Representations Books

Scholars have only recently discovered that the human body itself has a history. This title features eight articles that support, supplement, and explore the significance of these insights. "The body in its cultural context has become a rich topic for interdisciplinary studies. . . . brings together theoretically sophisticated and empirically revealing contributions that present the most advanced work in this new field."--Hayden White Scholars have only recently discovered that the human body itself has a history. Not only has it been perceived, interpreted, and represented differently in different epochs, but it has also been lived differently, brought into being within widely dissimilar material cultures, subjected to various technologies and means of control, and incorporated into different rhythms of production and consumption, pleasure and pain. The eight articles in this volume support, supplement, and explore the significance of these insights. They belong to a new historical endeavor that derives partly from the crossing of historical with anthropological investigations, partly from social historians' deepening interest in culture, partly from the thematization of the body in modern philosophy (especially phenomenology), and partly from the emphasis on gender, sexuality, and women's history that large numbers of feminist scholars have brought to all disciplines.