The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory by Bryan S Turner
The Second Edition of this ground-breaking book includes a new introduction which analyzes the social changes which have given a special prominence to the body in contemporary social theory, and develops Turner's own notion of a `somatic society', a society within which major political and personal problems are both problematized in the body and expressed through it. Complementing the introduction is a preface whose stress is lyrical and pictorial. Turner reflects on the cover images used in recent work on the body, recognizing that it is often through the history of art that we can dimly grasp the body metaphors which lie, no longer to hand, but at the foundation of thinking and feeling.