1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910820367303321

Autore

Covino Deborah Caslav <1960->

Titolo

Amending the abject body : aesthetic makeovers in medicine and culture / / Deborah Caslav Covino

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : State University of New York Press, c2004

ISBN

0-7914-8433-5

1-4237-4026-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (163 p.)

Collana

SUNY series in feminist criticism and theory

Disciplina

306.4/613

Soggetti

Body image in women

Self-perception in women

Women - Physiology

Human body - Social aspects

Surgery, Plastic

Feminist theory

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-148) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front Matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Abjection -- Normalizing the Body -- Outside-In -- “I’m Doing it for Me” -- Making Over Abjection -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Feminist theorists have often argued that aesthetic surgeries and body makeovers dehumanize and disempower women patients, whose efforts at self-improvement lead to their objectification. Amending the Abject Body proposes that although objectification is an important element in this phenomenon, the explosive growth of "makeover culture" can be understood as a process of both abjection (ridding ourselves of the unwanted) and identification (joining the community of what Julia Kristeva calls "clean and proper bodies"). Drawing from the advertisement and advocacy of body makeovers on television, in aesthetic surgery trade books, and in the print and Web-based marketing of face lifts, tummy tucks, and Botox injections, Deborah Caslav Covino articulates the relationship among objectification, abjection, and identification, and offers a fuller understanding of



contemporary beauty-desire.