Abstract: Milk’s fluidity and ostensible purity belie a complex array of industrial and regulatory processes, and a thick web of social and cultural associations, and provokes a language for emotion and thinking.From the milk of human breasts to industrialized cow’s milk, milk combines with social operations and is invented anew, malleable under the pressures of law, fashion, science and economy. Fantasies of milk’s powers recur, from the medieval lactating Virgin Mary to the contemporary promise of raised I.Q. through formula or enhanced milk. On ...
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