Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body(European Journal of Women's Studies Readers series)

This book focuses on the significance of the body in contemporary feminist scholarship. In recent years, the body has become a `hot item′ in both contemporary social theory and research. This renewed interest has received a mixed reaction from feminists. While the body may be back, the `new′ body theory often proves to be just as disembodied as it ever was. The body revival seems to be less an attempt to re-embody masculinist science than just another expression of the same condition which evoked the feminist critique in the first place: a flight from femininity and everything that is associated with it in western culture. Embodied Practices offers a critical appraisal of the recent `body revival′, drawing upon insights from contemporary feminist theories on gender and power to explore the subject. The book sets an agenda not only for research about the body but for an embodied perspective on the body as well.

Table of Contents:
Embody-ing Theory - Kathy Davis Beyond Modernist and Postmodernist Readings of the Body PART ONE: THE FEMALE BODY: DIFFERENCE AND POWER Reading the Body - Anne Woollett and Harriette Marshall Young Women′s Accounts of Their Bodies in Relation to Autonomy and Independence Performing the Body, Creating Culture - Anna Aalten Female Bodies and Brittle Bones - Ineke Klinge Medical Interventions in Osteoporosis The Body of Gender Difference - Gesa Lindemann Victims or Offenders? `Other′ Women in French Sexual Politics - Rachel A Bloul Sex as Usual - Dubravka Zarkov Body Politics and the Media War in Serbia PART TWO: FEMINIST INTERVENTIONS IN BODY/POLITICS Erotic Bodies - Gon Buurman Images of the Disabled Women′s Public Toilets - Julia Edwards and Linda McKie A Serious Issue for the Body Politic Chic Outrage and Body Politics - Joanne Finkelstein `My Body Is My Art′ - Kathy Davis Cosmetic Surgery as Feminist Utopia? The Researching Body - Monica Rudberg The Epistemophilic Project

About the Author :
Kathy Davis is Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Utrecht in The Netherlands. She is author of Reshaping the Female Body: The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery (1995) and Power Under the Microscope: Toward a Grounded Theory of Gender Relations in Medical Encounters (1988). CONTRIBUTORS Anna Aalten University of Amsterdam Rachel AD Bloul ANU Canberra Gon Buurman Amsterdam Julia Edwards University of Glamorgan Joanne Finkelstein Monash University Ineke Klinge University of Utrecht Gesa Lindeman University of Frankfurt Harriette Marshall Staffordshire University Stoke on Trent Linda McKie University of Aberdeen Monica Rudberg University of Oslo Anne Woollett University of East London, Stratford Dubravka Zarkov Nijmegen

Review :
`These essays are likely to be welcomed by those coming from a women′s studies perspective....In addition, they open up possibilities for articulating an embodied theory of the body, which will be of interest to students of sociology or cultural theory and feminists alike′ - Times Higher Education Supplement `As the editor of this exciting collection notes, while bodies are "in" in social and cultural theory, there has been a surprising neglect of the gendered nature of embodiment. This book presents fascinating and original accounts of the nature and meaning of female bodies over a range of cultural and political contexts and practices. The book′s strengths lie in its successful melding of contemporary theory with empirical research and grounded examples of women′s embodiment′ - Deborah Lupton, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst `An excellent collection on the body from a specifically feminist perspective... a solid empirical work imbued with cutting-edge theorizing. Political implications for women are always foregrounded′ - Judith Lorber