American Lobotomy: A Rhetorical History

by Jenell Johnson

American Lobotomy studies a wide variety of representations of lobotomy to offer a rhetorical history of one of the most infamous procedures in the history of medicine. The development of lobotomy in 1935 was heralded as a “miracle cure” that would empty the nation’s perennially blighted asylums. However, only twenty years later, lobotomists initially praised for their “therapeutic courage” were condemned for their barbarity, an image that has only soured in subsequent decades. Johnson employs previously abandoned texts like science fiction, horror film, political polemics, and conspiracy theory to show how lobotomy’s entanglement with social and political narratives contributed to a powerful image of the operation that persists to this day. The book provocatively challenges the history of medicine, arguing that rhetorical history is crucial to understanding medical history. It offers a case study of how medicine accumulates meaning as it circulates in public culture and argues for the need to understand biomedicine as a culturally situated practice.

Genres: History, Disability, Disability Studies, Medical, Nonfiction

234 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 2014

About the author

Jenell Johnsonis Mellon-Morgridge Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of American Lobotomy: A Rhetorical History.

Reviews

[Noah]

Lmao pointy stick goes poke

[Gabriel Finkelstein]

Poor attempt at medical history by a professor of English.

[Cait]

Sad very sad so sad by far I am sad

[Emmy M]

Medicine is a wild thing.

[Jonathan]

Very well-done. I wasn't convinced by the need for some of the theoretical apparatus. But the main arguments are convincing, very well thought-out. It's a peculiarity that I have read a number of books on lobotomy. This is a welcome addition.