Technologies of the Gendered Body

Technologies of the Gendered Body

Module Outline 2008-9

Term 2

Karen Throsby, Carol Wolkowitz and Katy Pilcher

Module outline

Term 1

2. Course introduction

3. Gender and the body

4. Technology, feminism and the body

5. Gendered bodies in the media

Part II: Disciplining the body

6. Disciplining the body

7. Fighting fat

8. Resisting the “war on obesity”

9. Working out

10. Reproductive and genetic technologies

Term 2

Part III: Body Modification: (un)natural bodies

11. Body projects

12. Cosmetic surgery

13. Body modification

14. Cyborg bodies

15. Student presentations

16. Reading week

17. Makeover TV (Lecture: Carol Wolkowitz)

Part IV: Rejected bodies

18. Disabled bodies and technologies of normalisation

19. Leaky bodies (caring work) (Lecture: Carol Wolkowitz)

20. Conclusions

23. Revision

24. Revision

Term 2 Class Work

In addition to the assessed work (as circulated separately), you will be asked to complete two pieces of work this term:

Ø A group presentation

Ø A 2000 word class essay or short project

One 20 minute group presentation: Week 5, Term 2

At the beginning of Term 2, within your seminar groups, you will be divided into groups of 4-5, and working together, you will give a group presentation to the other students on the module in Week 5, Term 2 (using the lecture and seminar times).

To prepare for the presentation, you will be asked to collect up to three images, news or magazine articles, advertisements or published materials (e.g. press releases or policy statements) on a topic covered in the module. These could be materials which have a lot in common (for example, a series of ads for a cosmetic surgery clinic), or you could choose contrasting materials (for example, an ad for a weight loss organisation, and a newspaper column written by a size acceptance activist). In the presentation, you will be invited to critically discuss these materials, supporting your analysis with the academic literature that you have read during the module. You might ask, for example: What assumptions about gender, technology and the body are at work in those materials? What do those materials try to communicate about the gendered body and its management? How have those ideas been critiqued? You will get plenty of help and advice in preparing for your presentation, and each group will get written feedback after the presentations.

This is important practice and preparation for the assessed project (see below), and will be a good opportunity to develop these skills and learn what is required. However, it is important to note that while you can draw on aspects of your group presentation for your assessed project, you cannot focus on the same published materials, and the final assessed project output needs to clearly be your own work.

Class essay or short project

The class essay for this term should be handed in at the beginning of the seminar in Week 7. There is a limit of 2000 words.

For this class essay, you can EITHER do a shorter version of the project that you will be doing as part of the assessed work (if you are taking the module 50:50 or 100% assessed), OR one of the essay titles below.

For the short project, you should critically discuss one image, news or magazine article, advertisement or other published material (e.g. press release or policy statement) on a topic covered in the module. You should support your analysis with reference to the relevant academic literature. Copies of the materials you are using should be appended to the project.

Your short class essay project cannot use the same materials as your assessed project, but it can be on the same topic.

If you would prefer to do an essay, please choose a title from the list below:

1. Why do people join slimming clubs?

2. Evaluate Nick Crossley’s claim that gym users have moral careers.

3. Critically evaluate the claim that the “war on obesity” is morally, and not scientifically, driven.

4. In what ways are body projects gendered? Illustrate your answer with specific examples.

5. How is the concept of the “body project” useful for thinking about cosmetic surgery?

6. Evaluate the argument that non-normative body modification is empowering.

7. Critically assess Orlan’s claim that the body is no longer adequate for the current situation.

8. To what extent are interventions to “normalise” disabled bodies complicit with problematic bodily norms.

9. Is gender or social class the more central to TV programmes involving the makeover of participants’ embodied selves?

10. Why is the care of ‘leaky bodies’ perceived to be problematic?

Week 11: Body Projects

In this lecture we take up the notion, implicit in previous lectures, of body projects (the way, that is to say, in which we reflexively work on our bodies for particular ends, goals or purposes). The lecture, as such, involves both a theoretical discussion of the concept of body projects -- evident in the work of writers such as Giddens, Shilling and Crossley -- and some illustrative examples of contemporary body projects and reflexive body techniques.

