Archive for July 2021

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[Commlist] New Book: Talking Bodies III

Wed Jul 28 16:38:04 GMT 2021



Talking Bodies: new book challenges perceptions.

The ways in which bodies are gendered, stereotyped, their perceived capabilities and how they are often seen as falling short of an unattainable idea of 'perfection' are highlighted and challenged in a new book from the University of Chester Press. Published this month, 'Talking Bodies III, Transformations, Movements and Expression' aims to rethink notions of bodies - how we view, identify, represent, treat, use, maintain, develop, and even recreate and re-engineer them.

The collection of essays spans subjects from art, gender, sexuality, ageing, disability and race, to history, literature, sociology, medicine, politics and law to offer thought-provoking, diverse and inclusive narratives of bodies and selfhood.

Originating from the fourth biennial Talking Bodies conference in 2019, run by Professor Emma Rees, Director of the University of Chester's Institute of Gender Studies, and the third in the series of Talking Bodies books, it looks to address ethical, cultural, political, and social issues that preoccupy many sections of society.

The volume comprises 10 chapters by emerging voices, established academics, and early career researchers from across the globe - and includes discussions on:
*body awareness in midwifery and moving towards LGBTQ+ inclusive practice;
*the daily experience for refugees with disabilities;
*developing and teaching the first undergraduate course in Fat Studies in a university located in what has regularly been termed the 'fattest province in Canada' (CBC News, 2015); *graphic arts and media representations of the black body through an analysis of the Marvel character and Netflix series Luke Cage, examining the representation of the 'bulletproof' black body in the context of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the American prison-industrial complex.

The University of Chester is represented among contributors, with Institute of Gender Studies alumni Beth Flanagan exploring when women actors play Shakespeare's Othello and what this means for gender stereotypes, and Michelle D. Ravenscroft, whose chapter is entitled 'From Little Women to the 'New Woman': Representations of Female Adolescent Identity Formation in the Late Nineteenth Century'. Michelle, who is the lead editor, studied English Literature, Education and Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture at the University of Chester. She is now an educational consultant undertaking doctoral study at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is joined in the editing role by Paul G. Nixon from the Hague University of Applied Sciences, in the Netherlands; Bee Hughes from Liverpool John Moores University, who is also Artist in Residence at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Institute for Gender Studies, and School of Art History at the University of St Andrews; and Charlotte Dann, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Northampton.

The foreword is provided by Professor Rees, Programme Leader of the interdisciplinary MRes in Gender Studies and curator of the Talking Bodies project, hosting its conferences at Chester. In the foreword, she wrote: "The essays in Talking Bodies III: Transformations, Movements and Expression epitomise the interdisciplinarity, inclusiveness, and eclecticism of the Talking Bodies project which I started back in 2013. The contributions, in inventive and distinct ways, in this most anomalous of eras, interrogate "the norm", from (dis)ability to heteronormativity, and from sex to sexuality. They range across the globe, and through time, as they complicate productively, and challenge constructively."

In their conclusion, the editors state that the Talking Bodies project is "inclusive, diverse, and thought-expanding". The book they've edited also has all of those elements, and I'm delighted that it's being published at a time when we have so much to learn from the body's scripts and inscriptions, its maskings and unmaskings, and its persistence even in the face of existential threat."

The editors added: "The body, sexuality and gender continue to be subjects of much debate in contemporary culture and within academia. Finalised at a time when swathes of the global population were placed into varying degrees of isolation and self-reflection, this book is more than an abstract academic project. It represents the vitality and inspiration that comes from sharing knowledge with colleagues within and outside our respective disciplines. This collection of activist-academic essays scrutinises varied questions relating to how we understand and (re)present ourselves and others, and at its core offers hope and determination that a different world is possible."

For further information on Talking Bodies III and to order a copy, please visit: https://storefront.chester.ac.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12_14&products_id=1067
Contact co-editor, Dr Bee Hughes (they/them) at (b.hughes /at/ ljmu.ac.uk)

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