10 books about the evolution, mutation and transformation of the body
Masha Vorslav
We continue to choose cool books about beauty and health; in the first and second editions, they finished off make-up and hairstyles, and today they have collected ten volumes about relationships with the body.
In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection
The fact that Kafka developed in Metamorphosis - how fragile, unexplored and in fact alien to us is our own body - Yves Enzler, the author of the very famous Vagina Monologues play, knew not metaphorically. Eve was diagnosed with uterine cancer - sometimes she herself seems ironic ("Live by the vagina, die by the vagina"). Associated with the disease experience and formed the basis of "In the Body of the World". There are many such stories, but it is Yves who seems to us to be an interesting author who can push us to think, and not to drive melancholy and fear.
Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival
In Body Counts, Sean Strub talks about his attitude to his own body, reflecting on how he was influenced by the experience of living with a fatal disease (Strub is one of the long-term AIDS survivors) and accepting his homosexuality. Shaun is a writer and activist, founder of several magazines on health and HIV / AIDS, an advocate for LGBT rights. The first AIDS epidemics fell on Strub's youth, and this timing is beneficial - if I may say so - it is distinguished by his memoirs.
Body Art / Performing the Subject
Amelia Jones is an assistant professor at the University of California at Riverside, a writer and curator. In her second book (the first is about gender in the works of Marcel Duchamp), she explores the body art projects of the 60s and 70s and how they influenced the course of postmodernism close to her. It may not sound like the most exciting story in the world, but the book is praised for the clarity of the narration and the author's scrupulous work, and Jones is called the most insightful and savvy representative of the generation.
Your Day of Your Life
The two most popular categories of books on the tag "body" on Amazon - the alphabet of body gestures and all sorts of instructions "how to stop wanting to lose weight." However, time: all this will easily push into the background the battery of collections with recipes for body creams. We are sure that the problem of taking the body is not only connected with weight - and the authors of "Living with Your Body" understand this. Emily Sandoz and Troy DuFren do not try to convince the reader that his experiences are irrational, but teach him to accept them - in this they see the only comfortable way to live with the thought of their imperfection.
The Broken Mirror: Understanding and Treating Body Dysmorphic Disorder
MD Catherine Phillips also dedicated the book dysmorphophobia. In the year of publication of the book, 2005, according to the author's calculations, 2% of the entire population of the Earth were unhappy with their appearance (about 5 million people), but now, it seems to us, the numbers have increased. Dysmorphia - abnormal discontent with one’s own “terrible nose” or “monstrous acne” - Phillips has been studying for years. She conducted more than 200 interviews that helped investigate the mechanism of frustration and write a serious guide for those who are literally not allowed to face problems.
The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma
The Body Keeps Score - a collection of patient histories collected over the years of the practice of Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, specializing in post-traumatic stress. Here - dissociative problems, borderline personality disorder, self-harm, the development of injured children and adults and the psychobiology of injuries. Even if none of this is unfamiliar to you by happy coincidence, we consider it important to have at least a general idea of the problems that may affect your loved ones.
You Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
Books on evolution can not be considered, but we seem to have managed to choose the most entertaining. The author Neil Shubin is a paleontologist and a writer, along with colleague Ted Deshler and a group of scientists, after several years of searching, he unearthed the skeleton of the fish of the Tiktaalik genus - it is an intermediate link between fish and terrestrial vertebrates and another proof of the theory's author. We consider this fact to be a sufficient argument in order to prefer Shubin’s work to many others.
Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo
The third edition of the first reference book on the history of female tattoos. We are interested in the book specialization on the female body: about sailor tattoos sailors, for example, everyone knows, but we are not sure about the snake tattoo on the wrist of Winston Churchill's mother. The book covers a rather large historical period, from the XIX century to the present, and broad social strata: from tattooists to their clients, who could be pretend and marked heroines of plays, and aristocracy, and underwent mastectomy.
Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body
A special copy of the collection, "Mutants" by a professor at Imperial College London, talks about mutations in the human body; some of them are difficult to even imagine. So, Leroy analyzes the state of a girl, whose sex in puberty began to change; cyclops children; "Croatian gnomes" and the whole family with hair covering all over the body. The list is not complete, but it seems to us indecently curious.
Body Dressing (Dress, Body, Culture)
About fashion written hundreds of more or less successful books; about the category of clothing itself as always accompanying the modern body - not so much. The authors try to bring a more subtle psychology under the choice of this or that matter, style, style, than following the trends, and compare the development of costume in different cultures - of course, all taking into account the time period, gender, social environment.
Photo: cover photo via WikiPaintings