Body Studies: An Introduction

ISBN-13: 9780415699303 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 350 str.

Margo Demello

Opis

In recent years, body studies has expanded rapidly, becoming an increasingly popular field of study within anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. This groundbreaking textbook takes the topics and theories from these disciplines, and combines them into one single, easily accessible text for students. Body Studies is a comprehensive textbook on the social and cultural uses and meanings of the body, for use in undergraduate college courses. Its clear, accessible chapters explore, among other things:

• the measurement and classification of the human body
• illness and healing
• the racialized body
• the gendered body
• cultural perceptions of beauty
• new bodily technologies.

This book investigates how power plays an important role in the uses, views, and shapes of the body--as well as how the body is invested with meaning. Body Studies provides a wealth of pedagogic features for ease of teaching and learning: ethnographic case studies, boxes covering contemporary controversies, news stories, and legislative issues, as well as chapter summaries, further reading recommendations, and key terms. This book will appeal to students and teachers of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, women's studies, gender studies, and ethnic studies.

Spis treści

Part I: Understanding the Body from a Social and Cultural Perspective  1. Introduction: Theorizing the Body  Part II: The Scientific and Biomedical Body  2. Healthy and Diseased Bodies  3. Aging Bodies  4. Reproducing Bodies  5. Dead Bodies  Part III: Mapping Difference onto Bodies  6. Racialized and Colonized Bodies  7. Gendered Bodies  8. Sexualized Bodies  9. Classed Bodies  Part IV: Bodies and Privilege  10. Beautiful Bodies  11. Fat and Thin Bodies  Part V: Extraordinary Bodies  12. Modified Bodies  13. Religious Bodies  Part VI: State and Corporate Regulation of the Body  14. Tortured, Punished and Convict Bodies  15. Commodified Bodies  16. Animal Bodies  Part VII: Bodies of the Future  17. Conclusion: Bodies of the Future.  Bibliography

O autorze

Margo DeMello is a Lecturer in the Department of Communications, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Central New Mexico Community College. Her books include Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community, Encyclopedia of Body Adornment, Feet and Footwear, and Faces Around the World.