Places Through the Body

Heidi J. Nast, Steve Pile

Routledge, 1998 - Social Science - 429 pages

This exciting collection opens up many new conversations on BodyPlace and introduces new theories of embodied places and the placing of bodies.
Extensive introductory and concluding sections guide students through the key debates and themes. Places Through the Body draws on a wide range of contemporary examples and creative ideas to address such topics as:
* How racist ideologies are embedded in modern architechtural discourse and practice
* How urban spaces make bodies disabled
* How the seemingly virtual worlds of knowledge and technology are embodied
* How gyms enable women body builders to make new kinds of bodies
* How male bodies are placed onto the silver screen
* New kinds of femininity
Here geographers, architects, anthropologists, artists, film theorists, theorists of cultural studies and psycho-analysis work alongside each other to make clear connections between bodies and places.

About the author

Nast is Assistant Professor in the International Studies Program, DePaul University.

My research is primarily concerned with the relationship between place and the politics of identity. For example, I have undertaken a series of investigations into the relationship between the city, everyday life and the spatial constitution of power. This work has found outlets in projects such as City A-Z and also a sole authored book, Real Cities: modernity, space and the phantasmagorias of city life. This book makes a case for taking seriously the more imaginary, fantasmatic and emotional aspects of urbanism. Drawing inspiration from the work of Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, Georg Simmel and various psychogeographers, Real Cities explores the dream-like and ghost-like experiences of city life. A further strand of work has been to intervene in how Geography, as a Discipline, is conceived in terms of its practices, content and approaches. My main contribution has been to promote the legitimacy of a psychoanalytic approach to Geography, as first set out in The Body and the City. However, this project has also involved a more cultural take on Geography itself. This can be seen in both the Handbook of Cultural Geography and Patterned Ground. The work I am conducting over the next few years, however, focuses on the body. This project is tentatively titled Fantastic Bodies. It is expected that the final outcome will be a sole authored book.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Places Through the Body
• Editors: Heidi J. Nast, Steve Pile
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Routledge, 1998
• ISBN: 041517905X, 9780415179058
• Length: 429 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General; Social Science / Human Geography; Social Science / Sociology / General