Bodies In Code

Bodies in Code explores how our bodies experience and adapt to digital environments. Cyberculture theorists have tended to overlook biological reality when talking about virtual reality, and Mark B. N. Hansen's book shows what they've been missing. Cyberspace is anchored in the body, he argues, and it's the body--not high-tech computer graphics--that allows a person to feel like they are really "moving" through virtual reality. Of course these virtual experiences are also profoundly affecting our very understanding of what it means to live as embodied beings. Hansen draws upon recent work in visual culture, cognitive science, and new media studies, as well as examples of computer graphics, websites, and new media art, to show how our bodies are in some ways already becoming virtual.

Engineering Flesh. Towards professional responsibility for ‘lived bodies’ in Tissue Engineering This study analyses the work of biomedical engineers as normative work that affects people’s daily lives as bodies. In biomedical engineering, engineers study bodies as machine-like objects and develop technologies from such a perspective. However, in daily life patients live their bodies not as machine-like but as themselves. Biomedical engineering can be said to involve normative work because it affects the way people experience and live their bodies. For example, imaging technologies used to follow the development of a foetus during pregnancy stimulate the perception of the foetus as an individual human being and change the related conceptions of good professional care and responsible parenthood. In this light, I raise the question as to how biomedical engineers can take and shape professional responsibility for this kind of normative work with respect to bodies. To study normative work in biomedical engineering, I have analysed the practice of tissue engineering (TE). In this practice, engineers rather literally make human body parts: TE has as objective to create living body part substitutes (e.g. skin, heart valves and bladders) by using cells. In the tradition of Science and Technology Studies (STS) I have studied normative work in TE empirically by following a specific TE project: namely, a TE heart valve project through participant observations, interviews and other fieldwork approaches. To be able to analyse how the practice of TE affects lived bodies I draw on work in the philosophical tradition of phenomenology. This tradition has as central concept ‘the lived body’ rather than the body as object. In this book I show how TE implies normative work for engineers: in the presentation of their work in terms of ‘mimicking nature’; in making standards for TE heart valves; and in developing networks to stimulate the further development of TE and to enable the impleme

The revised and updated seventh edition of this best-selling reference manual on vehicle body repair brings the book up to date for the current body repair trade. It serves as a comprehensive guide covering the vocationally related qualification (VRQ) required by the modern student and apprentice, as well as providing the CPD essential for all working professionals. The entire book is overhauled to reflect current industry trends with regards to materials, processes and procedures. New additions include: An entirely new section on the work of the MET technician (mechanical, electrical and trim) New developments in body repair methodology such as repair pods and the greater use of alignment equipment Greater emphasis on the environment with new sections on hybrid vehicles and the hazards of starting current vehicles with high levels of technology Details on both the historic and the current joining methods for the vintage and modern markets Full coverage on the legalities surrounding insurance work for bodyshop staff Updated tables and illustrations This book not only provides the knowledge and skills for body repair, it helps to develop a real understanding of the how and why behind this information. It will be essential for anyone studying Levels 1-3 Vehicle Body Repair, Vehicle Refinishing and MET courses, including the new apprenticeships and technical certificates from the IMI, Pearson-BTEC and C&G. HNC and degree Automotive Engineering students will find the text valuable to develop skills and knowledge for practical project work. Industry professionals, vehicle restorers and car DIY enthusiasts will continue to find it an essential and comprehensive source of information.

Der Sammelband ist aus einem Panel beim Deutschen Orientalistentag in Marburg 2010 hervorgegangen und beleuchtet aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven Körpererfahrungen, -kulturen, -diskurse und -techniken in islamisch geprägten Kulturen der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Leitgedanke ist dabei die Frage danach, wie Individuen ihr Wissen über Körper/Sexualität im sozialen Feld konstruieren und welche Deutungssysteme (z. B. Islam, graeco-islamische Medizin) dabei wirksam werden. The present volume, product of a conference panel at the German Orientalists' Conference in Marburg 2010, aims at throwing light on the experiences, discourses and body techniques prevailing in Muslim bodily culture. It combines historical with contemporary case studies and explores the individual and collective patterns of knowledge construction related to body and sexuality, in a social field where different and sometimes conflicting knowledge systems (e.g. Islam, Graeco-Islamic Medicine) can be found at work.

The body has become central to practices of self-tracking. By focusing on the relations between quantification, the body, and labor, this volume sheds light on the ways in which discourses on data collection and versions of the ›corporate self‹ are instrumental in redefining concepts of labor, including notions of immaterial and free labor in an increasingly virtual work environment. The contributions explore the functions of quantification in conceptualizing the body as a laboring body and examine how quantification contributes to disciplining the body. By doing so, they also inquire how practices of self-tracking, self-monitoring, and self-optimization have evolved historically.