"Only skin deep," "getting under one's skin," "the naked truth"
metaphors about the skin pervade the language even as physical
embellishments and alterations -- tattoos, piercings, skin-lifts,
liposuction, tanning, and more -- proliferate in Western culture.
Yet outside dermatology textbooks, the topic of skin has been
largely ignored.
This important cultural study shows how our perception of skin
has changed from the eighteenth century to the present. Claudia
Benthien argues that despite medicine's having penetrated the
bodily surface and exposed the interior of the body as never
before, skin, paradoxically, has become a more and more unyielding
symbol. She examines the changing significance of skin through
brilliant analyses of literature, art, philosophy, and anatomical
drawings and writings. Benthien discusses the semantic and psychic
aspects of touching, feeling, and intellectual perception; the
motifs of perforated, armored, or transparent skin; the phantasma
of flaying; and much more through close readings of such authors as
Kleist, Hawthorne, Balzac, Rilke, Kafka, Plath, Morrison, Wideman,
and Ondaatje. Myriad images from the Renaissance, anatomy books,
and contemporary visual and performance art enhance the text.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!