The Body and Social Theory

This is Shilling's (sociology, U. of Kent, Canterbury) third edition of the book he wrote in 1993 on various issues with how bodies are understood as purely physical or socially constructed things. The text acts as a corrective against "inverted Cartesianism" and shines light on the turn toward "embodiment" in sociological, psychological and organizational studies. He argues that the body is an under-appreciated and misunderstood source of society. To this end, he considers renewed interest in physicality by those who look to the Human Genome Project "as revealing the genetic constitution of identity and destiny," while also defending a constructive engagement between neuroscience and "sociological perspectives on the relationship between the thinking, sensing, feeling body, on the one hand, and the networks, figurations and societies in which we live, on the other." He takes up Actor-Network Theory, too, noting that it views people as assemblages of "human and non-human 'actants'." His afterward reflects on developments since the previous editions, emphasizing how "the 'absent-presence' of the body in social theory, the relationship between body and self-identity, and the question of how to advance theoretically the study of the body are linked issues." Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)