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| In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification | 
 enlarge | Author: Victoria Pitts
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $19.50
You Save: $2.45 (11%)
New (16) Used (19) from $9.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 444985
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.6
ISBN: 0312293119
Dewey Decimal Number: 391.65
EAN: 9780312293116
ASIN: 0312293119
Publication Date: May 16, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-9 of 9 | | « PREV | | |
 Superbly intelligent rendering of postmodern culture May 11, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Victoria Pitts's book "In the Flesh" is the most brilliant analysis of postmodern culture I have ever read. Through the lens of recent phenomena in body modification--from the beautifying to the erotic and grotesque--she shows how issues of subjectivity are complexly intertwined with body strategies--performances in which the actors at once gain and lose themselves. With exquisite analysis of fascinating subjects and clear-minded use of postmodern theory, her book is the epitome of rigorous scholarship, both theoretical and empirical. It is, in a word, a theory of flesh and its agencies; but beyond the body, it offers us a scaffolding from which to view the painfully complex issues of contemporary culture at large.
 Boring January 4, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The general tone of this book is very much like a second rate graduate thesis. It manages to be blandly academic in terms of style yet with none of the rigor one would associate with a decent sociology text. For example the author appears to have interviewed a grand total of about five people. Also none of the people interviewed are particularly interesting characters; the focus seems to be people recovering from sexual abuse or people affirming their sexuality by getting branded.
Now I don't have a problem with this phenomenon, I think its pretty interesting but If you want to read that kind of thing you can find tons of it free on Bmezine. Bmezine, has tones of experience stories like this, actual pictures and a means to contact people actually involved.
If you scrape away the interviews all you have left are the authors opinions about modification and a few cheap sudo cyberpunk photo's.
If you want a good read about body modification read the modern primitives re search title and the industrial culture handbook. I don't really have any good academic recommendations but I bet with a bit of research you can find something a lot better than this.
save your money June 28, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
poor quality printing with very few photo's and what they were was not up to today's standards
bodies and culture April 7, 2004
This is a fascinating book that is theoretically sophisticated and guides us through the body in modern and postmodern theory. Her insight into the range of body modification practices and how they are linked to broader cultural shifts in late modernity is sharp and convincing.
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