The Consuming Body

Front Cover
SAGE, Jul 21, 1994 - Social Science - 256 pages
This is a fascinating examination of the relationship between consumption, the idea of the body and the formation of the self. In tracing these connections, The Consuming Body develops a profile of individuality in the late twentieth century - in both its bodily and mental aspects.

Pasi Falk offers a major synthesis and critical assessment of the debates surrounding the body, the self and contemporary consumer culture. He explores two fundamental issues for modern social theory - the delineation of modern consumption and the body′s historically changing position in various cultural orders. In the course of his argument he examines both metaphors of consumption and investigates the issues of representation in advertising and pornography.

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Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
1
Chapter 2 Body Self and Culture
10
Chapter 3 Corporeality and History
45
Chapter 4 Towards an Historical Anthropology of Taste
68
Chapter 5 Consuming Desire
93
on the Genealogy of modern advertising
151
Chapter 7 Pornography and the Representation of Presence
186
References
218
Name Index
232
Subject Index
235
Copyright

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About the author (1994)

Pasi Falk is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki

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