OPAF PSA: NEW O&P HISTORY BOOK
Jeffrey S. Reznick
Description
Collection
Title:
OPAF PSA: NEW O&P HISTORY BOOK
Creator:
Jeffrey S. Reznick
Date:
6/17/2004
Text:
The Orthotic and Prosthetic Assistance Fund (OPAF) offers the following
press release in cooperation with University of Chicago Press
( <URL Redacted>) as a public
service announcement (PSA) that helps to fulfill OPAF's official
representation of O&P in community and philanthropic circles. OPAF aims
primarily to enable individuals with physical disabilities - especially
those served by members of the U.S. orthotics and prosthetics community
- to enjoy the rewards of personal achievement, physical fitness, and
social interaction. Complete information about OPAF is available at
<URL Redacted>.
David Serlin's book Replaceable You will be of particular interest to
members of the O&P community who, like OPAF, are engaged in promoting
greater public awareness of the past, present, and future of O&P.
---
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Replaceable You
Engineering the Body in Postwar America
by David Serlin
University of Chicago Press - $25.00 (pbk)
0-226-74884-7
1952. A handsome amputee and veteran of World War II holds a book of
matches with his new prosthetic hand and lights a cigarette with the
other while a photographer captures the image for posterity. Meanwhile,
a group of physically disfigured young women-survivors of
Hiroshima-dream of how American plastic surgeons will repair their
bodies and their futures. Half a world away, a young man from the Bronx
recuperates in a hospital bed after having been transformed into a
beautiful woman.
During the postwar era the U.S. underwent a massive cultural
transformation that was vividly realized in the development and
widespread use of new medical technologies. Plastic surgery, wonder
drugs, artificial organs, and scientific triumphs such as the Salk polio
vaccine inspired Americans to believe in a new age of modern medical
miracles. The nationalistic pride that flourished in postwar society,
meanwhile, also encouraged many Americans to put tremendous faith in the
power of medicine to rehabilitate and otherwise transform the lives and
bodies of the disabled and those considered abnormal.
Replaceable You revisits this era in history to consider how these
medical technologies and procedures were used to advance the politics of
conformity during the 1950s. David Serlin shows how the use of these
unprecedented developments in medicine came to reflect and reaffirm Cold
War anxieties about
normalcy, patriotism, and consensus. Innovations in prosthetics,
endocrinology, reconstructive surgery, and sex reassignment techniques,
he reveals, were promoted as tools of physical and political consent.
A work of remarkable virtuosity, Replaceable You is a nuanced history
that views medical innovations through the revealing lens of
mid-twentieth-century American culture.
David Serlin is a historian, writer, educator, and the coeditor of
Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics. He
is also available for interviews. For more information, please contact
Mark Heineke at 773-702-7897 or <Email Address Redacted>
press release in cooperation with University of Chicago Press
( <URL Redacted>) as a public
service announcement (PSA) that helps to fulfill OPAF's official
representation of O&P in community and philanthropic circles. OPAF aims
primarily to enable individuals with physical disabilities - especially
those served by members of the U.S. orthotics and prosthetics community
- to enjoy the rewards of personal achievement, physical fitness, and
social interaction. Complete information about OPAF is available at
<URL Redacted>.
David Serlin's book Replaceable You will be of particular interest to
members of the O&P community who, like OPAF, are engaged in promoting
greater public awareness of the past, present, and future of O&P.
---
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Replaceable You
Engineering the Body in Postwar America
by David Serlin
University of Chicago Press - $25.00 (pbk)
0-226-74884-7
1952. A handsome amputee and veteran of World War II holds a book of
matches with his new prosthetic hand and lights a cigarette with the
other while a photographer captures the image for posterity. Meanwhile,
a group of physically disfigured young women-survivors of
Hiroshima-dream of how American plastic surgeons will repair their
bodies and their futures. Half a world away, a young man from the Bronx
recuperates in a hospital bed after having been transformed into a
beautiful woman.
During the postwar era the U.S. underwent a massive cultural
transformation that was vividly realized in the development and
widespread use of new medical technologies. Plastic surgery, wonder
drugs, artificial organs, and scientific triumphs such as the Salk polio
vaccine inspired Americans to believe in a new age of modern medical
miracles. The nationalistic pride that flourished in postwar society,
meanwhile, also encouraged many Americans to put tremendous faith in the
power of medicine to rehabilitate and otherwise transform the lives and
bodies of the disabled and those considered abnormal.
Replaceable You revisits this era in history to consider how these
medical technologies and procedures were used to advance the politics of
conformity during the 1950s. David Serlin shows how the use of these
unprecedented developments in medicine came to reflect and reaffirm Cold
War anxieties about
normalcy, patriotism, and consensus. Innovations in prosthetics,
endocrinology, reconstructive surgery, and sex reassignment techniques,
he reveals, were promoted as tools of physical and political consent.
A work of remarkable virtuosity, Replaceable You is a nuanced history
that views medical innovations through the revealing lens of
mid-twentieth-century American culture.
David Serlin is a historian, writer, educator, and the coeditor of
Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics. He
is also available for interviews. For more information, please contact
Mark Heineke at 773-702-7897 or <Email Address Redacted>
Citation
Jeffrey S. Reznick, “OPAF PSA: NEW O&P HISTORY BOOK,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 25, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/223249.
