Rise and Shine Sunlight, Technology and Health

Sunshine plays an important role in all aspects of life but there has been little social analysis of the sun and its place in our world. Recently experts have warned us that the sun's rays are dangerous. Yet, the sun-tan can still be taken as a sign of health. How did we arrive at this ambivalent relationship to the sun and what does this say about our changing attitudes to the human body and environment? Rise and Shine takes as its starting point a view of sunlight as part of our material and social culture. How did the use of sunlight to treat TB and rickets in the early twentieth century alter our relationship to the sun? When was sun-tan lotion invented? By drawing on a range of archive and historical sources, Rise and Shine traces the network of social and medical forces that constitute our current, sometimes problematic, relationship with sun and sunlight.

Simon Carter is lecturer in Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University.