Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture

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Parents will be tempted to read Born to Buy as a kind of contemporary horror story, with ever more sophisticated marketing wunderkinds as Dr. Frankensteins and their children as the relentless monsters they create. Indeed, it's difficult to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the avariciousness, omnipotence, and ingenuity of the advertising industry Juliet B. Schor portrays when it comes to transforming preschool kids into voracious, 'tude-infused consumers. Intermixing research data with anecdotal illustrations, Schor chronicles the rapid development of a once-shackled industry that now markets R-rated movies to 9-year-olds. The mind boggles at the notion that Seventeen magazine's target readership is now pre-teens. While Schor unearths a surplus of information on the effectiveness of advertising, she's not nearly as adept at proposing effective responses. Reacting to the power and creativity of the consumer culture with politically unfeasible regulation and parental diligence is a little like attacking Frankenstein's creature with torches. Still, Born to Buy is an eye-opening account of an industry that is commercializing childhood with remarkable effectiveness and insouciance. --Steven Stolder

Book Description

Marketing targeted at kids is virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at Girl Scout meetings, slumber parties, and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, Juliet B. Schor, New York Times bestselling author of The Overworked American, examines how marketing efforts of vast size, scope, and effectiveness have created "commercialized children." Ads and their messages about sex, drugs, and food affect not just what children want to buy, but who they think they are. In this groundbreaking and crucial book, Schor looks at the consequences of the commercialization of childhood and provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children.

Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Born to Buy is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture.

Customer Reviews:

Very interesting.......2007-06-22

As a new parent this book opened by eyes to a lot of things I would never have recognized as "marketing" and would not have occurred to me how potentially harmful this culture is the psyche of a child. The data gets a little cumbersome at times, and I skimmed over some of the detail so that I didn't get bogged down in it, but lots of great information along the way.

Great analysis of a creepy industry.......2007-06-08

Advertising is creepy, advertising to children even creepier. This is not news. But a detailed study of the overall effects is. The bulk of this book presents the results of in-depth study of the industry, both through statistical study of two sample groups of children, and through study of the work environments of the advertisers themselves, with interviews of marketers, parents, teachers, and kids. The author takes into account the history of moral panics, the party line of the industry that "kids are savvy," and the specific work that has been done around small aspects of this issue, such as fast food and violent video games (which I love). The author takes an unusually balanced, non-partisan view, sympathizing with the easily-vilified advertisers she worked closely with as well as kids and parents. Her policy recommendations are unlikely to be implemented, but her analysis of the issue is extremely sharp.

What Every Parent Needs to Know.......2007-04-02

This is a book every parent (and teacher like myself)must read. It cuts to the heart of the exploitation of children that is tearing kids away from parents, family and culture. There is no way to protect children from the devious assault of advertising (you may be shocked at the tactics!) unless we are armed with the facts, and this book tells it like it is.

Solid argument against the commercially constructed childhood.......2006-04-23

There's not doubt that corporations, advertisers and marketers do not have your child's best interest at heart. Schor provides a comprehensive account of the what, why and how marketers are targeting your children.

Reading "Born to Buy" will make you want to throw out the TV, disconnect from the Internet, run to the country and home-school your children. Simply put, there's no way to avoid marketing techniques, and your child will succumb to the corporate-commercially constructed childhood. With all the doom and gloom in this book, Schor offers little hope of avoidance...in the end, she does provide a few solutions.

All in all, "Born to Buy" was very informative and an easy, entertaining read. However, some of Schor's original research and statistics caused me to get bogged down. I wasn't looking for scholarly research and did not need to see these statistics. Additionally, Schor seemed to use this book as a chance to take shots at the Bush administration. Although I'm not a fan of this administration and some of the criticism is valid, I do not think Bush started this problem...he's just done nothing to fix it.

All in all, this is well worth the read, especially if you have small children...just skip over the stats near the end, and forgive Schor's attempts at making this political.

If You Have a Child, Read This Book Immediately.......2006-01-04

Simply put . . . if you're not left in shock within the first 50 pages, you haven't been reading. Ms. Schor's account of our nation's perverse youth-directed advertising, market research and media practices is a profound eye-opener. You will be appalled at what our children are being subjected to - not to mention the hyper-sophisticated marketing strategies & manipulations that take place behind-the-scenes, to ensure our children's psychological captivity.

The only deficit to Ms. Schor's work are the, at times, specious and/or factually incorrect claims about macro and micro-level behavior of America's youth. She can be rather quick to jump to conclusions that serve her arguments' ends, while glossing-over counterpoints to highly debatable issues. Case-in-point -- she cites the youth increase is ADD/ADHD diagnoses as "mounting" "evidence of distress among children", while completely sidestepping the highly complex etiology behind the increase in those diagnoses.

She also appears to be somewhat out-of-touch with contemporary culture, to the point that she makes statements like (as appears on page 141), "He's supposed to do his homework, but he has lied and said he doesn't have any so he can spend his time playing a new Gameboy." A statement like that reads like someone saying referring to a car as a "motor carriage"; she more likely meant "...playing a new Gameboy game.", as effectively no child would ever receive a new Gameboy handheld console with enough frequency to refer to their current one as "new". Perhaps I'm being hypercritical, but, if someone is indicting elements of pop culture, I'd prefer their terminology be accurate.

However, an intelligent reader should be able to sift through the missteps and inconsistencies, as the vast majority of the book's content & assertions are reputable, well-researched and well-articulated.

This is A TRUE MUST-READ for all parents, as well as anyone concerned about the impact of media and advertising on their own life.

The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siècle (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)

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Thanks for the heads up.
Insightful & fun book from prestigious Cambridge Press serie

The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siècle (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)
Kelly Hurley
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521552591

Book Description

This book accounts for the resurgence of Gothic, and its immense popularity, during the British fin de siècle. In particular, Kelly Hurley explores a key scenario that haunts the genre: the loss of a unified and stable human identity, and the emergence of a chaotic and transformative "abhuman" identity in its place. Gothic is revealed as a highly productive and speculative genre, strongly indebted to nineteenth-century scientific, medical and social theories, including evolutionism, criminal anthropology and degeneration theory.

Customer Reviews:

Thanks for the heads up........2007-07-03

Thanks to this review, I now know to stay away from this book. There was, there is, and there always will be an essential human nature. The likes of Harold Bloom, Camille Paglia, and Steven Pinker should have proven this to any sensible person's satisfaction. This review is a perfect example of the irrational, anti-science, intellectually soft, "blank slate" nonsense that overwhelmingly dominates modern American academe, and which is single-handedly responsible for my dropping out of graduate studies when I was almost done with the program. It is not the responsibility of literary academics to make the world a better place and stop genocide: it is their responsibility to shed light on literary texts so we can appreciate their aesthetics, their respective cultures, and general human nature better. The mentality in this review perfectly illustrates how leftist ideology has poisoned and corroded literary studies over the last 35 years: we have subjugated literary and psychological theory towards certain politically correct ends. Never mind if the theories have any truth to them, just as long as they bring to fruition the desired objectives (which they won't, since they have no truth to them). It is disgusting to witness the appalling proportions of the liberal arrogance of those that believe it is their prerogative and duty to impose their non-literary, political agenda on an intellectual endeavor that should be concerned with aesthetics, psychology, and culture rather than Darfur; and it is more than a bit sad to witness this death of American academic intellect. Damn those French imbeciles Foucault and Lacan.

Insightful & fun book from prestigious Cambridge Press serie.......1999-11-02

At long last, humanism is coming into question. Critics and theorists such as Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault began this process; critics and theorists such as Kelly Hurley continue the process, and in so doing, carry out one of the most important cultural and intellectual tasks of our time.

We must move beyond humanism -- which includes the belief in an essential human nature -- if we are to stop the cycle of genocidal violence, to build fair and free communities for all, and to save our planet and its remaining species.

But to move beyond humanism, we must be able to step outside of it. 'The Gothic Body' help us to do just that. Prof. Hurley carefully investigates some of the most revealing artifacts of humanism: the literature of the fantastic, which includes Stoker's Dracula, Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, and Well's Island of Dr. Moreau. Hurley analyzes these and other works within the context of their times, using early criminology studies, for instance. And thanks to her post-structuralist/postmodernist perspective, Hurley points to a range of important insights about these works, about their times, and about our times.

Read this book, enjoy it, and think about it. It may change your appreciation of the significance of literary (and cinematic) genres. And it may help to change your worldview in some very central ways -- if you allow it to, and hopefully you will. It *is* a detailed literary study of important works seldom studied so closely and taken so seriously. But the works deserve this attention. And the issues raise by these works through Hurley's analysis are of great importance. It is no exercise in esoterica.

Finally, the person behind this book, is a truly great teacher and person. Not only does she provide original and incisive ideas and insights, she does so in a remarkably accessible and enjoyable manner. If you cannot take one of her university courses, then do the next best thing by reading 'The Gothic Body.'

If you are interested in the issues raised by her book, you should also look at 'Posthuman Bodies,' a 1995 anthology in which Hurley contributes an article entitled "Reading Like an Alien: Posthuman Identity in Ridley Scott's 'Alien' and David Cronenberg's 'Rabid." Also, you should check out 'The Cinematic Body' by Steven Shaviro, a like-minded thinker who is also represented in the 1995 anthology.

To learn more about what exactly is at stake in regard to humanism, and how to think about humanism and the alternatives, there are many resources. Among the most profound in terms of what is at stake, is William Haver's 'The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS.' And of course, there are the works of Michel Foucault ('Discipline and Punish' & 'History of Sexuality' for example). Plus there's Louis Althusser, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Michael Hardt, Brian Massumi, Toni Negri, Gloria Anzaldua, Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, Iris Marion Young, Elizabeth Grosz, John Caputo, William Connolly, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean-Luc Nancy, and the recent works of Jacques Derrida. And there's so many, and so much, more.

Studying Societies and Cultures: Marvin Harris's Cultural Materialism and Its Legacy (Studies in Comparative Social Studies)
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Studying Societies and Cultures: Marvin Harris's Cultural Materialism and Its Legacy (Studies in Comparative Social Studies)
Lawrence Kuznar , and Stephen K. Sanderson
Manufacturer: Paradigm Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1594512876

Book Description

One of the most important anthropologists of all time, Marvin Harris was influential worldwide as the founder of cultural materialism. This book accessibly analyzes Harrisâ€™s theories and their important legacies today. The chapters explore cultural materialismâ€™s epistemology and its relation to rational choice theory, Darwinian social science, and population pressures. The authors assess recent attempts to extend and reformulate cultural materialism and highlight cross-cultural, archaeological, and ethnographic applications of cultural materialism today.

The Abyss of Freedom/Ages of the World (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

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A compelling and confusing abyss

The Abyss of Freedom/Ages of the World (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)
Slavoj Zizek , and F.W.J. von Schelling
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters (Radical Thinkers)
The Ages of the World: (Fragment) from the Handwritten Remains, Third Versionj (C. 1815) (Suny Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)
Schellings Treatise: On Essence Human Freedom (Series In Continental Thought)
The Parallax View (Short Circuits)
The Potencies of God(s): Schelling's Philosophy of Mythology

ASIN: 0472066528

Book Description

In the last decade, F. W. J. von Schelling has emerged as one of the key philosophers of German Idealism, the one who, for the first time, undermined Kant's philosophical revolution and in so doing opened up the way for a viable critique of Hegel. In noted philosopher Slavoj Zizek's view, the main orientations of the post-Hegelian thought, from Kierkegaard and Marx, to Heidegger and today's deconstructionism, were prefigured in Schelling's analysis of Hegel's idealism, and in his affirmation that the contingency of existence cannot be reduced to notional self-mediation. In The Abyss of Freedom, Zizek attempts to advance Schelling's stature even further, with a commentary of the second draft of Schelling's work The Ages of the World, written in 1813.

Zizek argues that Schelling's most profound thoughts are found in the series of three consecutive attempts he made to formulate the "ages of the world/Weltalter," the stages of the self-development of the Absolute. Of the three versions, claims Zizek, it is the second that is the most eloquent and definitive encompassing of Schelling's lyrical thought. It centers on the problem of how the Absolute (God) himself, in order to become actual, to exist effectively, has to accomplish a radically contingent move of acquiring material, bodily existence. Never before available in English, this version finally renders accessible one of the key texts of modern philosophy, a text that is widely debated in philosophical circles today.

The Abyss of Freedom is Zizek's own reading of Schelling based upon Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. It focuses on the notion that Lacan's theory--which claims that the symbolic universe emerged from presymbolic drives--is prefigured in Schelling's idea of logos as given birth to from the vortex of primordial drives, or from what "in God is not yet God." For Zizek, this connection is monumental, showing that Schelling's ideas forcefully presage the post-modern "deconstruction" of logocentrism.

Slavoj Zizek is not a philosopher who stoops to conquer objects but a radical voice who believes that philosophy is nothing if it is not embodied, nothing if it is only abstract. For him, true philosophy always speaks of something rather than nothing. Those interested in the genesis of contemporary thought and the fate of reason in our "age of anxiety" will find this coupling of texts not only philosophically relevant, but vitally important.

Slavoj Zizek is the author of The Sublime Object of Ideology, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology, and most recently, The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters. Currently he is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. Judith Norman is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Customer Reviews:

A compelling and confusing abyss.......2000-11-13

This book is an odd creature to say the least. A great but under-appreciated text of German idealism is re-published in a new translation, along with an interpretive essay that evaluates it from the standpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Personally, I found Schelling's portrait of the world as moving continuously towards full consciousness of itself to be utterly fascinating. I'm still not sure what to make of Zizek's essay - I have always been utterly baffled by Lacan - but if you're into that kind of thing, you might enjoy it.

A Queer Sort of Materialism: Recontextualizing American Theater (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance)

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A Queer Sort of Materialism: Recontextualizing American Theater (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance)
David Savran
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0472068369

Book Description

In engaging, accessible prose, leading theater critic and cultural commentator David Savran explores the intersections between art and culture, offering smart, compelling interpretations of the economic and social contexts of theatrical texts and practices. Acknowledging theater's marginal status in U.S. culture, A Queer Sort of Materialism takes on "the trouble-makers--the ghost, closeted homosexual, masochist, drag king, Third World laborer, even the white male as victim"--who figure more prominently in theater than in other cultural forms. In impeccably researched and argued essays that range in subject matter from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Paula Vogel, from Suddenly Last Summer to Iron John, Savran uncovers the ways that such troublemakers both challenge and reinforce orthodox social practices.

The selections presented here are by turns entertaining, informative, sophisticated, and polemical, reflecting the author's dual citizenship as rigorous scholar and engaging theater critic. This book also provides a model for a kind of queer historical materialism that will prove useful to a wide range of disciplines, including theater and performance, gender and sexuality, queer/gay/lesbian/transgender studies, American studies, and popular culture.

David Savran is Professor of Theater, the Graduate Center, the City University of New York, and author of Cowboys, Communists, and Queers and Taking It Like a Man.

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Finally: an intellectual page-turner
Just Dreadful
Pragmatic view point on consumerism and advertising
Pretentious twaddle disguised as scholarship
A fascinating, entertaining, and important book!

Lead Us Into Temptation
James B. Twitchell
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Critical Studies in Media Commercialism
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ASIN: 0231115180

Amazon.com

Is consumerism a spiritual dead end? Isn't it true that mere things can never make us happy? Why, no, says James B. Twitchell, in a sequel of sorts to his popular Adcult USA. We are what we buy, says Twitchell, and we like what we buy. After food and shelter, the next step in the needs hierarchy is self-actualization--and in contemporary society, what better way to self-actualize than to co-opt the mojo of recognizable name brands? The semiotics of purchase are important, he argues: durable goods make us comfortable, provide us with a sense of security in an age when religion no longer works the way it was designed to. The new high priests are celebrities who hawk basketball shoes, cars, telecommunications infrastructures, Carnival cruises, cosmetics, nicotine patches, and medications. Shopping, in this sense, may even be the ultimate act of self-identification with the divine principle. Radical though it may be, the hypothesis of Lead Us into Temptation is strongly supported by the evidence. Never before has the science of selling been so well understood, the market's ability to measure consumer satisfaction so complete. Read Twitchell and weep--or better yet, go shopping. --Patrizia DiLucchio

Book Description

Coke adds life. Just do it. Yo quiero Taco Bell. We live in a commercial age, awash in a sea of brand names, logos, and advertising jingles -- not to mention commodities themselves. Are shoppers merely the unwitting stooges of the greedy producers who will stop at nothing to sell their wares? Are the producers' powers of persuasion so great that resistance is futile?

James Twitchell counters this assumption of the used and abused consumer with a witty and unflinching look at commercial culture, starting from the simple observation that "we are powerfully attracted to the world of goods (after all, we don't call them 'bads')." He contends that far from being forced upon us against our better judgment, "consumerism is our better judgment." Why? Because increasingly, store-bought objects are what hold us together as a society, doing the work of "birth, patina, pews, coats of arms, house, and social rank" -- previously done by religion and bloodline. We immediately understand the connotations of status and identity exemplified by the Nike swoosh, the Polo pony, the Guess? label, the DKNY logo. The commodity alone is not what we are after; rather, we actively and creatively want that logo and its signification -- the social identity it bestows upon us. As Twitchell summarizes, "Tell me what you buy, and I will tell what you are and who you want to be."

Using elements as disparate as the film The Jerk, French theorists, popular bumper stickers, and Money magazine to explore the nature and importance of advertising lingo, packaging, fashion, and "The Meaning of Self," Twitchell overturns one stodgy social myth after another. In the process he reveals the purchase and possession of things to be the self-identifying acts of modern life. Not only does the car you drive tell others who you are, it lets you know as well. The consumption of goods, according to Twitchell, provides us with tangible everyday comforts and with crucial inner security in a seemingly faithless age. That we may find our sense of self through buying material objects is among the chief indictments of contemporary culture. Twitchell, however, sees the significance of shopping. "There are no false needs." We buy more than objects, we buy meaning. For many of us, especially in our youth, Things R Us.

Download Description

Named one of Newsweek's "100 Cultural Elite" and praised by George F. Will for his "robust contempt" for the intelligentsia's take on consumption, James Twitchell embarks on an insightful, fearless, and funny exploration of two of the central themes of modern American culture materialism and consumerism. Twitchell counters the notion of the "used and abused consumer" with a witty and unflinching look at commercial culture, starting from the simple observation that "we are powerfully attracted to the world of goods (after all, we don't call them 'bads')."

Customer Reviews:

Finally: an intellectual page-turner.......2006-01-25

Had to read this one as an undergrad... & I still read it regularly for fun! How many books can you say this of?

Twitchell really cuts to the core of material psychology, branding, and then comparing these cultural phenomena to past Human indentifications: tribal, family, religious, etc. Result? Putting meaning in things is SO much more fun!

In one terrific section (and my favorite) Twitchell attacks the idea of "zombie TV watching" with a simple observation: When he watches TV he finds it to be an incredibly ACTIVE thinking process. Constantly changing channels, actively CHOOSING different paths, & never settling on one thing for too long (sound familiar?). Add TiVo, and who's really in control? The branders? The giant corporations? Some advertising elites in a smoke-filled room?

Answer: YOU.

Just Dreadful.......2003-01-12

As an academic who loves to shop, I was hoping this would provide a more balanced account of the rise and impact of mass consumerism. He is certainly right that academics and other relatively privileged strata have something of a knee-jerk animus to mass pleasure. But the book is a complete failure. It amounts to little more than a defense brief for mass consumerism--and like a good defense lawyer, he ignores evidence that doesn't fit his case, distorts the arguments of his foes, and offers a rosy, unreal view of his client. ... Skip.

Pragmatic view point on consumerism and advertising.......2002-08-16

An interesting read about the invasive consumerism of the 20th century. His basic take is we buy what we want, it isn't foisted on us by advertsing. All that you see on TV is an ad, including the "news", the sitcom set, ie house, clothes, pots, pans, lamps and has been since the beginning of TV. And that "Democracy" is the freedom to buy what you want when you want it.

He makes a good case that this has been what people "really" want since time imortal. And that no amount of whining about how it isn't good for you can compete with the almighty dollar. Simply put, if you really didn't want it, you wouldn't buy it.

I do agree that he can get long winded in his arguments.

Anyone looking to start up another .com company would do well to read this first.

Pretentious twaddle disguised as scholarship.......2000-03-12

First, it was quite obvious that the author has some sort of animus against non-materialism, since he seems to glory in taking gratuitous chops at environmentalists, the voluntary simplicity movement, and pretty much anyone who doesn't agree with him. I was thoroughly sick of it by the end of the first chapter.

Second, he does not back up many of his assertions, despite a plethora of footnotes. For instance, he asserts that kitchens have gotten smaller in the last few decades (seemingly as a way of proving that we eat more take out and less home cooked food), without stating whether he means suburban or urban kitchens, new construction or remodelling, apartment, condo or detached kitchens...you get the picture. There are similarly unsupported assertions about trash disposal, landfills, and teenage buying patterns.

Finally, it was *dull*. The only parts that were even vaguely entertaining were the last few chapters, when the polemics were replaced by personal reporting of his trip to a mall. I learned very little about American materialism, and far more than I wished about the author's political biases.

A huge disappointment.

A fascinating, entertaining, and important book!.......2000-01-27

I first must take issue with a previous review. There is nothing remotely complex about the language Twitchell uses - certainly nothing that would require anyone with a basic vocabulary to need a dictionary. On the contrary, I found that Twitchell is often quite amusing and there were even times I laughed out loud at his astute observations and the entertaining way he presents them. Having said that, I did find one thing slightly irritating - the use of extensive footnotes that could easily have been included in the text without forcing the reader to jump around. Still, that doesn't detract from the important ideas Twitchell presents. You will never look at the world (and particularly the world of adverised products) the same way after reading this. This book, however, goes far beyond merely addressing products and how they are advertised. It addresses the psychology of "meaning" that is fundamental to how each of us construct our innner and outer world. It was given to me as a gift by a friend. I intend to buy several copies and give them to my own friends. I highly recommend it to anyone even if they are not interested in advertising per se. After reading "Lead us Into Temptation" they will be.

The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

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The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0472066595

Book Description

For years the subject of human disability has engaged those in the biological, social and cognitive sciences, while at the same time, it has been curiously neglected within the humanities. The Body and Physical Difference seeks to introduce the field of disability studies into the humanities by exploring the fantasies and fictions that have crystallized around conceptions of physical and cognitive difference. Based on the premise that the significance of disabilities in culture and the arts has been culturally vexed as well as historically erased, the collection probes our society's pathological investment in human variability and "aberrancy." The contributors demonstrate how definitions of disability underpin fundamental concepts such as normalcy, health, bodily integrity, individuality, citizenship, and morality--all terms that define the very essence of what it means to be human.

The book provides a provocative range of topics and perspectives: the absence of physical "otherness" in Ancient Greece, the depiction of the female invalid in Victorian literature, the production of tragic innocence in British and American telethons, the reconstruction of Civil War amputees, and disability as the aesthetic basis for definitions of expendable life within the modern eugenics movement. With this new, secure anchoring in the humanities, disability studies now emerges as a significant strain in contemporary theories of identity and social marginality.

Moving beyond the oversimplication that disabled people are marginalized and made invisible by able-ist assumptions and practices, the contributors demonstrate that representation is founded upon the perpetual exhibition of human anomalies. In this sense, all art can be said to migrate toward the "freakish" and the "grotesque." Such a project paradoxically makes disability the exception and the rule of the desire to represent that which has been traditionally out-of-bounds in polite discourse.

The Body and Physical Difference has relevance across a wide range of academic specialties such as cultural studies, the sociology of medicine, history, literature and medicine, the allied health professions, rehabilitation, aesthetics, philosophical discourses of the body, literary and film studies, and narrative theory.

David T. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of English, Northern Michigan University. Sharon L. Snyder teaches film and literature at Northern Michigan University.

The Categories of Dialectical Materialism: Contemporary Soviet Ontology Translated from the French by T.J. Blakeley (Sovietica)

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The Categories of Dialectical Materialism: Contemporary Soviet Ontology Translated from the French by T.J. Blakeley (Sovietica)
Guy Planty-Bonjour
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9027700648

Constructions of the Classical Body (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

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Only for serious scholars

Constructions of the Classical Body (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0472087797

Book Description

Classical scholarship has traditionally neglected the prominence of the body in antiquity. Constructions of the Classical Body theorizes that the study of antiquity is necessarily a study of the body, and that attention to this fact can lead to a much-needed shift in the way in which classical studies are approached today. This volume aims to reestablish the relevance of the problem of the body at the perimeters of several different kinds of inquiry, and, in this way, to help open up a field of possibilities for future study.

The range covered by the essays in this volume is sweeping: from Corinthian vaseware to Athenian and Roman politics, poetry from Homer to Ovid, medical writers from the Hippocratic corpus to the diary of Aelius Aristides (second century c.e.), philosophy (Seneca, Porphyry), the Greek novel, Christian apocrypha, Ovid's medieval reception, and twentieth century film. This range is a consequence of the multidisciplinarity that any study of the body requires, and it attests to the particular richness of the body in classical antiquity and as an object for study today. The volume illustrates that body is located between traditional borders, not within them; the body dissolves traditional objects of study and joins areas usually kept apart. Retracing the fate of the body is thus a way of rendering antiquity truly strange again--it allows us to see the past afresh, with open eyes.

This volume includes essays by Carlin A. Barton, Anne Carlson, Eric Downing, Catherine Edwards, Maud W. Gleason, John Henderson, Ralph Hexter, S. C. Humphreys, Helen King, Leslie Kurke, Robert Lamberton, David S. Potter, Amy Richlin, Giulia Sissa, Maria Wyke, and Froma I. Zeitlin, along with an introduction by James I. Porter.

". . . a superb collection, one that I know will be most welcome not only in the field of classical studies, but in the libraries of all those interested in the history and historicity of the body." --Page duBois, University of California, San Diego

James I. Porter is Associate Professor of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan.

Customer Reviews:

Only for serious scholars.......2001-03-15

In a world where it is difficult to talk about the human body as a social construct, it should be of no surprise that the attempt to have such a discussion about Greek and Roman bodies would be accessible to only the most serious scholars in the field. One of "The Body, in Theory" titles from the University of Michigan Press, this collection is over-whelmingly about theory. Theory is, of course, quite important in scholarship but it need not interfere with solidly written and well-evidenced arguments. Unfortunately in this case theory often over-rides good writing. The subjects are primarily literature and the studies for the most part are focused on one author or one event at a time though the reader must be familiar with the subject in order to use or analyze the essay. The one exception is Maria Wyke's essay "Herculean Muscle!" which looks at the classic tradition revamped by modern body builders and modern media.

Cultural Materialism (Interpretations series)

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Cultural Materialism (Interpretations series)
Andrew Milner
Manufacturer: Melbourne University Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0522844936

Book Description

This book places cultural materialism in relation to earlier paradigms such as literary humanism and Marxism, and explains how the new paradigm has been applied to important areas such as cultural studies, media studies and literary studies.

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