Books by Lennard J. Davis

We live in an age of obsession. But obsession is not only a phenomenon of modern existence: it is a medical category. Beginning with the roots of the disease in demonic possession and its secular successors, this work traces the evolution of obsessive behavior from a social and religious fact of life into a medical and psychiatric problem.

Bending Over Backwards reexamines issues concerning the relationship between disability and normality in the light of postmodern theory and political activism. Davis takes up homosexuality, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the legal system, the history of science and medicine, eugenics, and genetics.