Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of figures -- Preface -- Part I: Understanding the Body from a Social and Cultural Perspective -- 1. Introduction: Theorizing the Body -- An introduction to body studies -- Interesting issues: born this way blog -- Embodiment -- Interesting issues: apotemnophilia -- Inscribing the social order -- Theorizing the female body -- Counter-inscription -- Key terms -- Further reading -- Part II: The Scientific and Biomedical Body -- 2. Healthy and Diseased Bodies -- The social construction of health and illness -- Interesting issues: schizophrenia in Ireland -- Culturally specific illnesses and conditions -- Disability and the normative body -- Freaks, monsters, and freak shows -- Gender, morbidity, and mortality -- HIV/AIDS: a bodily, social, and cultural phenomenon -- Class matters: illness and inequality -- Interesting issues: man robs bank to get health care -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 3. Aging Bodies -- How we age -- The culture of youth -- Interesting issues: the cougar -- Problems facing the elderly -- Age norms -- Interesting issues: Helen Mirren's bikini -- Experiences of aging -- The aging prison population -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 4. Reproducing Bodies -- Menstruation, fertility, and menopause -- Contraception, abortion, and reproductive rights -- Interesting issues: project prevention -- Population control, race, and the loss of women's choice -- Interesting issues: China's one child policy -- Pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation -- Assisted reproductive technologies -- Prenatal testing and the threat of the designer baby -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 5. Dead Bodies -- How and where people die -- Organized death -- Interesting issues: the killing fields of Cambodia -- How do we know when we're dead? -- Treating the dead -- Burial rites.

Other methods of disposing of the dead -- Interesting isssues: Georgia Tri-State Crematory scandal -- Key terms -- Further reading -- Part III: Mapping Difference onto Bodies -- 6. Racialized and Colonized Bodies -- What is race? -- Interesting issues: the shooting of Trayvon Martin -- Colonialism and the emergence of race -- The display and eroticization of racialized bodies -- Interesting issues: good hair -- Mapping and measuring bodies in the era of biological racism -- Race, health, and race purity -- The animalization of non-white bodies -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 7. Gendered Bodies -- The gendered body -- Men are instrumental -- women are ornamental -- Interesting issues: the removal of Hillary Clinton from the Situation Room photo -- Becoming male or female: circumcision and clitoridectomy -- Hair matters -- Women's bodies: smaller is better -- Interesting issues: pens for women -- The problematic male body -- Male and female: transgendered bodies -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 8. Sexualized Bodies -- How sex is produced -- Intersexuality: are there just two sexes? -- Changing sex: transsexuality -- Male and female sexualities -- Interesting issues: Toddlers &amp -- Tiaras and the sexualization of little girls -- Gay, straight, bi, and ?: a diversity of sexualities -- Body play, bondage, and fetishes -- Sex as a weapon: rape and castration -- Interesting issues: the Toronto SlutWalk -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 9. Classed Bodies -- How does class shape the body? -- Dirty jobs and clean jobs -- Pink-collar bodies -- Consumption, class, and the body -- Adorning the classed body: sumptuary laws -- Interesting issues: shoes and class -- The invisibility of poor bodies -- Interesting issues: white trash -- Key terms -- Further reading -- Part IV: Bodies and Privilege -- 10. Beautiful Bodies -- The science of beauty.

Interesting issues: the Golden Ratio -- The importance of female beauty -- Beauty pays -- Beautiful men -- Racialized and classed standards of beauty -- Interesting issues: ulzzang -- Manufacturing beauty: cosmetic surgery -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 11. Fat and Thin Bodies -- The obesity epidemic -- Interesting issues: the fat acceptance movement and fatshion blogs -- The drive to lose weight -- Eating disorders -- You need some meat on your bones: a preference for fat -- Weight prejudice -- Interesting issues: Lane Bryant ad: too fat for TV -- Sugar, fast food, and the sweetening of the world's food -- Key terms -- Further reading -- Part V: Extraordinary Bodies -- 12. Modified Bodies -- From raw to cooked -- Body modification in traditional cultures -- Body modification in states -- Body modification today -- Tattooing, gender, and sexuality -- Interesting issues: Jean Carroll -- Modern primitives and non-mainstream body modifications -- Interesting issues: Spanner case -- Subversive bodies -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 13. Religious Bodies -- The veil -- Pollution and the female body -- Interesting issues: the witch -- Denying the body: fasting, abstinence, and self-mortification -- Interesting issues: Christian weight loss programs -- Religion and sex -- The body/soul division -- Bodily practices -- Spirit possession, stigmata, and resurrection: miracles of the faithful -- Key terms -- Further reading -- Part VI: State and Corporate Regulation of the Body -- 14. Tortured, Punished, and Convict Bodies -- Marking deviance: branding, castration, and tattooing -- Interesting issues: Geneva Convention -- Torture, rape, and other forms of corporal punishment -- Capital punishment -- The rise of the prison and the confinement of criminals -- Marks of deviance: identifying criminals -- Interesting issues: mug shots -- Key terms.

Further reading -- 15. Commodified Bodies -- Slavery and the ownership of people -- Prostitution, sex trafficking, and sex tourism -- Interesting issues: virginity for sale -- Selling love: mail order brides -- Interesting issues: romance tourism -- Pornographic bodies -- How much are bodies, and body parts, worth? -- Who owns our bodies? -- Key terms -- Further reading -- 16. Animal Bodies -- Human-animal kinship: evolutionary links -- Interesting issues: human-animal transformation -- Domestication and selective breeding: the creation of animal bodies -- Altering the animal body -- Bodily control -- Interesting issues: the link between violence to animals and violence to humans -- A different kind of hybrid -- Human-animal kinship: coming together -- Key terms -- Further reading -- Part VII: Bodies of the Future -- 17. Conclusion: Bodies of the Future -- Cyborg bodies -- Virtual bodies -- Hybrid bodies -- Digital bodies -- Key terms -- Further readin -- Bibliography -- Index.

Body Studies is a comprehensive textbook on the social and cultural uses and meanings of the body, for use in undergraduate college courses. This book provides a wealth of pedagogic features for ease of teaching and learning: ethnographic case studies, boxes covering contemporary controversies, news stories, and legislative issues, as well as chapter summaries, further reading recommendations and key terms.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2025. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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