Table of Contents

Preface to the American Edition 1. The Depth of the Surface: Introduction 2. Boundary Metaphors: Skin in Language 3. Penetrations: Body Boundaries and the Production of Knowledge in Medicine and Cultural Practices 4. Flayings: Exposure, Torture, Metamorphoses 5. Mirror of the Soul: The Epidermis as Canvas 6. Mystification: The Strangeness of the Skin 7. Armored Skin and Birthmarks: The Imagology of a Gender Difference 8. Different Skin: Skin Colors in Literature and the History of Science 9. Blackness: Skin Color in African-American Discourse 10. Hand and Skin: Anthropology and Iconography of the Cutaneous Senses 11. Touchings: On the Analogous Nature of Erotic, Emotive, and "Psychic" Skin Sensations 12. Teletactility: The Skin in New Media

Promotional Information

"Only skin deep," "getting under one's skin," "the naked truth": metaphors about the skin pervade the language even as physical embellishments and alterations-tattoos, piercings, skin-lifts, liposuction, tanning, and more-proliferate in Western culture. This important cultural study shows how our perception of skin has changed from the eighteenth century to the present. Claudia Benthien examines the changing significance of skin through brilliant analyses of literature, art, philosophy, and anatomical drawings and writings. Myriad images from the Renaissance, anatomy books, and contemporary visual and performance art enhance the text.

About the Author

Claudia Benthien is assistant professor of German at Humboldt-University, Berlin. She received the Tiburtius Prize from the Berlin senate for this work. She lives in Berlin.

Reviews

"Claudia Benthien's fascinating study illuminates historically changing notions of 'skin' in literature, art, and anatomical and other scientific discourse since the eighteenth century. The reader of this book gains a new understanding of the cultural significance of skin." - Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Chair of the Program in the History of American Civilization, Harvard Unviersity