The banality of psychopharmacological evil in times of performance

Este artigo tem por objetivo percorrer um caminho que parte da identificação do fenômeno da medicalização da vida. O estudo será organizado dentro de uma perspectiva genealógica, na medida em que é importante localizar que este objeto de estudo não se restringe apenas a uma questão médica, mas exige um esforço de articulação com outras áreas do saber. Assim, esta genealogia articula questões médicas com a crítica social acerca desse fenômeno, aliando medicina, sociologia, psicologia, economia e teoria política. O desenvolvimento será organizado tendo como pano de fundo as exigências de autonomia e performance na atualidade, no contexto do aumento da demanda psicofarmacológica. Se os benefícios da administração medicamentosa podem propiciar bem-estar subjetivo, por outro lado, os excessos ou a banalidade do mal psicofarmacológico tornam opacas as fronteiras entre o normal e o patológico.This paper traces a path that begins by identifying the phenomenon known as medicalization of life. Since this object of study is not only a medical issue, requiring an articulation with other areas of knowledge, the study proposes a genealogy that articulates medical and social criticism on this phenomenon, combining medicine, sociology, psychology, economics, and political theory. Such tapestry is weaved against the backdrop of current demands for autonomy and performance, in the context of increasing psychopharmacological urges. If the benefits of drug administration can provide subjective well-being, the excesses or the banality of psychopharmacological evil, on the other hand, blur the boundaries between normal and pathological

Complete Issue, Volume 34, Issue 1

This is the complete issue for Volume 34, Issue 1 of the Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine: Volume 2

Annotated and edited transcripts of 4 Witness Seminars. Introduction by E M Tansey. First published by the Wellcome Trust, 1998 Occasional Publication no. 6, 1998. ©The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, 1998.All volumes are freely available online following the links to Publications/Wellcome Witnesses at www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed.Annotated and edited transcripts of 4 Witness Seminars. Introduction by E M Tansey.Annotated and edited transcripts of 4 Witness Seminars. Introduction by E M Tansey.Annotated and edited transcripts of 4 Witness Seminars. Introduction by E M Tansey.Annotated and edited transcripts of 4 Witness Seminars. Introduction by E M Tansey.Annotated and edited transcripts of 4 Witness Seminars. Introduction by E M Tansey.Annotated and edited transcripts of 4 Witness Seminars. Introduction by E M Tansey.Second volume of four Witness Seminar transcripts of meetings held between 1996 and 1997: ‘Making the Human Body Transparent: The Impact of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Magnetic Resonance Imaging’ (Tansey E M, Christie D A, eds); ‘Research in General Practice’ (Tansey E M, Reynolds L A, eds); ‘Drugs in Psychiatric Practice’ (Tansey E M, Christie D A, eds); ‘The MRC Common Cold Unit (Tansey E M, Reynolds L A, eds). Tansey E M, Christie D A, Reynolds L A. (eds) (1998) Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine: Volume 2. London: The Wellcome Trust.The Wellcome Trust is a registered charity, no. 210183

Infectious Affect: The Phobic Imagination In American Literature

Infectious Affect: The Phobic Imagination in American Literature begins with this question: by what literary pathways did the -phobia suffix come to shape U.S. politics so profoundly?�In current political discourse, Americans rely on phobia as a concept to describe conditions of social inequality. People and policies that negatively impact communities based on sexual orientation, gender identification, ethnicity, race, or religion are understood to be homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic.�However implicitly, these terms also aspire to a widely accepted hypothesis: in short, that systemic inequality begins with and is sustained by a nucleus of fear, on the part of those wielding the greatest political power. Taking part in the new philological turn in literary studies, my dissertation shows that the –phobia suffix first began to be adapted from medical literature to explain sociopolitical phenomena in the late 1700s, then went on to catch on rapidly in the antebellum period. At the same time, in tracing this history we discover that phobia’s proliferation as a political category did not go uncontested. I take less interest, then, in those who played by the rules of a consolidating phobic imagination than I do in writers who repurposed it to counterintuitive ends. In telling the backstory of activist phobias,�Infectious Affect�explores the rise of a phobic imagination in medical, literary, and political contexts alike, proposing that phobia activated a new dynamism between disparate modes of knowledge production

Mitigation and the Americans with Disabilities Act

It is an open question whether the prohibition on employment discrimination in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects plaintiffs who have not attempted to mitigate the effect of their disability on their ability to work. Suppose, for example, that a job applicant has severely impaired vision because of a corneal disease. He can have corneal transplant surgery that his doctors recommend and expect will allow him to see much more clearly, but he does not want to have the surgery because of the complications sometimes associated with the operation and the possibility that the surgery will not work. He applies for a job that has been structured for people who can see clearly and asks the employer to purchase work equipment (like a new computer) that will enable him to perform the job with limited eyesight. Purchasing this equipment will be costly, and the employer asks why it should have to bear those costs when the applicant could have surgery to enable him to see better. The question raises a core issue of rights and responsibilities under a civil rights law. But Title I of the ADA, which protects a qualified individual with a disability from employment discrimination based on his disability, never indicates whether there is a duty to mitigate, either by undergoing medical procedures, using medication, pursuing physical therapy, losing weight, abstaining from alcohol and cigarettes, or taking other measures to improve health and eliminate obstacles to employment. The Supreme Court has not yet considered the question, and legal commentators have all but ignored it. The few lower courts to address a duty to mitigate under Title I are divided on whether mitigation should be required, and those in favor of the duty have not developed a clear standard for when that duty should apply. To the extent that the decisions supporting a duty to mitigate imply any principle for implementing the duty, most appear to suggest that Title I plaintiffs are obligated to mitigate whenever mitigation is possible. I reject both extremes of the existing debate. This Article argues that plaintiffs seeking Title I protection should be under a duty to mitigate, but that this duty should require plaintiffs to pursue only those mitigating measures that could reduce their need for workplace accommodation and that a reasonable person in the same situation would pursue

Mitigation and the Americans with Disabilities Act

It is an open question whether the prohibition on employment discrimination in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects plaintiffs who have not attempted to mitigate the effect of their disability on their ability to work. Suppose, for example, that a job applicant has severely impaired vision because of a corneal disease. He can have corneal transplant surgery that his doctors recommend and expect will allow him to see much more clearly, but he does not want to have the surgery because of the complications sometimes associated with the operation and the possibility that the surgery will not work. He applies for a job that has been structured for people who can see clearly and asks the employer to purchase work equipment (like a new computer) that will enable him to perform the job with limited eyesight. Purchasing this equipment will be costly, and the employer asks why it should have to bear those costs when the applicant could have surgery to enable him to see better. The question raises a core issue of rights and responsibilities under a civil rights law. But Title I of the ADA, which protects a qualified individual with a disability from employment discrimination based on his disability, never indicates whether there is a duty to mitigate, either by undergoing medical procedures, using medication, pursuing physical therapy, losing weight, abstaining from alcohol and cigarettes, or taking other measures to improve health and eliminate obstacles to employment. The Supreme Court has not yet considered the question, and legal commentators have all but ignored it. The few lower courts to address a duty to mitigate under Title I are divided on whether mitigation should be required, and those in favor of the duty have not developed a clear standard for when that duty should apply. To the extent that the decisions supporting a duty to mitigate imply any principle for implementing the duty, most appear to suggest that Title I plaintiffs are obligated to mitigate whenever mitigation is possible. I reject both extremes of the existing debate. This Article argues that plaintiffs seeking Title I protection should be under a duty to mitigate, but that this duty should require plaintiffs to pursue only those mitigating measures that could reduce their need for workplace accommodation and that a reasonable person in the same situation would pursue