1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910784211603321

Titolo

Cultures of the abdomen : diet, digestion, and fat in the modern world / / editors, Christopher E. Forth, Ana Carden-Coyne

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2005

ISBN

1-281-36496-7

9786611364960

1-4039-8138-8

Edizione

[First edition 2005.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (ix, 264 pages) : illustrations

Altri autori (Persone)

ForthChristopher E

Carden-CoyneAna

Disciplina

306.4/613

Soggetti

Abdomen - Social aspects

Abdomen - History

Food habits

Fat

Obesity

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Contents; Notes on Contributors; Introduction: ""The Belly and Beyond: Body, Self, and Culture in Ancient and Modern Times""; Part I Diet, Digestion, Excretion; Chapter 1 ""The Physiology of Hypochondria in Eighteenth-Century Britain""; Chapter 2 ""Corporeal Economies: Work and Waste in Nineteenth-Century Constructions of Alimentation""; Chapter 3 ""Kakao and Kaka: Chocolate and the Excretory Imagination of Nineteenth-Century Europe""; Chapter 4 ""American Guts and Military Manhood""; Part II Culture and the Abdomen

Chapter 5 ""The Philosophe's Stomach: Hedonism, Hypochondria, and the Intellectual in Enlightenment France" "Chapter 6 ""Coleridge's Dreaming Gut: Digestion, Genius, Hypochondria""; Chapter 7 ""It's 'Alimentary': Feuerbach and the Dietetics of Antisemitism""; Chapter 8 ""Tolstoy's Body: Diet, Desire, and Denial""; Part III Fat and Society; Chapter 9 ""Weight Loss in the Age of Reason""; Chapter 10 ""Useless and Pernicious Matter: Corpulence in Eighteenth-Century England""; Chapter 11 ""The Belly of Paris': The Decline of the Fat Man in Fin-de-



Siècle France""; Chapter 12 ""How Fat Detectives Think" "Chapter 13 ""Fat in America""; Index

Sommario/riassunto

We live in a world obsessed with abdomens. Whether we call it the belly, tummy, or stomach, we take this area of the body for granted as an object of our gaze, the subject of our obsessions, and the location of deeply felt desires. Diet, nutrition, and exercise all play critical roles in the development of our body images and thus our sense of self, not least because how we are made to feel about bodies (both our own and those of others) is often grounded in dietary and lifestyle choices. Cultures of the Abdomen traces the history of social, cultural, and medical ideas about the stomach and related organs since the seventeenth century, and demonstrates that a focused study of the abdomen is necessary for understanding the deep historical meanings that underscore our contemporary obsessions with hunger, diet, fat, indigestion, and excretion. It locates that history from dietary ideals in early modern Europe to the vexing issue of American fat in the twenty-first century, surveying along the way developments in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia.