"Because of issues of life, death, suffering, and the mortal body, the medical profession is a fertile arena for humor that serves to address these topics. The Medical Carnivalesque studies such medical humor among physicians.Suggesting that laughter andsuffering connect to form part of a broader phenomenon called the medical carnivalesque, author Lisa Gabbert explores humor as a fundamental way of coping with core philosophical and existential issues that physicians regularly engage with. Featuring topics such as the institutionalized nature of physician suffering, death-related humor, humor about patient bodies, and humor about medical specialties, this ethnography of the evolution of medical humor shows us how the culture of contemporary medicine addresses the painful and transgressive aspects of the work.The Medical Carnivalesque shows us that suffering is an essential component of life, and humor in medicine emerges because of extraordinarily difficult work environments that induce suffering of thephysicians themselves"--
""This is admirable work, arguing that the culture of contemporary formal medicine addresses the painful and transgressive aspect of the work by, among other things, sharing an esoteric body of humorous expressive performance that in particular makes striking use of Bakhtin's model of carnivalesque inversions of the form. The author presents convincing primary evidence in her ethnographic work, and has a thorough grasp of the academic literature in folk studies and anthropology, the sociology of medicine, and the literary/historical sources that allow for the evolution of medical humor throughout centuries of change in medical practice." - Erika Brady, author of Healing Logics: Culture and Medicine in Modern Health Belief Systems The Medical Carnivalesque studies medical humor among physicians. Because of issues of life, death, suffering, and the mortal body, the medical profession is a fertile arena for humor that serves as a way to address such topics. Suggesting that laughter and suffering connect to form part of a broader phenomenon called the medical carnivalesque, author Lisa Gabbert explores humor as a fundamental way to cope with core philosophical and existential issues, which physicians regularly engage with. She covers topics including the institutionalized nature of physician suffering, death-related humor, humor about patient bodies, and humor about medical specialties. Suffering is an essential component to life, and humor in medicine emerges because of extraordinarily difficult work environments that induce suffering of the physicians themselves"--
The practice of medicine is immersed in issues of life, death, and suffering in relation to the mortal body. Because of this, the medical profession is a fertile arena for folklore that serves to address these topics among physicians.
In The Medical Carnivalesque, Lisa Gabbert argues that this extraordinarily difficult work context has led to the development of an occupational corpus of folklore, backstage talk, and humor that she calls the medical carnivalesque. Gabbert argues that suffering is not only something experienced by patients, but that the organization, practice, and ethos of medicine can induce suffering in physicians themselves. Featuring topics such as the institutionalized nature of physician suffering, death-related humor and talk, stories about patient bodies, and parodies of medical specialties, The Medical Carnivalesque shows us how the culture of contemporary medicine uses travesty, humor, and inversion to address the sometimes painful and often transgressive aspects of doctoring.
The Medical Carnivalesque connects patient and physician suffering to laughter; acknowledges suffering as an essential component of life; and constitutes a way in which some physicians address the core philosophical and existential issues with which they regularly engage as they go about their daily work.
