Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory Visperas Cristina Mejia
Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory Visperas Cristina Mejia Studies the intersections of incarceration, medical science, and race in postwar AmericaIn February 1966, a local…
Specifikacia Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory Visperas Cristina Mejia
Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory Visperas Cristina Mejia
Studies the intersections of incarceration, medical science, and race in postwar AmericaIn February 1966, a local newspaper described the medical science program at Holmesburg Prison, Philadelphia, a "golden opportunity to conduct widespread medical tests under perfect control conditions." Helmed by Albert M. These experiments at Holmesburg were hardly unique; in the postwar United States, the use of incarcerated test subjects was standard practice among many research institutions and pharmaceutical companies. Kligman, a University of Pennsylvania professor, these tests enrolled hundreds of the prison's predominantly Black population in studies determining the efficacy and safety of a wide variety of substances, from common household products to chemical warfare agents.
Skin Theory examines the prison as this space for scientific knowledge production, showing how
Luxury and Visual Culture