The Body at Century's End

During the last decade, we have witnessed a remarkable increase of philosophical interest in the body. Questions of the body have been an area where explicitly feminist philosophers, on the one hand, and issues of feminist interest, on the other, have greatly influenced the development of philosophical thought. The three books under review here all belong to this recent development. Their most striking common feature is the critique of social constructionism, which appears in several articles and chapters in all volumes. A typical example of this tendency is the opening article in Perspectives on Embodiment by David Couzens Hoy. He combines elements from the work of Foucault and Bourdieu in order to draft a conception of an embodied subject, which is historically constituted, but also an agent capable of resistance. Several writers present critiques of the sex/gender distinction, which correspond to the more general critique of social constructionism.

These books also explicate the diversity of the field of recent writings on the body. They originate in different theoretical contexts and are directed at different readerships. The articles in the volume Perspectives on Embodiment, edited by Gail Weiss and the late Honi Fern Haber to whom the book is dedicated, are, with the exception of some interesting cultural and historical studies, written by philosophers working in the fields of continental as well as analytical philosophy. The focus of this book is not explicitly feminist, but many of the articles utilize and inform discussions in feminist theory. Here the impact that feminist theory has had on more general philosophical issues is most evident. The volume Women's Bodies is directly situated in the milieu of feminist studies in Britain and most of the articles deal with concrete feminist issues related to the role played by women's bodies in contemporary culture. With the exception of one of the editors, the philosopher Jean Grimshaw, most of the contributors in this volume have backgrounds in media studies and many of the articles focus on visual culture. Feminist Perspectives on the Body, by Barbara Brook, belongs to a series of introductory textbooks in different fields of feminist theory and scholarship, and aspires to be an accessible introduction for students from various backgrounds. The overall aim to cover a broad and changing field—and make it comprehensible—makes this book different from the two volumes of essays involved in the actual development of the field. The differences between these books also hint at the partly different directions the problematization of the body has taken in three English-speaking areas: the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Because of limited space I will focus on topics and articles directly related to the development of feminist theory and feminist studies. This does not mean, however, that I do not see the appropriation of these topics in more or less "mainstream" philosophy as indeed very important.

Feminist Perspectives on the Body is an ambitious attempt to provide a balanced, but also evaluative account of feminist discourses on the body, with a span that reaches almost to the present day. The chapters focus on topics of specific feminist concern—such as reproduction, cosmetic surgery, and eating disorders—and theoretical approaches are presented in close relation to specific issues. Brook applies a self-reflective pedagogical mastery over her subject matter. In her introduction she considers the implications of women's studies and feminist thought as becoming more legitimate inside the university system. This process involves the production of a canon and thereby the defining of boundaries. The author of a textbook by necessity decides which texts belong to a certain discipline, in this case the academic feminist discourse on the body. Brook emphasizes the need for feminists to invent new...