front cover of Beyond the Body Proper
Beyond the Body Proper
Reading the Anthropology of Material Life
Margaret Lock and Judith Farquhar, eds.
Duke University Press, 2007
Over the past several decades, scholars in both the social sciences and humanities have moved beyond the idea that there is a “body proper”: a singular, discrete biological organism with an individual psyche. They have begun to perceive embodiment as dynamic rather than static, as experiences that vary over time and across the world as they are shaped by discourses, institutions, practices, technologies, and ideologies. What has emerged is a multiplicity of bodies, inviting a great many disciplinary points of view and modes of interpretation. The forty-seven readings presented in this volume range from classic works of social theory, history, and ethnography to more recent investigations into historical and contemporary modes of embodiment.

Beyond the Body Proper includes nine sections conceptually organized around themes such as everyday life, sex and gender, and science. Each section is preceded by interpretive commentary by the volume’s editors. Within the collection are articles and book excerpts focused on bodies using tools and participating in rituals, on bodies walking and eating, and on the female circumcision controversy, as well as pieces on medical classifications, spirit possession, the commodification of body parts, in vitro fertilization, and an artist/anatomist’s “plastination” of cadavers for display. Materialist, phenomenological, and feminist perspectives on embodiment appear along with writings on interpretations of pain and the changing meanings of sexual intercourse. Essays on these topics and many others challenge Eurocentric assumptions about the body as they speak to each other and to the most influential contemporary trends in the human sciences.

With selections by: Henry Abelove, Walter Benjamin, Janice Boddy, John Boswell, Judith Butler, Caroline Walker Bynum, Stuart Cosgrove, Michel de Certeau, Gilles Deleuze, Alice Domurat Dreger, Barbara Duden, Friedrich Engels, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Judith Farquhar, Marcel Granet, Felix Guattari, Ian Hacking, Robert Hertz, Patricia Leyland Kaufert, Arthur Kleinman, Shigehisa Kuriyama, Jean Langford, Bruno Latour, Margaret Lock, Emily Martin, Karl Marx, Marcel Mauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Nancy K. Miller, Lisa Jean Moore, John D. O’Neil, Aihwa Ong, Mariella Pandolfi, Susan Pedersen, Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Rayna Rapp, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Kristofer Schipper, Matthew Schmidt, Peter Stallybrass, Michael Taussig, Charis Thompson, E.P. Thompson, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Victor Turner, Terence Turner, Jose van Dijck, Keith Wailoo, Brad Weiss, Allon White

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front cover of Our Intelligent Bodies
Our Intelligent Bodies
Gary F. Merrill
Rutgers University Press, 2020
Human intelligence isn’t just located in the brain. Our bodies are marvelously sophisticated and complex, with a variety of autonomic systems that help maintain our health without us ever having to think about them. But how exactly do all these physiological structures actually work?
 
In Our Intelligent Bodies, physiology professor Gary F. Merrill takes you on a guided tour through the human body. You’ll learn how our eyes are designed to detect unimaginably small bursts of light and how our ears contain bundles of tiny hairs, each one attuned to different sound frequencies. You’ll also discover how our hearts are smart enough to compensate for skipped beats and irregular rhythms and how our pulmonary system adjusts for low oxygen levels. You’ll even find out why the gut is sometimes called the “second brain,” its reflexes controlled by millions of neurons.   
 
Written in a fun, easy-to-comprehend style and filled with illuminating analogies, Our Intelligent Bodies also brings readers up to date on cutting-edge research into the wonders of human physiology. It will give you a new appreciation for the smart decisions our bodies are making when our brains aren’t paying attention.
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front cover of Our Marvelous Bodies
Our Marvelous Bodies
An Introduction to the Physiology of Human Health
Merrill, Gary F
Rutgers University Press, 2008

Our Marvelous Bodies offers a unique perspective on the structure, function, and care of the major systems of the human body. Unlike other texts that use a strictly scientific approach, physiologist Gary F. Merrill relays medical facts alongside personal stories that help students relate to and apply the information.

Readers learn the basics of feedback control systems, homeostasis, and physiological gradients. These principles apply to an understanding of the body’s functioning under optimal, healthy conditions, and they provide insight into states of acute and chronic illness. Separate chapters are devoted to each of the body’s systems in detail: nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, reproductive, and immune. Through a series of real-life examples, the book also shows the importance of maintaining careful medical records for health care professionals, scientists, and patients alike.

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