Author: Sander L. Gilman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691070537
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centers for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify. Gilman begins by addressing basic questions about the history of aesthetic surgery. What surgical procedures have been performed? Which are considered aesthetic and why? Who are the patients? What is the place of aesthetic surgery in modern culture? He then turns his attention to that focus of countless human anxieties: the nose. Gilman discusses how people have reshaped their noses to repair the ravages of war and disease (principally syphilis), to match prevailing ideas of beauty, and to avoid association with negative images of the "Jew," the "Irish," the "Oriental," or the "Black." He examines how we have used aesthetic surgery on almost every conceivable part of the body to try to pass as younger, stronger, thinner, and more erotic. Gilman also explores some of the extremes of surgery as personal transformation, discussing transgender surgery, adult circumcision and foreskin restoration, the enhancement of dueling scars, and even a performance artist who had herself altered to resemble the Mona Lisa. The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.
Making the Body Beautiful
Author: Sander L. Gilman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691070537
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centers for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify. Gilman begins by addressing basic questions about the history of aesthetic surgery. What surgical procedures have been performed? Which are considered aesthetic and why? Who are the patients? What is the place of aesthetic surgery in modern culture? He then turns his attention to that focus of countless human anxieties: the nose. Gilman discusses how people have reshaped their noses to repair the ravages of war and disease (principally syphilis), to match prevailing ideas of beauty, and to avoid association with negative images of the "Jew," the "Irish," the "Oriental," or the "Black." He examines how we have used aesthetic surgery on almost every conceivable part of the body to try to pass as younger, stronger, thinner, and more erotic. Gilman also explores some of the extremes of surgery as personal transformation, discussing transgender surgery, adult circumcision and foreskin restoration, the enhancement of dueling scars, and even a performance artist who had herself altered to resemble the Mona Lisa. The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691070537
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centers for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify. Gilman begins by addressing basic questions about the history of aesthetic surgery. What surgical procedures have been performed? Which are considered aesthetic and why? Who are the patients? What is the place of aesthetic surgery in modern culture? He then turns his attention to that focus of countless human anxieties: the nose. Gilman discusses how people have reshaped their noses to repair the ravages of war and disease (principally syphilis), to match prevailing ideas of beauty, and to avoid association with negative images of the "Jew," the "Irish," the "Oriental," or the "Black." He examines how we have used aesthetic surgery on almost every conceivable part of the body to try to pass as younger, stronger, thinner, and more erotic. Gilman also explores some of the extremes of surgery as personal transformation, discussing transgender surgery, adult circumcision and foreskin restoration, the enhancement of dueling scars, and even a performance artist who had herself altered to resemble the Mona Lisa. The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.
Making the Body Beautiful
Author: Sander L. Gilman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691240213
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 419
Book Description
Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centers for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify. Gilman begins by addressing basic questions about the history of aesthetic surgery. What surgical procedures have been performed? Which are considered aesthetic and why? Who are the patients? What is the place of aesthetic surgery in modern culture? He then turns his attention to that focus of countless human anxieties: the nose. Gilman discusses how people have reshaped their noses to repair the ravages of war and disease (principally syphilis), to match prevailing ideas of beauty, and to avoid association with negative images of the "Jew," the "Irish," the "Oriental," or the "Black." He examines how we have used aesthetic surgery on almost every conceivable part of the body to try to pass as younger, stronger, thinner, and more erotic. Gilman also explores some of the extremes of surgery as personal transformation, discussing transgender surgery, adult circumcision and foreskin restoration, the enhancement of dueling scars, and even a performance artist who had herself altered to resemble the Mona Lisa. The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691240213
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 419
Book Description
Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centers for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify. Gilman begins by addressing basic questions about the history of aesthetic surgery. What surgical procedures have been performed? Which are considered aesthetic and why? Who are the patients? What is the place of aesthetic surgery in modern culture? He then turns his attention to that focus of countless human anxieties: the nose. Gilman discusses how people have reshaped their noses to repair the ravages of war and disease (principally syphilis), to match prevailing ideas of beauty, and to avoid association with negative images of the "Jew," the "Irish," the "Oriental," or the "Black." He examines how we have used aesthetic surgery on almost every conceivable part of the body to try to pass as younger, stronger, thinner, and more erotic. Gilman also explores some of the extremes of surgery as personal transformation, discussing transgender surgery, adult circumcision and foreskin restoration, the enhancement of dueling scars, and even a performance artist who had herself altered to resemble the Mona Lisa. The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.
Your Body Beautiful
Author: Jennifer Ashton M.D., Ob-Gyn
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101554134
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
The popular medical correspondent challenges women to reinvent their health and wellness routines, and make midlife their most vibrant years yet. Demi Moore, Cameron Diaz, Courteney Cox, and the list goes on. The world is realizing that a woman's thirties and forties can be the most beautiful, energetic, and passionate time of her life. Today's women can maximize this stage- and lay the foundation for optimal health and well-being. Dr. Jennifer Ashton embodies this philosophy and wants to help you enjoy these often overlooked years and feel and look your absolute best. Dr. Ashton's passion, warmth, and wit have made her America's fastest-rising women's health expert and medical correspondent. Here, she outlines a powerful approach to health care that can help you unleash new energy, strength, and sexiness. Integrating the latest scientific research, she has created a five-part plan, including: A simple eating plan, tailored to keep energy high and your weight healthy for your changing metabolism A high-powered fitness program to help you work out harder in less time Stress-reduction techniques and simple strategies for relaxation An effective, step-by-step sleep plan Prevention advice for reducing your risk of heart disease, cancer, and other potentially fatal ailments Authoritative yet written in a friendly, girlfriend-to-girlfriend voice, Your Body Beautiful and its transformative strategies will help you look and feel younger, stronger, and more vibrant than ever.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101554134
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
The popular medical correspondent challenges women to reinvent their health and wellness routines, and make midlife their most vibrant years yet. Demi Moore, Cameron Diaz, Courteney Cox, and the list goes on. The world is realizing that a woman's thirties and forties can be the most beautiful, energetic, and passionate time of her life. Today's women can maximize this stage- and lay the foundation for optimal health and well-being. Dr. Jennifer Ashton embodies this philosophy and wants to help you enjoy these often overlooked years and feel and look your absolute best. Dr. Ashton's passion, warmth, and wit have made her America's fastest-rising women's health expert and medical correspondent. Here, she outlines a powerful approach to health care that can help you unleash new energy, strength, and sexiness. Integrating the latest scientific research, she has created a five-part plan, including: A simple eating plan, tailored to keep energy high and your weight healthy for your changing metabolism A high-powered fitness program to help you work out harder in less time Stress-reduction techniques and simple strategies for relaxation An effective, step-by-step sleep plan Prevention advice for reducing your risk of heart disease, cancer, and other potentially fatal ailments Authoritative yet written in a friendly, girlfriend-to-girlfriend voice, Your Body Beautiful and its transformative strategies will help you look and feel younger, stronger, and more vibrant than ever.
The Body Scoop for Girls
Author: Jennifer Ashton M.D., Ob-Gyn
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 158333369X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
An authoritative yet girlfriend-friendly health book for teen and tween girls written by CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton AS an ob-gyn specialing in adolescent care, Dr. Jennifer Ashton understands better than anyone that being a teenage girl these days is fraught with a special kind of angst. But in her practice she talks openly and nonjudgementally to her young patients like a good friend, answering each of their questions respectfully and with candor. Now she shartes this advice in a no-holds-barred guidebook, based on her passion to cut through the embarrassment that girls often feel about their changing bodies and to arm them with the knowledge they need to make smart choices. A comprehensive guide from head to toe, The Body Scoop for Girls covers the basics of puberty and beyond, including: •Breast development and nipple bumps •The decision to wait to have sex, and the benefits of waiting •Birth control •The lowdown on STIs •Eating Disorders •Depression and hormone imbalances •Grooming, from hair removal to hygiene products •Body piercings Writing in a funny and fresh, girl-to-girl voice, Dr. Ashton has created a totally up-to-date health book that speaks directly to young women and the unique pressures they face today. From a doctor who "gets it," The Body Scoop for Girls makes the road to womanhood an empowering one.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 158333369X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
An authoritative yet girlfriend-friendly health book for teen and tween girls written by CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton AS an ob-gyn specialing in adolescent care, Dr. Jennifer Ashton understands better than anyone that being a teenage girl these days is fraught with a special kind of angst. But in her practice she talks openly and nonjudgementally to her young patients like a good friend, answering each of their questions respectfully and with candor. Now she shartes this advice in a no-holds-barred guidebook, based on her passion to cut through the embarrassment that girls often feel about their changing bodies and to arm them with the knowledge they need to make smart choices. A comprehensive guide from head to toe, The Body Scoop for Girls covers the basics of puberty and beyond, including: •Breast development and nipple bumps •The decision to wait to have sex, and the benefits of waiting •Birth control •The lowdown on STIs •Eating Disorders •Depression and hormone imbalances •Grooming, from hair removal to hygiene products •Body piercings Writing in a funny and fresh, girl-to-girl voice, Dr. Ashton has created a totally up-to-date health book that speaks directly to young women and the unique pressures they face today. From a doctor who "gets it," The Body Scoop for Girls makes the road to womanhood an empowering one.
Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through
Author: T Fleischmann
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566895553
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
W. G. Sebald meets Maggie Nelson in an autobiographical narrative of embodiment, visual art, history, and loss. How do the bodies we inhabit affect our relationship with art? How does art affect our relationship to our bodies? T Fleischmann uses Felix Gonzáles-Torres’s artworks—piles of candy, stacks of paper, puzzles—as a path through questions of love and loss, violence and rejuvenation, gender and sexuality. From the back porches of Buffalo, to the galleries of New York and L.A., to farmhouses of rural Tennessee, the artworks act as still points, sites for reflection situated in lived experience. Fleischmann combines serious engagement with warmth and clarity of prose, reveling in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identity and community.
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566895553
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
W. G. Sebald meets Maggie Nelson in an autobiographical narrative of embodiment, visual art, history, and loss. How do the bodies we inhabit affect our relationship with art? How does art affect our relationship to our bodies? T Fleischmann uses Felix Gonzáles-Torres’s artworks—piles of candy, stacks of paper, puzzles—as a path through questions of love and loss, violence and rejuvenation, gender and sexuality. From the back porches of Buffalo, to the galleries of New York and L.A., to farmhouses of rural Tennessee, the artworks act as still points, sites for reflection situated in lived experience. Fleischmann combines serious engagement with warmth and clarity of prose, reveling in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identity and community.
Aesthetic Surgery
Author: TASCHEN
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783836500906
Category : Beauty, Personal
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
From liposuction to lip implants, this book explores all the ins and outs of body sculpting, focusing on the artistry of aesthetic surgery and the extremes to which people go to ?improve? their looks. Topics include: ? History of aesthetic surgery (with unpublished medical photos ) ? Ethnicity and aesthetic surgery ? Surgery in movies ? Spotlight on Ivo Pitanguy, the ?Michelangelo of the scalpel? ? Interviews with the world's most famous aesthetic surgeons ? Before and after photos of transformed body parts, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes ? Caricatures and jokes about aesthetic surgery ? Bibliography including links to plastic surgery websites
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783836500906
Category : Beauty, Personal
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
From liposuction to lip implants, this book explores all the ins and outs of body sculpting, focusing on the artistry of aesthetic surgery and the extremes to which people go to ?improve? their looks. Topics include: ? History of aesthetic surgery (with unpublished medical photos ) ? Ethnicity and aesthetic surgery ? Surgery in movies ? Spotlight on Ivo Pitanguy, the ?Michelangelo of the scalpel? ? Interviews with the world's most famous aesthetic surgeons ? Before and after photos of transformed body parts, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes ? Caricatures and jokes about aesthetic surgery ? Bibliography including links to plastic surgery websites
The Body Book
Author: Cameron Diaz
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062252763
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
Cameron Diaz shares her formula for becoming happier, healthier, and stronger in this positive, essential guide grounded in science and inspired by personal experience, now a #1 New York Times bestseller. Throughout her career, Cameron Diaz has been a role model for millions of women. By her own candid admission, though, this fit, glamorous, but down-to-earth star was not always health-conscious. Learning about the inseparable link between nutrition and the body was just one of the life-changing lessons that has fed Cameron’s hunger to educate herself about the best ways to feed, move, and care for her body. In The Body Book, she shares what she has learned and continues to discover about nutrition, exercise, and the mind/body connection. Grounded in science and informed by real life, The Body Book offers a comprehensive overview of the human body and mind, from the cellular level up. From demystifying and debunking the hype around food groups to explaining the value of vitamins and minerals, readers will discover why it’s so important to embrace the instinct of hunger and to satisfy it with whole, nutrient-dense foods. Cameron also explains the essential role of movement, the importance of muscle and bone strength and why we need to sweat a little every day. The Body Book does not set goals to reach in seven days or thirty days or a year. It offers a holistic, long-term approach to making consistent choices and reaching the ultimate goal: a long, strong, happy, healthy life.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062252763
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
Cameron Diaz shares her formula for becoming happier, healthier, and stronger in this positive, essential guide grounded in science and inspired by personal experience, now a #1 New York Times bestseller. Throughout her career, Cameron Diaz has been a role model for millions of women. By her own candid admission, though, this fit, glamorous, but down-to-earth star was not always health-conscious. Learning about the inseparable link between nutrition and the body was just one of the life-changing lessons that has fed Cameron’s hunger to educate herself about the best ways to feed, move, and care for her body. In The Body Book, she shares what she has learned and continues to discover about nutrition, exercise, and the mind/body connection. Grounded in science and informed by real life, The Body Book offers a comprehensive overview of the human body and mind, from the cellular level up. From demystifying and debunking the hype around food groups to explaining the value of vitamins and minerals, readers will discover why it’s so important to embrace the instinct of hunger and to satisfy it with whole, nutrient-dense foods. Cameron also explains the essential role of movement, the importance of muscle and bone strength and why we need to sweat a little every day. The Body Book does not set goals to reach in seven days or thirty days or a year. It offers a holistic, long-term approach to making consistent choices and reaching the ultimate goal: a long, strong, happy, healthy life.
