Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: On a gloomy Tuesday last year, I waited over an hour in the London rain to see Albert Einstein's brain in a jar. Afterwards, I sat in the gift shop of the Wellcome Trust museum to read a magazine (there was an article on male versus female minds which caught my feminist eye) surrounded by people eating their so-called superfoods and guzzling on ‘neuro’ juices. In the background was the underlying hum of static electricity as children played the latest ‘brain training’ games on their Nintendos. Although this example may not be typical, it certainly isn't difficult to see how neuroscience has become a major part of the public imaginary. This is why Jan Slaby and his ‘critical neuroscience’ initiative is so important, because it seeks to analyse the ways in which human behaviours and/or the biological categorisation of people have become ‘naturalised’ or taken for granted.1 ,2 In an attempt to move away from the culture of ‘hope and hype’ in the biosciences,3 the critical neuroscience approach involves a concentrated attentiveness to language, looking to the politics behind the allure of the brain image, questioning why certain ideas have become popularised and evaluating where cultural representations of scientific concepts have emerged. This is reminiscent of Michel Foucault's genealogical method, so is no surprise that Slaby champions Rajan's governmentality framework4 for analysing life and capital. Although this method serves Slaby's purpose of providing a macro-level style of critique of the neurosciences, what is vitally missing for me is …
Source: Medical Humanities
Author: Stacey Smith
Institution: University of Bristol
Language: English
Topic: Foucault, Power, and Ethics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2255447785