Experiments in Skin
Race and Beauty in the Shadows of Vietnam
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
Date of Publication: 16 April 2021
Number of Volumes: Cloth over boards
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Product details:
| ISBN13: | 9781478010661 |
| ISBN10: | 1478010665 |
| Binding: | Hardback |
| No. of pages: | 240 pages |
| Size: | 229x152 mm |
| Weight: | 680 g |
| Language: | English |
| Illustrations: | 10 illustrations |
| 404 |
Category:
Short description:
Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu examines the legacies of the Vietnam War on contemporary ideas about race and beauty, showing how US wartime efforts to alleviate the environmental and chemical risks to soldiers' skin has impacted how contemporary Vietnamese women use pharmaceutical cosmetics to repair the damage from the war's lingering toxicity.
Long description:
In Experiments in Skin Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu examines the ongoing influence of the Vietnam War on contemporary ideas about race and beauty. Framing skin as the site around which these ideas have been formed, Tu foregrounds the histories of militarism in the production of US biomedical knowledge and commercial cosmetics. She uncovers the efforts of wartime scientists in the US Military Dermatology Research Program to alleviate the environmental and chemical risks to soldiers' skin. These dermatologists sought relief for white soldiers while denying that African American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians were also vulnerable to harm. Their experiments led to the development of pharmaceutical cosmetics, now used by women in Ho Chi Minh City to tend to their skin, and to grapple with the damage caused by the war's lingering toxicity. In showing how the US military laid the foundations for contemporary Vietnamese consumption of cosmetics and practices of beauty, Tu shows how the intersecting histories of militarism, biomedicine, race, and aesthetics become materially and metaphorically visible on skin.
“Experiments in Skin is a fully dazzling treatment of the aftermaths of the Vietnam War. Working expertly at the intersection of military history, chemical warfare, modern medical research, race, dermatology, beauty, and skin, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu tells a fascinating and important story about how contemporary Vietnamese beauty culture has arisen from an ugly history of US militarism—the afterlife of warfare in its enduring marks on Vietnamese skin as well as military efforts to heal and even perfect soldiers' skin. Tu renders extraordinary insight into the tightly entwined histories of militarized technology and a rising beauty culture, giving name to whole new territories for analysis.”
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. Mysteries of the Visible 1
1. Skin Stories: Making Beauty in the Culture of Renovation 23
2. The Beautiful Life of Agent Orange 49
3. An Armor of Skin: Pacific Threats and the Dreams of Infinite Security 76
4. A Laboratory of Skin: Making Race in the Mekong Delta 104
5. Weak Skin, Strong Skin: The Work of Making Livable 134
Epilogue 161
Notes 165
Bibliography 201
Index 219
Introduction. Mysteries of the Visible 1
1. Skin Stories: Making Beauty in the Culture of Renovation 23
2. The Beautiful Life of Agent Orange 49
3. An Armor of Skin: Pacific Threats and the Dreams of Infinite Security 76
4. A Laboratory of Skin: Making Race in the Mekong Delta 104
5. Weak Skin, Strong Skin: The Work of Making Livable 134
Epilogue 161
Notes 165
Bibliography 201
Index 219
