Embodying Gender
- Alexandra Howson - Visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, USA
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.
"Howson's goal is to write the body back into discourse by integrating feminist scholarship and C. Wright Mills's sociological imagination. This text is written for high-level readers familiar with feminist thought and social theory, such as postmodernism. Summing up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above."