Seminar questions:

· What is meant by body projects and reflexive modes of embodiment?

· In what ways are body projects gendered?

Key reading:

Gill, R, Henwood, K and McLean, C (2005) “Body projects and the regulation of normative masculinity” Body and Society 11 (1) 37-62

Recommended readings:

Crossley, N. (2004) The circuit trainer’s habitus: reflexive body techniques and the sociality of the workout. Body and Society. 10 (1): 37-69.

Crossley, N. (2005), Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society. Buckingham: Open University Press (Chpt. 9 ‘Mapping reflexive body techniques).

Davis, K. (1994) Reshaping the Female Body: The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery. London: Routledge.

Featherstone, M. (1991) “The body in consumer culture”, in Featherstone, M., Hepworth, M and Turner, B.S. The Body: Social Process, Cultural Theory. London: Sage.

Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Monaghan, L (1999) “Creating the ‘perfect body’: a variable project”. Body & Society. 5 (2-3): 267-90.

Shilling, C. (2003) The Body and Social Theory (2nd Edition). London: Sage ( Chpt. 1 ‘Intro’ and Afterword)

Further readings:

Crawford, R (1984) “A cultural account of health: control, release and the social body”, in McKinlay, J.B. (ed.) Issues in the Political Economy of Health. London: Tavistock.

Gilman, S. (1999) Making the Body Beautiful: A History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.

Lande, B. (2007) “Breathing like a soldier”, in Shilling C. (ed.) Embodying Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell.

Monaghan, L. (2001) Looking good, feeling good. Sociology of Health and Illness. 23, (3): 330-56.

Shilling, C. (2005) The Body in Culture, Technology and Society. London: Sage (Chpts. 5 ‘Sporting bodies’ and 8 ‘Technological bodies’).

Wacquant, L. Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentic Boxer/ Oxford NY: Oxford University Press.

Williams, S.J. (2003) Medicine and the Body (Chpt. 8 ‘High Tech bodies’).

Williams S.J. and Bendelow, G.A. (1998) The Lived Body. London: Routledge (Chpt 4, ‘The body in high modernity and consumer culture’).

Week 12: Cosmetic Surgery

Drawing on last week’s lecture on “body projects”, this session will explore the ways in which the phenomenon of cosmetic surgery has been addressed by sociologists. In particular, we will consider the ways in which those undergoing surgery are characterised by others, and how they account for their own decisions to go “under the knife”.

Seminar questions

1. In what ways can cosmetic surgery be seen as a “body project”?

2. Why have many feminists expressed concern about cosmetic surgery?

Key reading

Davis, K (2003) “Surgical stories: constructing the body, constructing the self” in Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield

Recommended reading

Balsamo, A (1996) “On the cutting edge: cosmetic surgery and new imaging technologies” in Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women Durham; London: Duke University Press

Brooks, A (2004) “Under the knife and proud of it: an analysis of the normalization of cosmetic surgery” Critical Sociology 30 (2): 207

Davis, K (1994) Reshaping the Female Body: the dilemma of cosmetic surgery London: Routledge

Davis, K (1997) “My Body is My Art” in Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body London: Routledge

Davis, K (2003) “Surgical passing: why Michael Jackson’s nose makes “us” uneasy” in Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield RD119 D26 (or Feminist Theory (2003) 4 (1))

Gilman, S (1999) Making the Body Beautiful: a cultural history of aesthetic surgery Princeton University Press

Gimlin, D (2000) “Cosmetic surgery: beauty as commodity” Qualitative Sociology 23 (1): 77-98

Morgan, K P (1998) “Women and the Knife: cosmetic surgery and the colonisation of women’s bodies” in Hopkins, P D (ed.) Sex / Machine: readings in culture, gender and technology Indiana: Indiana University Press

Pitts-Taylor, V (2007) Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture New Brunswick; Rutgers University Press