Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader

by Price,Janet

• ISBN13: 9780415925662
• ISBN10: 0415925665
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-26
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Without the body there would be no feminist theory. And it's possible to say that without feminist theory there would be no modern "body." The body has long been a contested site in feminist circles. From debates about motherhood, pregnancy, and abortion, discussions of pleasure and sex, to more philosophical discussions of embodiment and the gendering of bodies, the major thinkers of feminist theory have reshaped our ideas of how women and men understand what the body is. InFeminist Theory and the BodyPrice and Shildrick bring together over 40 of the world's greatest feminist writers to represent the key arguments from all of the different feminist schools of thought on the body. The book's seven sections cover Woman as Body?, Sexy Bodies, Bodies in Science and Biomedicine, After the Binary, Altered Bodies, BodySpaceMatter and Performing the Body. It includes articles on race, cyberspace, theatre, classics, transsexuality, reproductive technologies, illness, rape, plastic surgery,disabilities and much, much more. Contributors: Anne Balsamo, Christine Battersby, Lynda Birke, Susan Bordo, Rosie Braidotti, Judith Butler, Sue-Ellen Case, Fen Coles, Barbara Creed, Kathy Davis, Heather Findlay, Moira Gatens, Elizabeth Grosz, Judith Halberstam, Evelyn Hammonds, Donna Haraway, Luce Irigaray, Ludmilla Jordanova, Audre Lorde, Helen Marshall, Emily Martin, Trinh T. Min-ha, Nalini Natarajan, Pratibha Parmar, Janet Price, Denise Riley, Gillian Rose, Andrea Benton Rushing, Jana Sawicki, Londa Schiebinger, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Lynn Segal, Margrit Shildrick, Felly Nkweto Simmonds, Elizabeth Spelman, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Kristina Straub, Awa Thiam, Alice Walker, Susan Wendell, Juniper Wiley, Jeanette Winterson, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Openings on the Body: A Critical Introduction	p. 1
Woman as Body?	p. 15
'Theories of Gender and Race'	p. 21
'Woman as Body: Ancient and Contemporary Views'	p. 32
'Bodies and Biology'	p. 42
'My Body, Myself: How Does a Black Woman Do Sociology?'	p. 50
'Our Bodies, Ourselves: Why We Should Add Old Fashioned Empirical Phenomenology to the New Theories of the Body'	p. 64
Sexy Bodies	p. 77
'When Our Lips Speak Together'	p. 82
'The Nose' and 'Taste'	p. 91
'Toward a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Silence'	p. 93
'Body Matters: Cultural Inscriptions'	p. 105
'Lesbian Bodies: Tribades, Tomboys and Tarts'	p. 111
'F2M: The Making of Female Masculinity'	p. 125
'NO BODY is "Doing It": Cybersexuality'	p. 134
'The Hot Rod Bodies of Cybersex'	p. 140
Bodies in Science and Biomedicine	p. 143
'A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer'	p. 149
'Breast Cancer: An Adventure in Applied Deconstruction'	p. 153
'Natural Facts: A Historical Perspective on Science and Sexuality'	p. 157
'Menopause: The Storm before the Calm'	p. 169
'The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles'	p. 179
'Disciplining Mothers: Feminism and the New Reproductive Technologies'	p. 190
'The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Determinations of Self in Immune System Discourse'	p. 203
After the Binary	p. 215
'Bodies, Identities, Feminisms'	p. 220
'Power, Bodies and Difference'	p. 227
'Bodies that Matter'	p. 235
'Feminism, Foucault and the Politics of the Body'	p. 246
'Write Your Body' and 'The Body in Theory'	p. 258
'Psychoanalysis and the Body'	p. 267
Alter/ed Bodies	p. 273
'Forms of Technological Embodiment: Reading the Body in Contemporary Culture'	p. 278
'Signs of Wonder and Traces of Doubt: On Teratology and Embodied Differences'	p. 290
'Interview from Warrior Marks'	p. 302
'The Trials of the Black African Woman'	p. 309
'The Economy of Violence: Black Bodies and the Unspeakable Terror'	p. 311
'Feminism, Disability, and Transcendence of the Body'	p. 324
BodySpaceMatter	p. 335
'Her Body/Her Boundaries'	p. 341
'Women and Everyday Spaces'	p. 359
'Surviving Rape: A Morning/Mourning Ritual'	p. 371
'Bodies-Cities'	p. 381
'Mapping the Colonial Body: Sexual Economies and the State in Colonial India'	p. 388
'Woman, Nation and Narration in Midnight's Children'	p. 399
Performing the Body	p. 411
'Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions'	p. 416
'The Guilty Pleasures of Female Theatrical Cross-Dressing'	p. 423
'Breaking the Boundaries of the Broken Body'	p. 432
'Feminine Charms and Outrageous Arms'	p. 445
'"My Body is my Art": Cosmetic Surgery as Feminist Utopia?'	p. 454
'"Freud's Fetishism" and the Lesbian Dildo Debates'	p. 466
Copyright Acknowledgements	p. 477
Subject Index	p. 481
Name Index	p. 485
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.