The/rapist / by Maureen Cummins.

  • Cummins, Maureen
Date:
[2017]
  • Books

About this work

Also known as

Therapist
The rapist

Description

"[A]n investigation into the gendered history of psychosurgery, as illustrated by the career of Doctor Walter Freeman ... Professor of Neurology with no formal training in either surgery or psychology ... popularized the pre-frontal lobotomy ... A self-styled showman who drove ice picks through his patients' eye sockets, rode around in a 'lobotomobile,' and conducted a 1953 tour dubbed 'Operation Ice-Pick,' Freeman freely admitted that his work created a 'surgically induced childhood,' with many 'failed outcomes' ... [R]aises numerous and disturbing questions about patients' rights, the abuse of institutional power, and the disproportionate targeting of women ... Cummins uses the analogy of physical rape to suggest the way in which psychosurgery became a form of violence-against-women (and men) perpetuated in the name of medical progress"--Aside of Books Booksellers' website, August 8, 2017. http://www.asideofbooks.com/2017/04/24/new-from-maureen-cummins-therapist/

Publication/Creation

[High Falls, New York] : [Maureen Cummins], [2017]

Physical description

30 unnumbered pages : screenprinted aluminium ; 33 cm, in box (34 x 25 x 6 cm)

Contributors

Notes

Cover title.
Limited edition of 40 copies, signed and numbered by the artist.
"Constructed entirely out of aluminum, The/rapist is inspired by the cold, hard surfaces of medical clipboards and equipment, as well as by Freeman's actual tools, viewed by the artist in the Freeman/Watts collection at GWU [George Washington University], where she conducted her initial research. Pages of the book are laser-cut, burnished on one side, printed with multiple layers of text and imagery, 'dimpled' to prevent scratching and wear, then mounted within rings to a sturdy baseboard. The text is printed in Frutiger, a classic mid-century sans-serif typeface. Images reproduced in the book are 19th century engravings, handwritten notes and text, as well as graphs and headshots from Freeman's 1950 textbook 'Psychosurgery: In the Treatment of Mental Disorders and Intractable Pain'. The book is housed in a burnished aluminum box with a screwed-down aluminum title plate"--Aside of Books Booksellers' website, August 8, 2017.
"[P]roduced by Maureen Cummins ... with typographic assistance from Kathleen McMillan, production assistance from Molly Berkson and Sarah Rose Lejeune, and metalwork by Charles Hubert ... The pages of the book are laser-cut aluminum, with silkscreen-printed text and imagery. All printing work was done at Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. With special thanks to Swarthmore College and University of Washington"--Colophon.

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references (colophon).

Type/Technique

Languages

Subjects

Where to find it

  • LocationStatusAccess
    Closed stores
    A2

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