Reading the Body on House,M.D.: Medical Surveillance as a Model of the Social |
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| Authors: | Shannon M Kahle |
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| Institution: | 1. College of Communications , Penn State University , University Park , Pennsylvania , USA shannon.kahle00@gmail.com |
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| Abstract: | This article focuses on the representation of the body in House, M.D. and suggests its usefulness as a metaphor for the view of the social body on which the series relies. The body in House, M.D. is the central occupation of the narrative, and it is around the body that the paired oppositions certainty/doubt and body/speech occur. In House, confessional speech is a regime of false knowledge while the body is privileged as the foundation of true knowledge—the province of the expert interpreter of the body. Through an exploration of these paired oppositions in the show's representation of medical practice, the author explores the series' model of the social in which the visual mediation of bodies is privileged as social hermeneutic and the intensification of mutual surveillance is the means of authentic interaction. |
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