Skin: On the Cultural Border Between Self and World

by Claudia Benthien

Book Overview

"Only skin deep," "getting under one's skin," "the naked truth" metaphors about the skin pervade the language even as physical embellishments and alterations--tattoos, piercings, skin-lifts, liposuction, tanning, and more--proliferate in Western culture. Yet outside dermatology textbooks, the topic of skin has been largely ignored.

This important cultural study shows how our perception of skin has changed from the eighteenth century to the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 023112502X
• ISBN13: 9780231125024
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.5"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher