Culture Practice And The Body

Human sociality is shaped and realized most notably in embodied practices of interpersonal interaction. At the same time, the social nature of human beings is open for cultural influences. This book inspects the foundations of human sociality theoretically drawing on recent debates in sociology, anthropology, and linguistics, and empirically by the example of interactions on the central square of a Wolof village in Northwestern Senegal. Menschliche Sozialität gestaltet und realisiert sich zuallererst in den vielfältigen verkörperten Praktiken zwischenmenschlicher Interaktionen. Die Sozialnatur des Menschen ist dabei offen für kulturelle Einflüsse. Dieses Buch inspiziert die Grundlagen menschlicher Sozialität theoretisch anhand jüngerer Diskussionen in der Soziologie, Ethnologie, Anthropologie und Linguistik und empirisch am Beispiel von Interaktionen auf dem zentralen Platz eines Dorfes der Wolof Nordwestsenegals.

Human sociality is shaped and realized most notably in embodied practices of interpersonal interaction. At the same time, the social nature of human beings is open for cultural influences. This book inspects the foundations of human sociality theoretically drawing on recent debates in sociology, anthropology, and linguistics, and empirically by the example of interactions on the central square of a Wolof village in Northwestern Senegal. Menschliche Sozialität gestaltet und realisiert sich zuallererst in den vielfältigen verkörperten Praktiken zwischenmenschlicher Interaktionen. Die Sozialnatur des Menschen ist dabei offen für kulturelle Einflüsse. Dieses Buch inspiziert die Grundlagen menschlicher Sozialität theoretisch anhand jüngerer Diskussionen in der Soziologie, Ethnologie, Anthropologie und Linguistik und empirisch am Beispiel von Interaktionen auf dem zentralen Platz eines Dorfes der Wolof Nordwestsenegals.

This challenging volume reasserts the centrality of the body within social theory as a means to understanding the complex interrelations between nature, culture and society. At a theoretical level, the volume explores the origins of a social theory of the body in sources ranging from the work of Nietzsche to contemporary feminist theory. The importance of a theoretical understanding of the body to social and cultural analysis of contemporary societies is demonstrated through specific case studies. These range from the expression of the emotions, romantic love, dietary practice, consumer culture, fitness and beauty, to media images of women and sexuality.

During the past decade, there has been an outpouring of books on 'the body' in society, but none has focused as specifically on physical culture - that is, cultural practices such as sport and dance within which the moving physical body is central. Questions are raised about the character of the body, specifically the relation between the ‘natural’ body, the ‘constructed’ body and the ‘alien’ or ‘virtual’ body. The themes of the book are wide in scope, including: physical culture and the fascist body sport and the racialised body sport medicine, health and the culture of risk the female Muslim sporting body, power, and politics experiencing the disabled sporting body embodied exhibitions of striptease and sport the social logic of sparring sport, girls and the neoliberal body. Physical Culture, Power, and the Body aims to break down disciplinary boundaries in its theoretical approaches and its readership. The author’s muli-disciplinary backgrounds, demonstrate the widespread topicality of physical culture and the body.

Examines the two distinct approaches taken when examining archaeological remains, one based on science, the other on social theory.

Textbook

American culture has literally become fixated on the body at the same time that the body has emerged as a key term within critical and cultural theory. Contributions thus address the body as a site of the cultural construction of various identities, which are themselves enacted, negotiated, or subverted through bodily practices. Contributions come from literary and cultural studies, film and media studies, history and sociology, and women studies, and are representative of many theoretical positions, hermeneutic, historical, structuralist, feminist, postmodernist. They deal with representations and discursifications of the body in a broad array of texts, in literature, the visual arts, theater, the performing arts, film and mass media, science and technology, as well as in various cultural practices.