Fabricating the Body: Effects of Obligation and Exchange in Contemporary Discourse - Hardcover

Sarah Himsel Burcon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1443852325 ISBN 13: 9781443852326

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014

Synopsis

Fabricating the Body: Effects of Obligation and Exchange in Contemporary Discourses is comprised of nine chapters that revolve around the body, and more specifically, issues related to identity. The text draws on a variety of criticism - including disability, gender, and psychoanalytic studies - to theorize aspects relevant to the human body historically. For example, Rachel Herzl-Betz's "A Paratactic 'Missing Link': Dorian Gray and the Performance of Embodied Modernity" uses disability studies as a lens through which to examine Oscar Wilde's literary debt to the atavistic discourse of late-Victorian freak shows. Moving forward in time, Melissa Ames' chapter, "Bodies of Debt: Interrogating the Costs of Technological Progress, Scientific Advancement, and Social Conquests through Dystopian Literature" is a pedagogy-focused chapter. In the chapter, Ames discusses a college course in which she asked students to consider contemporary debates, such as cloning, stem cell research, human trafficking, and so forth, in tandem with fictional texts that relate these issues. Ultimately, the class wrestled with the question of: what do we do when human survival and societal progress come at extreme costs? As a whole, the text works to stimulate conversations surrounding the body, and specifically, bodies that can be labeled "indebted." Fabricating the Body brings together issues of gender, class, and identity, and investigates ethical concerns along with topics related to marginalization and the mind/body split. Ultimately, the text situates the body as a productive space for academic research.

About this title

Review:

"In Fabricating the Body, Sarah Himsel Burcon brings together nine essays exploring identity and the body in literary and popular culture contexts. With an aim to `prompt and continue conversations surrounding the body' (p. 4) this collection splits its focus between real and imagined spaces. Burcon applies the term `indebted' to the diverse range of marginalised or subordinate bodies and bodily narratives explored in this collection. Overall this work aims to problematize `issues related to Modernity and postmodern culture - such as disruption, contradiction, performance, and fragmentation' (p. 5) through an exploration of gender, class and identity issues in narrative and cultural engagements with indebted bodies." - Fiona Pettit, Centre for Medical Humanities Blog.

About the Author:

Sarah Himsel Burcon is a Lecturer in the Program for Technical Communication in the Engineering Department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She received her PhD in 20th Century American Literature and specializes in technical communication, feminist theory, American literature, popular culture, and linguistics. She has published in anthologies and encyclopedias, and her most recent publications include her co-edited book, Women and Language: Essays on Gendered Communication Across Media (2011); chapters in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in 21st Century Programming (2012) and Revisiting the Past through Rhetorics of Memory and Amnesia (2011); and articles for Women and Popular Culture Encyclopedia (2013).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1443852325
• ISBN 13: 9781443852326
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 170
• Editor: Sarah Himsel Burcon