Embodying Difference

Embodying Difference offers a fresh perspective on the current theoretical debates about the role of Latinas in today's multicultural society and globalization's impact on cultural attitudes toward femininity. Saborío's interdisciplinary approach links feminist and gender discourse, cultural studies, and theatrical performances as a means of exploring many dynamic forms of cultural productions.

This book explores how phenomenological ideas about embodiment, perception, and lived experience are discussed within disability studies, critical race theory, and queer studies. Building on these disciplines, it offers readings of memoirs and novels that address the consequences of stigmatization and the bodily dimensions of social differences. The texts include Robert F. Murphy’s The Body Silent, Simi Linton’s My Body Politic, Rod Michalko’s The Two-in-One: Walking with Smokie, Walking with Blindness, three memoirs by Stephen Kuusisto, Vincent O. Carter’s The Bern Book, as well as two novels, Matthew Griffin’s Hide and Armistead Maupin’s Maybe the Moon. All of the texts discussed in this book negotiate the significance of bodily and perceptual habits, the influence of language and culture on embodiment, the importance of relationality and community, the severe effects of misrecognition, and the possibilities of emancipation and social recognition. Hence, they are read as pioneering contributions to the emerging field of critical phenomenology.

First published in New Delhi by Navayana Publishing.

Embodying Youth: Exploring Youth Ministry and Disability seeks to help close the gap between disability theology and youth ministry education. What is youth ministry? And who is it for? Christian youth workers and ministers in the West have been answering these questions either implicitly or explicitly for decades. The ways we answer these questions, and the ways in which we go about answering them, have huge implications with regards to the faithfulness and effectiveness of the church’s ministry with young people. These questions have not always been pursued with the experience of disability in mind. In fact, it is often excluded, not only from the academic field but from the church’s practice of youth ministry as well. In this book, scholars and youth workers seek to attend to the questions of youth ministry by putting the experience of disability at the forefront, with hope not only that the church might include young people with disabilities, but also that our very understanding of what youth ministry is, and who youth ministry is for might be transformed, for the sake of the gospel. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Disability & Religion.

Embodying Gender provides students and academics with a critical overview of body concepts in both sociology and in feminism. Previously, sociologists have attempted to gender the body and feminists have attempted to embody gender but Alexandra Howson′s accessible new text draws these two literatures together, pointing to ways of integrating feminist perspectives on the body into sociological theory. Surveying all the key concepts in the field, this book introduces us to an extensive range of ′narratives of embodiment′ and presents a full analysis of the most important texts in new feminist theories of the body. Key questions covered include: o What can sociology say about the body? o What impact has the body made on sociology? o What conceptual frameworks are used to address the body? How do these relate to issues of gender and embodied experience? o How do feminist conceptual tools sit within sociological analysis? Written in a clear, accessible style, Embodying Gender is an invaluable text for undergraduate students, postgraduates and academics in the fields of women′s and gender studies and sociology, and is particularly relevant to those specialising in sociology of the body, feminist theory and social theory.

This book explores how phenomenological ideas about embodiment, perception, and lived experience are discussed within disability studies, critical race theory, and queer studies. Building on these disciplines, it offers readings of memoirs and novels that address the consequences of stigmatization and the bodily dimensions of social differences. The texts include Robert F. Murphy’s The Body Silent, Simi Linton’s My Body Politic, Rod Michalko’s The Two-in-One: Walking with Smokie, Walking with Blindness, three memoirs by Stephen Kuusisto, Vincent O. Carter’s The Bern Book, as well as two novels, Matthew Griffin’s Hide and Armistead Maupin’s Maybe the Moon. All of the texts discussed in this book negotiate the significance of bodily and perceptual habits, the influence of language and culture on embodiment, the importance of relationality and community, the severe effects of misrecognition, and the possibilities of emancipation and social recognition. Hence, they are read as pioneering contributions to the emerging field of critical phenomenology.

Exploring the role of performance in tourist and nationalist contexts, Embodying Mexico analyzes the making of icons in 20th century Mexico, as local dance, music, and ritual practices are transformed into national and global spectacles.

Exploring the ideas of bodily monstrosity; vulnerablity; normality; and perfection, this book examines the ideologies surrounding these perceptions and considers what this tells us about ourselves.