The Body

What do we mean when we talk about "the body"? This reader challenges the assumption that it can be invoked as a neutral, or indeed natural, point of reference in critical discussion or cultural practice. The essays collected here foreground the historical construction of "the body" throughout a range of discourses from the modern to the postmodern, and seek to present it not as a biological "given," but as a contestable signifier in the articulation of identities.

Tiffany Atkinson is a Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Wales Aberystwyth.