New book: Quantification of Bodies in Health

Btihaj Ajana, Professor of Ethics and Digital Culture at the Department of Digital Humanities, published a new book with Simone Guidi (Italian National Research Council) and Joaquim Braga (University of Coimbra) under the title, Quantification of Bodies in Health: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. This book aims to deepen understanding of the growing phenomenon of quantification in the context of health and the role of self-tracking practices in everyday life. It brings together established and emerging authors working at the intersection of philosophy, sociology, history, psychology, and digital culture, while bridging between philosophical and empirical approaches.

 

Table of Content

INTRODUCTION 

Btihaj Ajana, Joaquim Braga and Simone Guidi 

PART I: Body Quantification and Subjectivity: Philosophical Perspectives  

1 Body, Media and Quantification  

Joaquim Braga 

2 I Quantify, Therefore I Am: Quantified Self Between Hermeneutics of Self and Transparency 

Lorenzo De Stefano  

3 Quantified Care: Self-Tracking as a Technology of the Subject  

Alessandro De Cesaris  

PART II: Body Quantification: Historical and Empirical Perspectives  

4 Historical Context of Tracking Public Health and Quantifying Bodies:   From the UK Welfare State to Digital Self-Care  

Rachael Kent   

5 Metrics of the Self: A Users’ Perspective 

Btihaj Ajana 

6 Whose Bodies? Approaching the Quantified Menstruating Body Through a Feminist Ethnography  

Amanda Karlsson  

PART III: Body Quantification and Mental Health  

7 #Wellness or #Hellness: The Politics of Anxiety and the Riddle of Affect in Contemporary Psy-care  

Ana Carolina Minozzo  

8 Me Apps: Mental Health and the Smartphone  

Zeena Feldman   

PART IV: Body Quantification and Smart Machines 

9 The ‘Smart’ AI Trainer & her Quantified Body at Work  

Phoebe V. Moore  

10 Towards a Quanto-Qualitative Biological Engineering: The Case of the Neuroprosthetic Hand 

Laura Corti