The slumbering masses : sleep, medicine, and modern American life / Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wolf-Meyer, Matthew J.

Series:

Quadrant book

A quadrant book

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lifestyles--United States.

Lifestyles.

Sleep disorders.

Sleepwalking.

United States.

Sleepwalking--United States.

Sleep disorders--United States.

Physical Description:

xvi, 288 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, MN : University of Minnesota Press, [2012]

Summary:

Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer is an anthropologist (U. of California at Santa Cruz) in a tradition focusing on critique of one's own culture. His subject here is sleep and the treatment of sleep disorders in the US. Early on, the author admits a dual programme; he wants to critique science and medicine, but in doing field study he has seen medicine at work, and is not wholly against it. Critiquing science and medicine in the terms of critical theory without being wholly against them is a tall order. However, the author mostly succeeds. He does so by balancing his interest in critique with an interest in the social history of sleep in America. The book is clearly written; if the author had stuck to social history, this would be an interesting work for general readers. But his sense of the basic introductory information required in the first few pages includes naming Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari. This dissertation style will limit the book's audience, excluding most medical professionals, people with sleep problems, and general readers interested in social history. The book will be a welcome example of good prose and practical examples for readers in economic, political, and critical theory, however. Emancipatory anthropology needs villains to fight, and Wolf-Meyer finds them in two places. The first is in the idea that people should need to be awake at specific set times, rather than sleeping whenever they want. Readers who attend public school or work in most jobs may find the author somewhat naïve here. The second is integrated or whole-person medicine, which the author sees as a realm of Big Brother-esque social control. But he also notes that the restricted specialties and discipline fragmentation that integrated care was designed to replace lead to misdiagnosis and poor medical care. Wolf-Meyer is too interested in real people to be a good Marxist, and too interested in critical theory to be a good popular writer. He is at home and at his best in academic social history, tying together American ideals of proper work, proper sleep, and proper productivity, and pointing out the economic thinking behind medical concepts like "sleep debt." Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

Preface: sleep at the turn of the twenty-first century

Introduction: from the lone sleeper to the slumbering masses

Sleeping, past, and present. The rise of American sleep medicine : diagnosing and misdiagnosing sleep ; The protestant origins of American sleep ; Sleeping and not sleeping in the clinic : how medicine is remaking biology and society

Cultures of sleep. Desiring a good night's sleep : order and disorder in everyday life ; Now I lay me down to sleep : children's sleep and the rise of the solitary sleeper ; Pharmaceuticals and the making of modern bodies and rhythms ; Early to rise : creating well-rested American workers ; Chemical consciousness ; Sleeping on the job : from siestas to workplace naps ; Take back your time : activism and overworked Americans

The limits of sleep. Unconscious criminality : sleepwalking murders, drowsy driving and the vigilance of the law ; The extremes of sleep : war, sports, and science

Conclusion: the futures of sleep.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780816674749

0816674744

9780816674756

0816674752

OCLC:

788275263