0 Item

Flesh Wounds

The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery

By: Virginia Blum

Write A Review

Paperback | 4 April 2005 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
366 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 22.8 x 2.08

Paperback

$55.28

or 4 interest-free payments of $13.82 with

Aims to ship in 7 to 10 business days

When will this arrive by?
Enter delivery postcode to estimate

When did cosmetic surgery become a common practice, the stuff of everyday conversation? In a work that combines a provocative ethnography of plastic surgery and a penetrating analysis of beauty and feminism, Virginia L. Blum searches out the social conditions and imperatives that have made ours a culture of cosmetic surgery. From diverse viewpoints, ranging from cosmetic surgery patient to feminist cultural critic, she looks into the realities and fantasies that have made physical malleability an essential part of our modern-day identity.

For a cultural practice to develop such a tenacious grip, Blum argues, it must be fed from multiple directions: some pragmatic, including the profit motive of surgeons and the increasing need to appear young on the job; some philosophical, such as the notion that a new body is something you can buy or that appearance changes your life. Flesh Wounds is an inquiry into the ideas and practices that have forged such a culture. Tying the boom in cosmetic surgery to a culture-wide trend toward celebrity, Blum explores our growing compulsion to emulate what remain for most of us two-dimensional icons. Moving between personal experiences and observations, interviews with patients and surgeons, and readings of literature and cultural moments, her book reveals the ways in which the practice of cosmetic surgery captures the condition of identity in contemporary culture.

Industry Reviews

"As face lifts and tummy tucks become increasingly affordable to middle-class Americans, Blum argues, even those who have never considered the knife cannot escape cosmetic surgery's implications and its pervasive promotion by everyone from doctors to those who play them on TV." - Publishers Weekly"

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.

Defective items

If there is a problem with any of the items received for your order then the Booktopia Customer Care team is ready to assist you.

For more info please visit our Help Centre.

You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Lifestyle & Fashion Fashion & Style Guides Medicine Surgery Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery Cosmetic Surgery Surgical Techniques History Regional & National History History of the Americas Society & Culture

Social Groups Gender Studies Sociology & Anthropology Anthropology Social & Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography

Acknowledgments	p. ix
The Patient's Body	p. 1
Untouchable Bodies	p. 35
The Plastic Surgeon and the Patient: A Slow Dance	p. 67
Frankenstein Gets a Face-Lift	p. 103
As If Beauty	p. 145
The Monster and the Movie Star	p. 188
Being and Having: Celebrity Culture and the Wages of Love	p. 220
Addicted to Surgery	p. 262
Notes	p. 291
Works Cited	p. 315
Index	p. 341
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Flesh Wounds

The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

More in Society & Culture

The Anxious Generation

How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Epically Good Greek Myths

Welcome to Pawnee

Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation

The Women s Orchestra of Auschwitz

A Story of Survival

Someone Like Me

An anthology of non-fiction by Autistic writers

Processed

How the processed meat industry is killing us with the food we love

Spirit of the Crocodile

Patriarchy Inc.

What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality - and Why Men Still Win at Work

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife

The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women

All Women Want

An intimate look inside women's love lives and pursuits of pleasure, for readers of THREE WOMEN, COME AS YOU ARE and SMART SEX

Matters of the Heart

The inspirational and deeply moving memoir from one of Australia's most significant Indigenous voices, for readers of Anh Do, Ash Barty and J.D. Vance

Tina

The Dog Who Changed the World

The Trading Game

A Confession

More Than Just A Dog

Understanding, loving and living with dogs. An essential guide for humans.

Out on a Limb

The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe

The Peepshow

The thrilling new page-turner from Britain's top-selling true crime writer

Crime and Criminology

7th Edition

The Great Cosmic Mother

Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI

Community Development in an Uncertain World

Vision, Analysis and Practice 2nd Edition

Period Power

Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working For You

Engaging with Social Work

A Critical Introduction 2nd Edition

We Should All be Feminists

This product is categorised by