WHAT IS MEDICINE?

Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process (CSISP) Seminar

From the beginning of the 20th century a variety of medical forces changed the relationship between human bodies and sunlight and in turn weaved sunlight, as a giver of health, into the fabric of social environments. For example both the People’s League and the New Health Society played a part in public health campaigns around the benefits of sunlight however these campaigns framed sunlight exposure in order to stabilise a specific social figuration as part of a broader social hygiene movement. Yet, by the early 1920s a variety of organisations and movements appeared that sought to materially ‘domesticate’ the action sun’s rays as a great health benefit in its own right. In this paper I will examine the promotion of sunlight in this period in order to chart the emergence of a nexus made up of bodies, sunlight and social environments. I have termed this assemblage a heliosis – to capture the idea of an interactive stabilization between the various knotted couplings of the human body in the sunlit environment.

Simon Carter’s research is in Science and Technology Studies, especially
as applied to issues of health and medicine. He recently completed an
historical study examining the cultural turn towards the sun and sunlight in early twentieth century Europe, providing an analysis of the roles that sunlight played in the mediation of notions of health, pleasure, the body, gender and class. He has also conducted research into critical approaches to the public understanding of science as applied to health issues