Second Skins

Do we need bodies for sex? Is gender in the head or in the body? In Second Skins Jay Prosser reveals the powerful drive that leads men and women literally to shed their skins and--in flesh and head--to cross the boundary of sex. Telling their story is not merely an act that comes after the fact, it's a force of its own that makes it impossible to forget that stories of identity inhabit autobiographical bodies. In this stunning first extensive study of transsexual autobiography, Jay Prosser examines the exchanges between body and narrative that constitute the phenomenon of transsexuality. Showing how transsexuality's somatic transitions are spurred and enabled by the formal transitions of narrative, Prosser uncovers a narrative tradition for transsexual bodies. Sex change is a plot--and thus appropriately transsexuals make for adept and absorbing authors. In reading the transssexual plot through transsexuals' own recounting, Prosser not only gives us a new and more accurate rendition of transsexuality. His book suggests transsexuality, with its extraordinary conjunctions of body and narrative, as an identity story that transitions across the body/language divide that currently stalls poststucturalist thought. The form and approach of Second Skins works to cross other important and parallel divides. In addition to analyzing transsexual textual accounts, the book includes some 30 photographic portraits of transsexuals-- poignant attempts by transsexuals to present themselves unmediated to the world except by the camera. And the author does not shy from exposure himself. Interjecting the personal into his theoretical discussion and close textual work throughout the book, Prosser reads and writes his own body, his purpose in that stylistic crossing to stake out transsexuality--and hence this very book--as his own body's narrative.

"What does a black burlesque star have to do with some of the most enduring and passionate ideas in modern aesthetic theory? Josephine Baker emerges in this untold story as a principal figure in the drama behind the making of Euro-American Modernism. Instead of seeing her nude performances as a Primitivist given, Cheng argues that Baker's skin was central to debates about and desire for "pure surface" that crystalized at the convergence of modern art, architecture, machinery, and philosophy. Taking the reader across the Atlantic - through real stages and imagined houses; banana plantations and ocean lines; metallic bodies and radiant cities-this study tracks the ardent and protean conversa-tion between the making of a Modernist style and the staging of a new black visuality. In this account, Baker and the Modernists known to have adored and objectified her in fact share a common dream: the fantasy of remaking and wearing the skin of the other"--

A young boy, thin and ill, feeds his small brother in a ritualized act of desperation, half-stifling him. The boy will be treated, his father will get a job, and the family will be moved from their shack in the slums of Rio de Janeiro to a suburban house, courtesy of the American viewers of Gordon Parks's photographs in Life magazine. It all turned

Based on rich clinical experience and on theory from numerous psychoanalytical works, this book explores and analyzes the emergence and development of the psychic life. Birth to Psychic Life explores the genesis of the psychic apparatus, reconstructs the development of subjectivity, with its ups and downs in babies as in all subjects, and studies the relationship between mental states at the dawn of psychic life and those characteristic of psychopathology. The book refers to Freudian, Kleinian and post-Kleinian works, proposing articulations between the different theoretical models. The referenced works’ contributions to the understanding of early psychic disorders, as well as to the implications of infantile psychic suffering in adulthood, are essential. The authors identify the three psychic constellations, recognized by many, that accompany the psychic birth and suggest new more adequate names in view of current works on subjectivity: the auto-sensual position, the symbiotic position and the depressive position. Many other new and original proposals are developed by the authors. Providing tools to think about the processes of psychic growth, this book will be of interest to all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists working with infants and interested in the impact of early psychic development throughout life.

The Infinite Cord is a bilingual inspirational memoir about the simple life of a Brazilian family in a coffee farm. The stories were stitched to celebrate the 80th birthday of a matriarch. The memories include happiness, humor, suffering, resilience, and other moments of being human. The narratives may help you to look inside and change your life perception. Family and friends make us who we are; the infinite cord connects past, present, and future. Let ́s dive in this authentic readings sewed by hand. Sobre o Livro O Cordão Infinito é um livro de memórias inspirador bilíngue que descreve a vida simples de uma família brasileira em uma fazenda de café. As histórias foram alinhavadas para comemorar os 80 anos de uma matriarca. As memórias incluem a felicidade, o humor, o sofrimento, a resiliência e outros momentos que relacionam-se ao ser humano. As narrativas podem te ajudar a refletir e mudar a sua percepção de vida. Família e amigos fazem de nós o que somos; o cordão infinito conecta passado, presente e futuro. Mergulhemos nestas autênticas leituras costuradas à mão.

The refurbishment of existing buildings is a neglected subject within sustainable architecture; attention is usually focused on new buildings. Old buildings can use large amounts of energy and provide poor internal conditions for occupants. They may have high heating demand, poor lighting, poor ventilation, solar penetration and glare, and poor control of heating and cooling. Demolition is an option but the alternative of refurbishment is starting to be seen as more sustainable in terms of architectural value, materials use, neighborhood disruption and waste disposal. Building new is more carbon intensive and carries many wider environmental impacts. In addition, the potential impact of low energy refurbishment is much greater than that for new build since there are many more existing buildings than will be built in the next 10 - 20 years, the period over which many CO2 emission targets apply.