Making the body beautiful : a cultural history of aesthetic surgery / Sander L. Gilman
- Bib ID:
- 694237
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Gilman, Sander L
- Description:
-
- Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1999
- xxii, 396 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
- ISBN:
-
- 0691026726 (CL) (alkaline paper)
- 0691070539 (paperback)
- Summary:
-
Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify. The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.
- Full contents:
-
- Ch. 1. Judging by Appearances
- Ch. 2. Victory over Disease
- Ch. 3. The Racial Nose
- Ch. 4. Marks of Honor and Dishonor
- Ch. 5. Noses at War
- Ch. 6. Assimilation in the Promised Lands
- Ch. 7. After the Nose
- Ch. 8. The Wrong Body
- Ch. 9. Dreams of Youth and Beauty
- Conclusion: "Passing" as Human.
- Notes:
-
- Includes index.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Subject:
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 1999
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
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