The body : critical concepts in sociology

This collection offers a uniquely comprehensive guide to the sociology of the body.

With a strong historical scope and conceptual framework, it provides an indespensible reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and a robust source for scholars working in the area.

The central focus is on understanding sociology through the body; what is often described as re-reading sociology in a 'more corporeal light'.

This is an interdisciplinary process, drawing on history, feminism, cultural history, art history, anthropology, social psychology, philosophy, medical sociology and media and communications, as well as sociology.

While this has been primarily a Western practice, this collection seeks to broaden the perspective to include references that draw on alternative cultural assumptions, beliefs and practices (including Japan, and South America.) The collection will be divided into four volumes, covering the following key concepts: Volume 1: Bodies Through Time This volume adopts a historical perspective on key contributions to the sociology of the body and looks at studies of the body over different historical periods. The aim is to reflect and further substantiat the widely held argument that, although a sociological perspective on the body appears to be relatively recent, mainstream sociologists have always been interested in the body.

Volume 2: Representing Bodies Bodies are known through the way they are represented: this volume goes beyond discussion of the role of visual and textual images of the body in society to draw together key analyses of images of the body.

It also analyses the philosophical, political and phenomenological issues in the representation of bodies.

Volume 3: Living and Dying Bodies A key concept in the current sociology of the body is the lived body.

This volume will trace the origins and development of that concept, paying particular attention to it s existential and phenomenological dimensions.

Volume 4: Future Bodies This volume engages with the recent developments in technology and theory relating to bodies, and in particular the increasingly permeable boundaries of the body and the interplay between the 'natural' and the socio-cultural.