According to Bordo, the contemporary body is profoundly gendered as it mediates culture and social power relations under the sign of the commodity and in the frenzy of a consumerism committed to the undying need to transcend the imperfections of the body. For Bordo this practical metaphysic associates woman with the body (immanence) and man with mind (transcendence) and is refigured redundantly in advertising and pop culture representations that code desire, appetite, physicality, food, weight, and will. While Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body collects many of Bordo’s previously published essays, it brings into focus Bordo’s interrogation of Western mind/body dualism and its engendering divisions as a practical metaphysic of modern culture. Readable and accessible, this is a text that can be used in a variety of classroom and audience settings. “Of the authors of the four texts reviewed in this essay, Susan Bordo stands out as a public intellectual of contemporary body theory who writes to invite a wider audience into the conversation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |