What do you think?
Rate this book
X-ray
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
X-rays are powerful. Moving through objects undetected, revealing the body as a tryptic of skin, tissue, and bone. X-rays gave rise to a transparent world and the belief that transparency conveys truth. It stands to reason, then, that our relationship with X-rays would be a complicated one of fear and fascination, acceptance and resistance, confusion and curiosity.
In X-ray, Nicole Lobdell explores when, where, and how we use X-rays, what meanings we give them, what metaphors we make out of them, and why, despite our fears, we're still fascinated with them. In doing so, she draws from a variety of fields, including the history of medicine, science and technology studies, literature, art, material culture, film, comics, gender studies, architecture, and industrial design.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
X-rays are powerful. Moving through objects undetected, revealing the body as a tryptic of skin, tissue, and bone. X-rays gave rise to a transparent world and the belief that transparency conveys truth. It stands to reason, then, that our relationship with X-rays would be a complicated one of fear and fascination, acceptance and resistance, confusion and curiosity.
In X-ray, Nicole Lobdell explores when, where, and how we use X-rays, what meanings we give them, what metaphors we make out of them, and why, despite our fears, we're still fascinated with them. In doing so, she draws from a variety of fields, including the history of medicine, science and technology studies, literature, art, material culture, film, comics, gender studies, architecture, and industrial design.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
- GenresNonfiction
146 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 25, 2024
1 person is currently reading
12 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 28, 2024
(3.5) X-ray technology has been with us since 1895, when it was developed by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen. He received the first Nobel Prize in physics but never made any money off of his discovery and died in penury of a cancer that likely resulted from his work. From the start, X-rays provoked concerns about voyeurism. People were right to be wary of X-rays in those early days, but radiation was more of a danger than the invasion of privacy. Lobdell, an English professor, tends to draw slightly simplistic metaphorical messages about the secrets of the body. But X-rays make so many fascinating cultural appearances that I could forgive the occasional lack of subtlety. There’s an in-depth discussion of H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, and Superman was only one of the comic-book heroes to boast X-ray vision. The technology has been used to measure feet for shoes, reveal the hidden history of paintings, and keep air travellers safe. I went in for a hospital X-ray of my foot not long after reading this. It was such a quick and simple process, as you’ll find at the dentist’s office as well, and safe enough that my radiographer was pregnant.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
November 7, 2024
Ok, wow, fun! Here I thought I was done learning about x-rays, with the end of my radiology residency approaching, but this short book was a welcome reprieve from the phyics aspect of my job, as it set apart the socio-historical and metaphorical meaning of a discovery that, despite being first published by Mr. Roentgen in the 1890s, enabled physicians worldwide to save lives within weeks of his building the first x-ray machine. Which he did not claim a patent on, so everyone could build and use one!!! And it still continues to do so to this day – with some innovations having taken place in the meantime, of course, but not that much altered in principle. Gotta love x-rays and the cringe Victorian anecdotes about them.
***I received a digital copy from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.***
***I received a digital copy from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.***
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews