We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Find out more

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Request Exam Copy

Print Price: $149.99

Format:
Paperback
368 pp.
3 tables, 7" x 9"

ISBN-13:
9780199019236

Copyright Year:
2016

Imprint: OUP Canada


Sociology of the Body

A Reader, Second Edition

Claudia Malacrida and Jacqueline Low

Sociology of the Body brings together 42 classic and contemporary essays exploring the multitude of ways in which human bodies shape and are shaped by society. Employing an overarching intersectional approach, Claudia Malacrida and Jacqueline Low draw insightful connections among the diverse readings, revealing how different social constructs and relationships combine to influence how bodies are used, represented, understood, and managed. With an array of new readings and added coverage of the latest research and perspectives throughout, the second edition offers a thorough, up-to-date introduction to the sociological study of the human body.

Readership : Sociology of the Body is a core reader intended for sociology of the body courses offered out of sociology, anthropology, gender studies, women's studies, and general arts and science departments.

Reviews

  • "This is a very strong text. . . . I like that this textbook offers a range of scholars, both contemporary and historical, because it is critical to demonstrate to students the trajectories that span across time."
    --Rachel Hurst, St Francis Xavier University

  • "The collection is very comprehensive! . . . I think this is a wonderful teaching resource and am continually impressed by its coverage of diverse and fascinating topics. The articles are well-written and beautifully researched, and they treat this topic with the respect it deserves."
    --Jennifer Susan Marotta, Humber College

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Tracing the Body in Classical and Contemporary Theory
Part I: Sociological Understandings of the Body
1. Michel Foucault: "Docile Bodies" from Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (NEW)
2. Sandra Lee Bartky: Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power
3. C. Shilling: "The Body and Physical Capital" from The Body and Social Theory (NEW)
4. Bryan Turner: Bodily Order (NEW)
5. Erving Goffman: "Introduction" from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Part II: Bodies in Historical Context
6. Anthony Synnott: Body: Tomb, Temple, Machine, and Self
7. Norbert Elias: From The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners
8. Sander L. Gilman: The Hottentot and the Prostitute: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality
9. Nicole Hahn Rafter: The Anthropological Born Criminal
10. Claudia Malacrida: Discipline and Dehumanization in a Total Institution: Institutional Survivors' Descriptions of Time-Out Rooms
Part III: The Medicalized Body
11. Peter Conrad: Continuity: Homosexuality and the Potential for Re-medicalization (NEW)
12. Anne Rogers and David Pilgrim: The Risk of Resistance: Perspectives on the Mass Childhood Immunization Program
13. Karen Lane: The Medical Model of the Body as a Site of Risk: A Case Study of Childbirth
14. Barbara L. Marshall and Stephen Katz: Forever Functional: Sexual Fitness and the Aging Male Body
Part IV: The Shape/ing of Bodies
15. Deborah Lupton: "Governing Fat Bodies" from Fat (NEW)
16. Susan Bordo: Anorexia Nervosa: Psychopathology as the Crystallization of Culture
17. Rosalind Gill, Karen Henwood, and Carl MacLean: Body Projects and the Regulation of Normative Masculinity (NEW)
Part V: Bodies and Difference
18. Alice Domurat Dreger: "Introduction" from One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal
19. Hilde Zitzelsberger: (In)visibility: Accounts of Embodiment of Women with Physical Disabilities and Differences
20. Sherene H. Razack: Gendered Racial Violence and Spatialized Justice: The Murder of Pamela George
Part VI: Sexual Bodies
21. Cheryl Chase: Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism
22. Thomas J. Gerschick and Adam S. Miller: Coming to Terms: Masculinity and Physical Disability
23. Amy M. Russell: Embodiment and Abjection: Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation (NEW)
Part VII: Reproductive Bodies
24. Emily Martin: The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles
25. Elizabeth Graham and Jacqueline Low: Bodies Out of Time: Women's Reproductive Firsts
26. Erik Parens and Adrienne Asch: Disability Rights Critique of Prenatal Genetic Testing: Reflections and Recommendations (NEW)
Part VIII: Bodies across the Lifespan
27. Karin A. Martin: Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools
28. Meika Loe and Leigh Cuttino: Grappling with the Medicated Self: The Case of ADHD College Students (NEW)
29. Joy Webster Barbre: Meno-boomers and Moral Guardians: An Exploration of the Cultural Construction of Menopause
30. Julia Lawton: Contemporary Hospice Care: The Sequestration of the Unbounded Body and "Dirty Dying"
Part IX: Working Bodies
31. Friedrich Engels: From The Condition of the Working Class in England
32. Nikolas Rose: The Contented Worker
33. Jennifer K. Wesely: Exotic Dancing and the Negotiation of Identity: The Multiple Uses of Body Technologies
Part X: Sporting Bodies
34. Dale C. Spencer: Habit(us), Body Techniques and Body Callusing: An Ethnography of Mixed Martial Arts (NEW)
35. Michael Gard and Harley Fitzgerald: Tackling Murderball: Masculinity, Disability, and the Big Screen (NEW)
36. Brett St. Louis: Sport, Genetics, and the "Natural Athlete": The Resurgence of Racial Science
Part XI: Media, Representation, and the Body
37. Shari L. Dworkin and Faye Linda Wachs: "Getting your Body Back": Postindustrial Fit Motherhood in Shape Fit Pregnancy Magazine (NEW)
38. Sarah Neal: Feared and Revered: Media Representations of Racialized and Gendered Bodies - A Case Study
39. Lee F. Monaghan: Big Handsome Men, Bears, and Others: Virtual Constructions of "Fat Male Embodiment"
Part XII: The Body as Project
40. Mike Featherstone: The Body in Consumer Culture (NEW)
41. Rose Weitz: Women and Their Hair: Seeking Power through Resistance and Accommodation
42. Michael Atkinson: Tattooing and Civilizing Processes: Body Modification as Self-Control (NEW)
Glossary
Credits

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Claudia Malacrida is a professor in and chair of the Department of Sociology at Lethbridge University.

Jacqueline Low is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick.

The Gendered Society - Michael S. Kimmel and Jacqueline Holler
The Gendered Society Reader - Michael S. Kimmel, Amy Aronson and Amy Kaler
Gendered Bodies - Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore
Gender Relations in Canada - Janet Siltanen and Andrea Doucet
Making Sense in the Social Sciences - Margot Northey, Lorne Tepperman and Patrizia Albanese

Special Features

  • Comprehensive coverage of a wide variety of topics--including bodies in a historical context, sexuality, reproduction, body shapes, and difference--gives students a broad overview of the sociological perspectives on the body.
  • Theoretical and historical foundations help students to better comprehend historical continuities and discontinuities of the social treatment and understanding of the body.
  • Multi-disciplinary nature makes this text suitable for students with a range of academic backgrounds.
  • Part introductions give students the context they need to understand the in-depth ideas presented in chapter readings.
New to this Edition
  • New intersectional approach highlights the relationship between categories of identity--such as race, gender, sexuality, and ability--allowing students to examine questions of marginalization in a more nuanced way.
  • 14 new readings on a range of engaging topics-including disability, body modification, sexuality, and masculinity-give students further insight into important areas of study.
  • Expanded theoretical coverage helps students to trace the links between foundational body theorists and several of the key figures in the recent history of the discipline.
  • Streamlined to include forty-two readings, the text is now suitable for both half-year courses and full-year courses.
  • Glossary of key terms acts as a useful reference tool and helps students master key concepts more deeply.