<nettime-ann> [call] Call for Papers: Extreme Culture/Extreme Bodies

["mary kosut" <mkmd@earthlink.net>]

.

Please Circulate

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
7,500- 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 mary.kosut@purchase.edu or
extremebodiesbook@hotmail.com



Mary Kosut, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Media, Society, and the Arts
School of Natural and Social Sciences
Purchase College AD SUNY
Purchase, NY 10577

Elizabeth C. Bachner, Ph.D.
Instructor of Sociology
The New School
New York, New York

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