The Body Social

ISBN-13: 9780415103596 / Angielski / Miękka / 1993 / 320 str.

Anthony Synnott; A. Synnott;Synnott Anthony

Opis

The body is not only a biological phenomenon, it is also a social creation of immense complexity. It is not so much a given as a social category, with different meanings - composed, imposed and developed in each age and indeed by each individual. The attributes, functions and specific organs of the body and the senses are likewise highly controversial. The author explores the history of thinking about the body and the senses, paying special attention both to shifts in ways of thinking about the body over time and to the clash of different approaches to the body today. How people think and feel about their bodies and their senses influences how they live their lives and die their deaths. This book contributes to our understanding of how the body is conceptualized and lived. He avoids abstract discussion in favour of a down-to-earth approach to the body. Thus the author examines particular parts of the body: the face and hair and particular bodily senses: touch, smell, sight. He also provides an up to date and reliable survey of the literature.

Recenzje

`A valuable pionerring work that makes a significant contribution to the now rapidly growing sociological literature on the body' - Sociological Review

'Synnott shows just how much scholarly attention has been devoted to the body over the past twenty years ... [he] calmly plots a course throuh this material, pruning its excesses, highlighting its essentials and placing it all in the widest context possible.' - New Statesman and Society

Spis treści

Introduction I Body, II Gender, III Beauty and the Face, IV Hair, V The Senses, VI Touch, VII Smell, VIII Sight, IX Sociologies of the Body, Notes, Bibliography

O autorze

Anthony Synnott