Preciado, Paul B. (2013). Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. New York: The Feminist Press. 427pp.

Part auto-ethnography, part techo-punk psycho-philosophy, Testo Junkie is a testament to the rise and entanglement of pharmaceutical power with state bodies, individuals (i.e. the transformation and hybridization of Foucault’s biopower) and the technological apparatuses that infuse bodies both with increasing surveillance as well as the potentiality for transformation. As a provocation, Preciado deftly interweaves personal testimony (a necrotic, drug-enhancing love story) with a complex scholarly reflection on the historical development of biotechnological products (e.g. the Pill, viagra, testosterone) in order to conceive of the spatiotemporal and material “pharmapornographic” era.

The book is lengthy – at a whopping 427 pages. However, the formatting (footnotes) and clarifying language (lots of sign-posting) help to bridge the book from an academic rumination on the transformations of individual and state power to a more diffuse and accessible text which motivates a cyborgian (Haraway 1985), post-human embodiment and rethinks feminist politics in the early 21st century. Scholars and general readers interested in feminist politics, cyborg relations, sexuality studies, contraception and reproduction, queer and trans studies, and identity politics will find this book particularly compelling. Overall, Testo Junkie is a captivating read.

Snowden, F. (2020). Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present. New Haven: Yale University Press. 582pp.

Frank Snowden’s Epidemics and Society is a comprehensive examination of major epidemics in global history. The book does not provide a sweeping analysis of all epidemics, given lack of space and time, and acknowledges in the introduction the need to focus on specific changes in epidemiology, public and global health, political structures, and social welfare that have contributed to the development of and response to epidemics in human societies. Snowden focuses on plague, smallpox, yellow fever, dysentery, typhus, cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, HIV/AIDS, SARS, and ebola to paint a vast portrait of the development of epidemics. The book excels at describing key historical frames, particularly how medical knowledge has evolved as a result of pandemic crisis. The paperback issue contains a preface about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and forewarns that much can be learned from reflecting on past epidemics.

Readers will enjoy the book in sections – for fear of intellectual fatigue, given the tome’s breadth. Nevertheless, Epidemics and Society aspires to make the content accessible for the general public and thus maintains an accessible register that provides greater nuance to an otherwise daunting subject. The book is richly research (as part of years of teaching materials for coursework at Yale University), which will serve both the lay reader and the scholar well in their endeavours to understand ongoing epidemics in society. A highly recommended text for those new to the field of infectious disease or interested in learning more about the social history of health and illness.

Kucharski, A. (2020). The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop. London: Profile Books.

Adam Kucharski’s The Rules of Contagion is perhaps nicely and equally poorly timed in its release, amidst the COVID-19 global pandemic. The text offers insight into contemporary sources of contagion, first, using simple and accessible language to demonstrate the utility and effectiveness of epidemiological approaches to disease pandemics, including ebola, HIV, and influenza. In the latter half of the book, Kucharski attempts to tie disease pathology into economic, behavioural, psychological and technological analyses, extrapolating epidemiological knowledge into formative societal structures and historical events (e.g. the 2008 financial crisis). Most notable about this latter half is the author’s delineation of social media contagion, carefully balancing both the benefits and dangers of online contagion – “going viral” on social media vs. computer viruses. Largely, the book broaches a huge range of epistemological assertions, placing it firmly in the domain of popular science. The book loses steam around chapter three, despite an attempt to create a wide-ranging theory of contagion. As other reviewers have aptly noted, the final two chapters read more like a confirmation and reiteration of contagion – sort of doctoral “case studies” following rigorous and tightly-woven theory. Readers invested in the evolving COVID-19 pandemic will be especially drawn to chapters 1-2. Enthusiasts of pandemics, medical historians, epidemiologists and other pop-science readers might find the book as a whole interesting as a ruminative, though small, addition to academic scholarship on global networks, virality, social media and the Internet.

LeVay, S. (2010). Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 264 pp.

Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why (2010) explores the psychobiology of sexual orientation. It examines and reflects upon a century worth of research about sexual desire, attraction, physiology and genetics. The book reads largely as a meta-analysis of the field, but LeVay maintains that in order to understand discussions about the “gay gene,” we need to look at how discourses about biology and sexuality have shaped our understanding of both human desire as well as the sciences that study those desires. LeVay is a notable neuroscientist whose research about gay and lesbian genetic variation has helped to develop theses about the evolutionary significance of homosexuality. The book is, at times, frustrating because it acknowledges the relative lack of replicable research to support claims about the biological nature of homosexuality (and largely absents bisexuality within its discussion of human sexuality). Thus, the book serves as a reminder that much of the research is still speculative and theoretical. Nevertheless, it provides an interesting look into contemporary developments in neuroscience, social science and psychology, all seeking to understand the exchanges that occur between the social values of sexuality and some of their biological underpinnings.