This text provides an examination of the relationship between consumption, the idea of the body and the formation of the self. In tracing these connections, the book develops a profile of individuality in the late-20th century in terms of bodily and mental aspects. The author offers a synthesis and critical assessment of the debates surrounding the body, the self and contemporary consumer culture. He explores two fundamental issues for current social theory: the deliniation of modern consumption and our understanding of the nature of embodiment. In the course of the argument, metaphors and anthropologies of consumption are examined, and key questions regarding representations in advertising and pornography are raised. The book also highlights the body's historically changing position in various cultural orders. Balancing concern with the contingent nature of definition of the body with the culturally and historically specific notions of the self and its boudaries, this book posits a theory of the consuming body in relation to the embodied human condition. It should be of use to students and academics of cultural studies, sociology, anthropology and philosophy.
Pasi Falk is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki
Preface - Bryan S Turner Introduction Body, Self and Culture Corporeality and History Towards an Historical Anthropology of Taste Consuming Desire Selling Good(s) On the Genealogy of Modern Advertising Pornography and the Representation of Presence
`I consider this book a remarkable achievement. Sophisticated in its use of sociological, anthropological and critical theory, The Consuming Body also successfully conveys the direct tangible experience of corporality and the senses. Its key metaphor of orality unites body history and consumer history, speech and sustenance, with rare penetration and clarity. Pasi Falk's original and insightful book sets the study of the body onto a new plane'- Roy Porter, The Wellcome Institute, London `Although the sociology of the body is a major issue in contemporary social science, we do not as yet possess a comprehensive theory. Pasi Falk's remarkable analysis of consumption and the body goes a long way to providing such a comprehensive and synoptic overview of the problems of the body as a topic of research. Through a sustained analysis of the mouth and consumption he provides an extraordinarily provocative and compelling analysis of corporality and culture. This is not a text to be easily consumed, but it will play a formative role in restructuring contemporary debate about the body, culture and society. In particular it will be no longer possible to ignore the nature of human embodiment in debates about need and consumption. A profound tour de force of contemporary sociological theory, it will undoubtedly become a central text in the analysis of the sensory body' - Bryan S Turner
