The Secular Care of the Self
Discipline and Its Discontents Across the Protestant Atlantic
$54.59
- Paperback
184 pages
- Release Date
16 June 2026
Summary
The modern desire to care for our health, so obvious to its proponents, has its discontents. Secular medicine denounces the work of those who claim the protective powers of spirits or the Holy Spirit. In this contestation over what it means to care for oneself, Ian Whitmarsh offers an unorthodox thesis: the modern secular desire toward health is founded in a Protestant congregationalism that shapes its refusal of spirit manifestation, revelation, and the power of deities to shape the world. T…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780826369536 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0826369537 |
| Author: | Ian Whitmarsh |
| Publisher: | University of New Mexico Press |
| Imprint: | University of New Mexico Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 184 |
| Release Date: | 16 June 2026 |
| Weight: | 174g |
| Dimensions: | 229mm x 152mm x 18mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
“Insightful, timely, and exceedingly nuanced, Ian Whitmarsh’s The Secular Care of the Self details with stunning clarity the Christian dimensions of ostensibly secular impulses to be healthy. It should find an immediate audience with those interested in health outside of Western institutional forms of care.” – Kevin Lewis O’Neill, author of Hunted: Predation and Pentecostalism in Guatemala
About The Author
Ian Whitmarsh
Ian Whitmarsh is an associate professor of medical anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of Biomedical Ambiguity: Race, Asthma, and the Contested Meaning of Genetic Research in the Caribbean.
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