Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Textual Practice on 23/08/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0950236X.2017.1365757
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The ante-tempus novel
T2 - prevention and patienthood in recent speculative fiction
AU - Liorsi, Benedetta
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Textual Practice on 23/08/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0950236X.2017.1365757
PY - 2019/7/1
Y1 - 2019/7/1
N2 - This article introduces a new medical subjectivity generated by the drive towards prevention that increasingly organises the discourses and practices of medicine, as well as war, state security and economy. The ante-tempus patient is the subjectivity emerging at a moment in time in which medical advances and interventions are shaping the present according to future needs, in order to face anticipated threats to human health. Contemporary science fiction offers a fertile ground for investigating this, as well as the resulting anxieties about mass-medicalisation. The first part of the article explores the concept of preventative mass-medicalisation and the exploitation and harvesting of ‘health’ in neoliberal societies. In the second part, the speculative novel The Unit [Ninni Holmqvist, trans. Marlaine Delargy (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, [2006] 2010)] exemplifies and contextualises the key features of ante-tempus patienthood. This medical subjectivity embodied by the novel’s main characters represents the outcome of the attempt to create a medical utopia. In this society of medical management, biological exploitation, forced medicalisation and self-sacrifice merge with neoliberal ideology, casting the discourse of preventative medicine in dystopian terms.
AB - This article introduces a new medical subjectivity generated by the drive towards prevention that increasingly organises the discourses and practices of medicine, as well as war, state security and economy. The ante-tempus patient is the subjectivity emerging at a moment in time in which medical advances and interventions are shaping the present according to future needs, in order to face anticipated threats to human health. Contemporary science fiction offers a fertile ground for investigating this, as well as the resulting anxieties about mass-medicalisation. The first part of the article explores the concept of preventative mass-medicalisation and the exploitation and harvesting of ‘health’ in neoliberal societies. In the second part, the speculative novel The Unit [Ninni Holmqvist, trans. Marlaine Delargy (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, [2006] 2010)] exemplifies and contextualises the key features of ante-tempus patienthood. This medical subjectivity embodied by the novel’s main characters represents the outcome of the attempt to create a medical utopia. In this society of medical management, biological exploitation, forced medicalisation and self-sacrifice merge with neoliberal ideology, casting the discourse of preventative medicine in dystopian terms.
KW - Ante-tempus patienthood
KW - medical futurology
KW - prevention
KW - science fiction
KW - medicalisation
U2 - 10.1080/0950236X.2017.1365757
DO - 10.1080/0950236X.2017.1365757
M3 - Journal article
VL - 33
SP - 983
EP - 1003
JO - Textual Practice
JF - Textual Practice
SN - 0950-236X
IS - 6
ER -