The Body as Material Culture
The Body as Material Culture

Author: Joanna R. Sofaer

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-02-16

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1316584097

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Bodies intrigue us. They promise windows into the past that other archaeological finds cannot by bringing us literally face to face with history. Yet 'the body' is also highly contested. Archaeological bodies are studied through two contrasting perspectives that sit on different sides of a disciplinary divide. On one hand lie science-based osteoarchaeological approaches. On the other lie understandings derived from recent developments in social theory that increasingly view the body as a social construction. Through a close examination of disciplinary practice, Joanna Sofaer highlights the tensions and possibilities offered by one particular kind of archaeological body, the human skeleton, with particular regard to the study of gender and age. Using a range of examples, she argues for reassessment of the role of the skeletal body in archaeological practice, and develops a theoretical framework for bioarchaeology based on the materiality and historicity of human remains.

The material body
The material body

Author: Elizabeth Craig-Atkins

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2024-02-20

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 1526152770

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This volume explores the possibilities of studying embodied subjects in the past through the sources and approaches of archaeology, history and material culture studies. It draws on collections of human remains, material culture and documentary evidence from Britain during the period 1700–1850, considering the themes of gender, rank, age, disability and maternity. Each chapter looks at the lived experiences of the material body, bringing together disciplines that share an interest in the material or embodied turn. Combining archaeological and historical data to reconstruct embodied experiences, the volume represents the first collection of genuinely collaborative scholarship by historians and archaeologists.

Poetry, Media, and the Material Body
Poetry, Media, and the Material Body

Author: Ashley Miller

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-08-09

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1108311482

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From the Romantic fascination with hallucinatory poetics to the turn-of-the-century mania for automatic writing, poetry in nineteenth-century Britain appears at crucial times to be oddly involuntary, out of the control of its producers and receivers alike. This elegant study addresses the question of how people understood those forms of written creativity that seem to occur independently of the writer's will. Through the study of the century's media revolutions, evolving theories of physiology, and close readings of the works of nineteenth-century poets including Wordsworth, Coleridge and Tennyson, Ashley Miller articulates how poetry was imagined to promote involuntary bodily responses in both authors and readers, and how these responses enlist the body as a medium that does not produce poetry but rather reproduces it. This is a poetics that draws attention to, rather than effaces, the mediacy of the body in the processes of composition and reception.

Bodily Natures
Bodily Natures

Author: Stacy Alaimo

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2010-10-25

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0253004837

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How do we understand the agency and significance of material forces and their interface with human bodies? What does it mean to be human in these times, with bodies that are inextricably interconnected with our physical world? Bodily Natures considers these questions by grappling with powerful and pervasive material forces and their increasingly harmful effects on the human body. Drawing on feminist theory, environmental studies, and the sciences, Stacy Alaimo focuses on trans-corporeality, or movement across bodies and nature, which has profoundly altered our sense of self. By looking at a broad range of creative and philosophical writings, Alaimo illuminates how science, politics, and culture collide, while considering the closeness of the human body to the environment.

Body Talk
Body Talk

Author: Jane Ussher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-01-04

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1134740921

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Psychology has traditionally examined human experience from a realist perspective, focusing on observable 'facts'. This is especially so in areas of psychology which focus on the body, such as sexuality, madness or reproduction. In contrast, many sociologists, anthropologists and feminists have focused exclusively on the cultural and communicative aspects of 'the body' treating it purely as an object constructed within socio-cultural discourse. This new collection of sophisticated discursive analyses explores this divide from a variety of theoretical standpoints, including psychoanalysis, social representations theory, feminist theory, critical realism, post-structuralism and social constructionism. Body Talk reconciles the divide by putting forward a new 'materialist-discursive' approach. It also provides an introduction to social constructionist and discursive approaches which is accessible to those with limited previous knowledge of socio-linguistic theory, and showcases the distinctive contribution that psychologists can make to the field.

Beyond the Body Proper
Beyond the Body Proper

Author: Margaret M. Lock

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 706

ISBN-13: 9780822338451

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A theoretically sophisticated and cross-disciplinary reader in the anthropology of the body.

Rainbow Body and Resurrection
Rainbow Body and Resurrection

Author: Francis V. Tiso

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2016-01-26

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1583947957

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A leading authority on the rainbow body traces its history in the encounter of religions in medieval Central Asia, exploring a previously unimagined connection between early Dzogchen and the resurrection of Jesus Francis V. Tiso, a noted authority on the rainbow body, explores this manifestation of spiritual realization in a wide-ranging and deeply informed study of the transformation of the material body into a body of light. Seeking evidence on the boundary between physical science and deep spirituality that might elucidate the resurrection of Jesus, he investigates the case of Khenpo A Chö, a Buddhist monk who died in eastern Tibet in 1999. Rainbow Body and Resurrection chronicles the dissolution of Khenpo's material body within a week of his death, including eye-witness interviews. Tiso describes the spiritual practices that give rise to the rainbow body and traces their history deep into the encounter of religions in medieval Central Asia. His erudite exploration of the Tibetan phenomenon raises the fascinating question of whether there is a connection between the rainbow body and the dying and rising of Jesus. Drawing on a wealth of recent research, Tiso expands his discussion to include the contemplative geography out of which Dzogchen arose some time in the eighth century along the great Silk Road across Central Asia. The result is an illuminating consideration of previously unimagined relationships between spiritual practices and beliefs in Central Asia.

Broken Bodies
Broken Bodies

Author: Karen O'Donnell

Publisher: SCM Press

Published: 2019-01-01

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 0334056241

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The Body of Christ is a traumatised body because it is constituted of traumatised bodies. This monograph explores the nature of that trauma and examines the implications of identifying the trauma of this body. Constructing new ways of thinking about the narratives at the heart of the Christian faith, 'Broken Bodies' offers a fresh perspective on Christian theology, in particular the Eucharist, and presents a call to love the body in all its guises. It offers new pathways for considering what it means to ‘be Christian’ and explores the impact that the experience of trauma has on Christian doctrine.

A Physical Approach to Color Image Understanding
A Physical Approach to Color Image Understanding

Author: Gudrun Klinker

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 1993-02-15

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1439864683

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The author presents a vision model that uses color information to interpret the effects of shading and highlights on a scene. Transcending more traditional approaches, this method may lead to more reliable and useful techniques for image understanding.