Corpus An Interdisciplinary Reader on Bodies and Knowledge

by Casper, Monica J.; Currah, Paisley

• ISBN13: 9780230113800
• ISBN10: 023011380X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Corpusbegins with the argument that traditional disciplines are unable to fully apprehend the body and embodiment and asserts that critical study of these topics urgently demands interdisciplinary approaches. The collection's thirteen original essays grapple with the place of bodies in a range of twenty-first century knowledge practices, including trauma, surveillance, aging, fat, food, feminist technoscience, death, disability, biopolitics, and race, among others.

Author Biography

Monica J. Casper is the Director of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies in the New College at Arizona State University. She is author of The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery, editor of Synthetic Planet: Chemical Politics and the Hazards of Modern Life, and co-author of Missing Bodies: The Politics of Visibility. Paisley Currah is a Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He is the co-editor of Transgender Rights and the author of the forthcoming book, The United States of Gender, an examination of the contradictions in state definitions of sex.

Table of Contents

“Corpus provides a sorely needed update to conventional body studies. Collectively, the articles address the academic, technological, and economic questions we have today, while demonstrating deep knowledge of where the body has been and where it is going next. Combining sharp currency with historical complexity, this collection is an ideal teaching tool.”--CL Cole, Professor, Gender and Women's Studies, Media and Cinema Studies, and Institute for Communication Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

“Deleuze, echoing Spinoza, has famously noted that we can never know in advance what a body can do. The essays in this wide-ranging collection document the impressive scope of what bodies are already considered capable of doing and encourage their readers to imagine an even vaster horizon for embodiment's future potential. Mindful of the biopolitical stakes at play, this genuinely interdisciplinary anthology is both erudite and deeply political. It offers food for thought for anybody who has a body.”--Susan Stryker, Associate Professor, Gender Studies, Indiana University Bloomington

 

“A brilliant addition to the lively field of embodiment studies, this richly interdisciplinary collection interrogates how different bodies of knowledge produce complex and discrepant bodies that matter. Self-reflexive methods abound throughout its diverse and innovative chapters, each attuned to the politics of knowledge. Corpus is a must-read if you are wondering what has become of bodies and the way they are made meaningful in the twenty-first century.”—Jennifer Terry, author of An American Obsession and editor of Deviant Bodies

 

“This book is a provocative delight.  Whether theorizing about racialized medicine, embodied work relations, vanishing bodies, fat and food studies, or de-corporealization, this collection puts feminist and sexuality studies to work in new and exciting directions.  The body in Corpus is never singular, always constructed orthogonally, and we readers are enriched by its many lessons.”--Rayna Rapp, Professor, Anthropology, New York University