Tattoo, Torture, Mutilation, and Adornment: The Denaturalization of the Body in Culture and Text (SUNY Series, the Body in Culture, History, and Religion) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791410668 ISBN 13: 9780791410660

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1992

Synopsis

Contemporary theory across a wide range of disciplines denaturalizes the body and reveals it to be a social construction. Cultural practices which deform, adorn, mutilate, and obliterate the body illustrate that it is an important site for the inscription of culture. The authors draw on cross currents in feminist theory, literary criticism, anthropology, and history to analyze several such cultural practices as examples of the power of culture to encode its messages on the human form.

About this title

Review:

"This exciting book engages the most current debates about the representation of the human body, particularly the female body, in various media such as literature, film, and popular magazines. Thoroughly conversant with the latest in feminist criticism, gender theory, and the predicaments of postmodern culture, the authors explore various narratives and images through which the gendered body is currently represented.

"What makes this a coherent volume is the shared interest throughout the essays in the representation of the body surface (tattooing, perfuming, weightlifting) and body penetration (rape, torture) and the relationship of these matters to the issue of gender. This volume thus combines a theoretical sophistication with attention to a variety of fascinating case studies that illuminate the predicament of the body in postmodern culture." -- Howard Eilberg Schwartz, Stanford University

About the Author:

Frances E. Mascia-Lees is Professor of Anthropology at Simon's Rock College of Bard where she is also co-director of Women's Studies. She is the author of Toward a Model of Women's Status.

Patricia Sharpe is Professor of Literature and Women's Studies at Simon's Rock College of Bard.

About this edition

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0791410668
• ISBN 13: 9780791410660
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 190
• Editor: Mascia-Lees Frances E.