In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification (Paperback)

by Victoria Pitts (Author) "THROUGHOUT THE 1990s, THE BODY ART MOVEMENT BECAME increasingly newsworthy as an emotionally provocative topic, inspiring a range of interpretations about its meanings..." (more)
Key Phrases: body customization, body modifiers, body modification movement, Native American, Jesse Jarrell, Mike Featherstone (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"¿this work provides insight into a relatively understudied segment of the population."--Library Journal

". . . a fascinating and sensitive look at body modification subcultures and the political debates surrounding them."-Patricia Clough, author of Autoaffection: Unconscious Thought in the Age of Teletechnology

"The book refreshingly moves the arresting figure of the extreme body modifier out of the realm of the pathological and the masochistic and reveals how these practices and their disturbing embodiments challenge the tyrannical concept of normalcy that keeps the rest of us narrowly in check."--Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University
-- Review

Review

"...this work provides insight into a relatively understudied segment of the population."--Library Journal". . . a fascinating and sensitive look at body modification subcultures and the political debates surrounding them."-Patricia Clough, author of Autoaffection: Unconscious Thought in the Age of Teletechnology "The book refreshingly moves the arresting figure of the extreme body modifier out of the realm of the pathological and the masochistic and reveals how these practices and their disturbing embodiments challenge the tyrannical concept of normalcy that keeps the rest of us narrowly in check."--Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (May 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312293119
• ISBN-13: 978-0312293116
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #102,669 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look at a freaky world, October 28, 2003

By A Customer

This book is an engrossing and well-crafted analysis of a sub-culture which moves beyond the radar of our nation's more austere population. In showing and telling this seamy and sadistic underbelly (with all its diverse accoutrements and experiments) Victoria Pitts manages to achieve a very difficult balance: she gives the members of a distinct sub-culture the right to tell their own stories in their own distinct voices, yet she also provides erudite and elucidating commentary on that sub-culture. Her insights prove as interesting as the strange stories her subjects tell, stories which, suprisingly enough, have relevance to the reactions many of us experience toward contemporary culture, though we may often respond through less extreme measures. I reccomend this book as a fine example of the interesting work being done in academic scholarship and the pleasures such work can offer, even to non-specialists.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Modifying the Medical Line, January 9, 2004

By A Customer

In the Flesh is an insightful examination of the more extreme body modification subculture, one that invites the reader to re-examine his or her expectations about bodies, body politics, and medical technologies. A generous writer, Pitts presents her research to the reader and offers a framework for investigating how some bodily alterations are medicalized or accepted because they enforce normative expectations about health and beauty, and how others are pathologized. In lively and lucid prose, the author provides us with a useful look at an important issue, and does so (much to her credit) without confining her research participants or her readers to a specific political camp. There may be bright political lines between circumcision, botox injections, Michael Jackson, and flesh hangings -- or then again, maybe there are not. In the Flesh gives us new tools with which to draw those lines for ourselves.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Qualitative Research!, December 1, 2003

By	Elizabeth Wood (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This book does a great job of opening up the lives of body modifiers and situating them clearly in a complex cultural context. Victoria Pitts beautifully balances her own qualitative analysis with the voices of those she interviewed. This book is accessible while still delving deeply into social theory. Pitts neither romanticizes nor objectifies body modifiers. Instead she honestly explores their narratives, from "reclaiming," to "queer," to "modern primitive" to "cyberpunk." I'd recommend this book to any reader interested in cultural studies, body modification, social theory, deviance, the construction of identity, or the politics of bodies.