CHANGING FACES

“Face transplants expose deep held prejudices about identity and wellbeing. Are these ideas ripe for a radical rethink?”

By: Sharrona  Pearl

Published: AEON, https://aeon.co/essays/what-do-face-transplants-say-about-identity-and-wellbeing

Level of difficulty: ***

BEFORE YOU READ

·         Man with a transplanted face is living a normal life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsltTrfxj-s

·         Face transplant patient goes public https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CORFnKkAi6k

·         Face transplant recipient – “My brother’s keeper” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm2f0-LTmxs

QUESTIONS

1.       What would have been the logical second step after the successful hand transplant?

2.       The above implies that: mark as many as apply

·         Doctors felt confident they could perform the surgery

·         Doctors had the expertise to perform the surgery

·         Doctors had the know-how to perform the surgery

·         Doctors felt ready to perform the surgery

3.       What was the reason for the public outcry following the face transplant?

4.       Which phrase best summarizes the paragraph beginning “Public outcry…”?

5.       Dinoire was not considered the best candidate by the public because they felt she was:

·         Undeserving

·         Disturbed

·         Frightened

·         Unethical

6.       The public outcry following Dinoire’s surgery necessitated ……………..before Connie Culp’s surgery could take place.

7.       Read the two paragraphs beginning “Except not exactly” and “To be absolutely clear…”Where would you place the following:

·         In fact, it transpired that it wasn’t

·         And as such, caused them to die of cancer

8.       A grammar question: replace “But even this is tricky…” with a full sentence with no pronouns.

9.       What conclusion can be drawn from the paragraph beginning “They led better lives…”?

10.   The cases of Culp and Sandness both prove that for the recipients of new faces…………….is vital for their future.

11.   We understand from James Maki’s story that one major fear concerning face transplants is that…

12.   It is stated in the text that face transplants could transform the way we think about the face and what lies beneath. How could face transplants succeed in doing this?

13.   Face transplants can never replace traditional plastic surgery because…

14.   The purpose of makeovers seems to be to try and correct…..However, the increased emphasis on makeovers also means that people are over concerned about …..

15.   Cosmetic surgery differs from face transplants in that in the latter…

16.   The writer criticizes public attitudes to face transplants because society seems reluctant to…

17.   We understand from the case of Dinoire that ……………….was not the real issue. It was the fear that………….

18.   What does “this fate” in the phrase “To avoid this fate,…” refer to?

19.   The writer’s major criticism of society is that…

WRITING TASK

Use all you have read and watched to write an essay discussing the personal and public implications of face transplants.

CHANGING FACES; KEY AND TEACHERS’S NOTES

This text covers the perceived relationship between the face and identity through the medium of face transplants. As such, it is a very original way of exploring the issue. I personally found it riveting but a word of warning: there is a lot of philosophy along with actual cases of face transplants.

1.       Performing a face transplant

2.       All four

3.       The manipulation of something held to be fundamental to individual identity / OR: Manipulating the face not just by changing it but by using the face of another person entirely

4.       The objections to the surgery were rooted in feelings not facts (It would be wrong to include the rest because it is a flash forward)

5.       Disturbed (meaning she had psychological problems or mental issues)

6.       Careful advanced PR, articles in both surgical and bioethical literature

7.       The first one goes at the end of the first paragraph you read and the second goes after “made relatively healthy people sick”.

8.       Considering potential recipients who haven’t had the surgery well is tricky

9.       The face transplant becomes a way to make people better by making them more palatable in public.

10.   The ability to lead a public life free from being labeled monstrous

11.   Face transplant recipients wouldn’t be individuals, would not have a sense of identity, would not be their own unique people

12.   They have the potential to lay bare the way in which a person’s facial features, skin color and disfigurement lie on the surface and don’t have to be directly correlated to the person’s depth.

13.   It is impractical for recipients to choose their faces given the expense, the scarcity of donors, the anti-rejection regimes and of course final outcome.

14.   The mismatch between people’s current appearance and who they are inside / Appearance

15.   How the donor looks is simply not part of the equation  (This is enough)

16.   New ways of conceiving of identity as being rooted in something other than facial features and how they appear

17.   Her personal story / messing with faces means messing with minds

18.   Facelessness

19.   It doesn’t have a more generous sense of acceptable appearance