (and many family members) for
taking good care of him (and me) in the twilight of his days.
Above all, I thank God, who like a patient father, puts up with my
protests in the face of human suffering and mortality, and gives me the
courage and faith, in the midst of it all, to hope and to love.
Contents
xi
xii Contents
Index 321
List of Figures
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Pixar has long been known for their state-of-the-art animated films, from
Toy Story to Finding Nemo. More recently, a beautiful, heart-warming
film, Coco, has introduced an international audience to an annual
Mexican ritual to honor the dead, Dias de Muertos, or the Day of the
Dead. In the movie, a prepubescent boy, named Miguel Rivera, discov-
ers his great-great grandfather played a guitar that resembled that of
the famous pop singer, Ernesto de la Cruz. In his quest to discover the
man’s true identity, he is thrust into the netherworld of the dead, where
he undergoes a great adventure to retrieve his long-lost and forgotten
ancestor.
The fictional narrative of the film introduces the audience to the
practices and rituals that are familiar to the Mexican people. Altars to
deceased relatives honor the dead with photographs, decorations that
include Mexican marigolds, intimate possessions and ofrendas, offer-
ings of favorite food and beverages of the deceased (Brandes, 2009).
The Mexican people celebrate the holiday between October 31 and
November 2, the period of time established by the Roman Catholic tra-
dition for the celebration of All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween, All Saints’
Day, and All Souls’ Day, designated for remembrance of saints and loved
ones who have passed away.
In watching the film, I was reminded of similar rituals the world over,
most commonly found in indigenous cultures, and especially common in
South America, which honor the dead in a variety of ritual celebrations
similar to the Mexican tradition. For example, I recalled the Haitian