The Body as Interface

Dialogues between the Disciplines. Edited by Sabine Sielke and Elisabeth Schäfer-Wünsche.

The body is a battleground. As such it has been at the center of debates in cultural and gender studies for over two decades. The concept of a culturally constructed, gendered, racialized, and class-contoured body which emerged from these debates is meanwhile being challenged, though, by an increasing impact of the life sciences. Evolving from neurobiology, molecular genetics, and biotechnology are projections of a post- or transhuman subject as well as new insights into our corporeality and the ways our bodies interrelate with the world. Situating the body at an intersection of a range of discourses in the human, social, and natural sciences, this collection of 21 essays explores this fundamental shift by way of dialogues between disciplines in the course of which our sense of beauty and human nature, memory and trauma, immunity, power, and pain is being transformed. The volume dates back to a conference held at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn from 24 to 26 June 2003. 338 Seiten mit 45 Abb., gebunden (American Studies - A Monograph Series; Vol. 150/Universitätsverlag Winter 2007) leichte Lagerspuren/minor shelfwear