The Adonis Complex
Author: Harrison Pope
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684869101
Category : Body image in men
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Growing numbers of young men are taking the quest for perfect muscles, skin and hair too far, crossing the line from normal interest to pathological obsession. For the first time, three of the world's leading authorities on men help us to understand and combat the frightening set of compulsive behaviours that make up the Adonis Complex. Combining colourful case studies with scientific research, they reveal a threat that is as serious as the beauty myth for women or anorexia nervosa for girls. The symptoms of this dangerous body obsession, excessive workouts, steroid abuse, eating disorders and body and muscle dysmorphic disorder (distorted body perception), lead to problems with sex and intimacy, relationships and work. In teenagers, the Adonis Complex can interfere with healthy emotional and physical development. Until now, frank discussion of this problem has been virtually taboo. At last we can hear what men really think and feel about their bodies, so that those who suffer in silence will no longer need to suffer alone.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684869101
Category : Body image in men
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Growing numbers of young men are taking the quest for perfect muscles, skin and hair too far, crossing the line from normal interest to pathological obsession. For the first time, three of the world's leading authorities on men help us to understand and combat the frightening set of compulsive behaviours that make up the Adonis Complex. Combining colourful case studies with scientific research, they reveal a threat that is as serious as the beauty myth for women or anorexia nervosa for girls. The symptoms of this dangerous body obsession, excessive workouts, steroid abuse, eating disorders and body and muscle dysmorphic disorder (distorted body perception), lead to problems with sex and intimacy, relationships and work. In teenagers, the Adonis Complex can interfere with healthy emotional and physical development. Until now, frank discussion of this problem has been virtually taboo. At last we can hear what men really think and feel about their bodies, so that those who suffer in silence will no longer need to suffer alone.
Making the American Body
Author: Jonathan Black
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496209508
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
If you thought the fitness craze was about being healthy, think again. Although Charles Atlas, Jack LaLanne, Jim Fixx, Jane Fonda, Richard Simmons, and Jillian Michaels might well point the way to a better body, they have done so only if their brands brought in profits. In the first book to tell the full story of the American obsession with fitness and how we got to where we are today, Jonathan Black gives us a backstage look at an industry and the people that have left an indelible mark on the American body and the consciousness it houses. Spanning the nation's fitness obsession from Atlas to Arnold, from Spinning to Zumba, and featuring an outrageous cast of characters bent on whipping us into shape while simultaneously shaping the way we view our bodies, Black tells the story of an outsized but little-examined aspect of our culture. With insights drawn from more than fifty interviews and attention to key developments in bodybuilding, aerobics, equipment, health clubs, running, sports medicine, group exercise, Pilates, and yoga, Making the American Body reveals how a focus on fitness has shaped not only our physiques but also, and more profoundly, American ideas of what "fitness" is.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496209508
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
If you thought the fitness craze was about being healthy, think again. Although Charles Atlas, Jack LaLanne, Jim Fixx, Jane Fonda, Richard Simmons, and Jillian Michaels might well point the way to a better body, they have done so only if their brands brought in profits. In the first book to tell the full story of the American obsession with fitness and how we got to where we are today, Jonathan Black gives us a backstage look at an industry and the people that have left an indelible mark on the American body and the consciousness it houses. Spanning the nation's fitness obsession from Atlas to Arnold, from Spinning to Zumba, and featuring an outrageous cast of characters bent on whipping us into shape while simultaneously shaping the way we view our bodies, Black tells the story of an outsized but little-examined aspect of our culture. With insights drawn from more than fifty interviews and attention to key developments in bodybuilding, aerobics, equipment, health clubs, running, sports medicine, group exercise, Pilates, and yoga, Making the American Body reveals how a focus on fitness has shaped not only our physiques but also, and more profoundly, American ideas of what "fitness" is.
On Beauty and Being Just
Author: Elaine Scarry
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400847354
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
Have we become beauty-blind? For two decades or more in the humanities, various political arguments have been put forward against beauty: that it distracts us from more important issues; that it is the handmaiden of privilege; and that it masks political interests. In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms. Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a "surfeit of aliveness." In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness. Scarry, author of the landmark The Body in Pain and one of our bravest and most creative thinkers, offers us here philosophical critique written with clarity and conviction as well as a passionate plea that we change the way we think about beauty.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400847354
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 144
Book Description
Have we become beauty-blind? For two decades or more in the humanities, various political arguments have been put forward against beauty: that it distracts us from more important issues; that it is the handmaiden of privilege; and that it masks political interests. In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms. Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a "surfeit of aliveness." In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness. Scarry, author of the landmark The Body in Pain and one of our bravest and most creative thinkers, offers us here philosophical critique written with clarity and conviction as well as a passionate plea that we change the way we think about beauty.