We are seeking chapters for an edited collection entitled
"Extreme Culture/Extreme Bodies," that explictly examine issues of embodiment
within cyberspace and the relationship between the body, new media and
technology. Please see the call for papers below:
Extreme Culture/
Extreme Bodies
Call for Abstracts, Chapters, and Proposals – Deadline
Extended to February 15, 2006
Since the 1990s, “extreme” has become part
of the mainstream cultural vocabulary. The American public eagerly
consumes extreme cuisine, wears extreme deodorant (“energy-scented”), watches
extreme television shows like Fear Factor, drives oversized extreme vehicles,
practices extreme sports and signs up for extreme adventure vacations involving
bungee jumping, “high falls,” and “fire burns.” Extreme body modification,
both normative (as exemplified on the television shows Extreme Makeover and The
Swan) and non-normative, has been subsumed into the mainstream media, as a form
of entertainment and a marketing scheme. These carefully conceived mediated
products effectively push boundaries, challenging our conceptions of beauty,
deviancy, human pain thresholds, humiliation, entertainment, and leisure. Within
this context, it appears that people who want to stand out have been driven to
push the extreme to the extreme. Although the roots of extreme culture are
counter-cultural, does the extreme body offer a way to resist the standardized,
homogeneous, pre-packaged fakeness of consumer society?
The editors of
Extreme Culture/Extreme Bodies seek papers on all themes exploring the body,
identity, and consumption within the context of extreme culture. Both
theoretical and empirical studies are invited from sociological, cultural
studies, media studies, and feminist perspectives. Suggested submission topics
include, but are not limited to the following themes:
The body and
consumer culture
Recent trends in cosmetic surgery
The body
within the context of extreme sports
Non-normative or subcultural body
modification practices
The body as an artistic
medium
Expressions of the extreme body in advertising and popular
media
Embodiment within cyberspace
Theoretical perspectives on
postmodernity, identity, and the body
DEADLINE: February 15, 2006.
Chapters must be submitted in Microsoft Word format, 12 point font, double
spaced. Essays should be in the range of 7500 – 10,000 words with
references in ASA style. We will also consider abstracts and shorter
proposals. Include a cv with your submission.
Send submissions and
inquires to [log in to unmask]
Mary Kosut,
Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Media, Society, and the
Arts
School of Natural and Social Sciences
Purchase College –
SUNY
Purchase, NY 10577
Elizabeth C. Bachner, Ph.D.
Instructor of
Sociology
The New School
New York, New York
Mary
Kosut
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Media, Society and the
Arts
School of Natural and Social Sciences
Purchase College,
SUNY
Purchase, NY 10577
(914)
251-6626