At the Limits of Cure

“How does one narrate a story of endings? At the Limits of Cure chronicles the fantasies of ending tuberculosis and the end of disease itself. Tying evocative histories of science to nuanced ethnography, Bharat Jayram Venkat reveals the attachments to curative reason that bind the clinic, the nation, and the globe. This electric and stunningly original book is infused with curiosity.” -- Harris Solomon, author of * Metabolic Living: Food, Fat, and the Absorption of Illness in India *
“At the Limits of Cure is a work of art. Its medium includes historical and biographical narrative, medical journals, mythology, film, literature, and the keenest of ethnography. Thinking cure this carefully—not as an object, but as a desire and praxis—proves to be both a magical and a melancholic endeavor, riven with failures, false starts, and incurable imagination. Readers, specialists, and dreamers in cultural and medical anthropology, South Asian studies, and science and technology studies will love this highly original book.” -- Naisargi N. Dave, author of * Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics *
“This superbly written book weaves together a remarkable tale of tuberculosis in India. It is at once a transnational history of medical science and technology, an ethnohistory of the experience of disease, an ethnography of medicine, a history of India through the lens of public health, and, at its core, a compelling discussion of the complex, cultural discourse on the concept of 'cure,' not only in the history of medicine, but in the desires of doctors and governments, the self-understanding of patients, and even in Hindu mythology.” -- Joseph W. Elder Prize Committee
“Venkat invites readers on an in-depth journey into the history of tuberculosis in India. [At the Limits of Cure] provides an excellent introduction to the field of medical anthropology. Highly recommended. All readers.” -- I. Glasser * Choice *
“Venkat’s storytelling is absorbing. He appears a writer who finds joy in crafting prose, sometimes imbuing it with a playfulness that lands most aptly. . . . This is a meticulously crafted book, but it is nowhere stilted or overworked. It performs deep conceptual labor with a jargon-free lightness of touch that academic writing would do well to emulate.” -- Zahra Hayat * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
“An important consideration of At the Limits of Cure is rethinking what the end-goal of cure is. Is it the absolute removal of illness? Venkat suggests not, and that the possibilities available to us for cures exist within the realms of what we, individually and communally, desire of them.” -- Linda Hamrick * Synapsis *
"Venkat argues that the imaginations of cure often dictate and shape the narratives of disease. Cure narratives are pluralistic, varied, and have the power to challenge the seeming homogeneity and universality claimed by colonial histories of disease and cure. . . . The narrative of cure, as the author argues, is more than a history of how disease comes to an end." -- Anandita Pan * Contemporary South Asia *
"At the Limits of Cure brings a fresh perspective to a much-discussed disease and in the process transforms what we know about cure and chronicity in the history and anthropology of modern biomedicine. . . . For its methodological creativity with archival sources, attentive ethnography, and engrossing writing, the book will be a great choice in undergraduate and graduate classrooms." -- Koyna Tomar * ISIS *
"At the Limits of Cure . . . is a masterclass in thinking with, and through stories. The book is rife with interruptions and twists and turns. Digressions happen. Lines are drawn and followed. Paths break. . . . Just like cures, stories have to be imagined otherwise: without absolute endings and without the power to explain—or narrate—away the messiness of the life they stage." -- Vincent Duclos * American Anthropologist *
“Venkat expertly weaves archival methods of the historian and ethnographic fieldwork of the anthropologist to tell a powerful story. . . . As we are coming to a new stage in the global pandemic, this book can contribute to important conversations about our own approaches to cure.” -- Gourav Krishna Nandi * H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews *
"[At the Limits of Cure] is a feminist history of disease, a social ethnography of clinical encounters, and a cinematic critical fabulation of the sanatorium. . . . This book will be a foundational text for graduate students wrestling with social histories of disease and the social life of historical actors." -- Lan A. Li * Asian Medicine *
Venkat is at heart a storyteller, and the book is a sensitive interplay of the scientific and the personal as he makes the people and the drama come alive, never losing sight of the human perspective of suffering, however dry the archive . . . this is a significant book, deserving of attention by those interested in the South Asian context and in thinking about the conceptual issues of cure and chronic illness more widely." -- Catriona Ellis * Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences *
"Venkat offers meticulously argued insights into cure as a concept, employing a diverse array of methods including archival research, literary and film analysis, and ethnography . . . In what is certainly one of the major highlights of the book, Venkat pens a mesmerising narrative of this history by donning the hat of a novel-writer and making the reader the subject of his description of life in a Shimla sanatorium . . . Thinking about cure through its limits is an invaluable and wonderfully fresh idea." -- Kiran Kumbhar * Contributions to Indian Sociology *