- The Social Skin: Gender, Beauty & Body Modification

Catalog description

A cross-cultural examination of body modification focusing squarely on the social construction of gender. Examples range from tattoos, cicatrices, and labrets to cosmetic surgery and bodybuilding. All societies mark and modify human bodies in some fashion, and for a wide variety of reasons. Students will study different and changing ideals of beauty for all genders and interrogate the complicated nexus between bodies and identities.