Find a copy in the library
Finding libraries that hold this item...
Details
| Additional Physical Format: | Online version: Scarry, Elaine. Body in pain. New York : Oxford University Press, 1985 (OCoLC)631832151 |
|---|---|
| Document Type: | Book |
| All Authors / Contributors: |
Elaine Scarry |
| ISBN: | 0195036018 9780195036015 0195049969 9780195049961 |
| OCLC Number: | 12285656 |
| Description: | vii, 385 p. ; 25 cm. |
| Contents: | Structure of torture : the conversion of real pain into the fiction power -- The structure of war : the juxtaposition of injured bodies and unanchored issues -- Pain and imaging -- The structure of belief and its modulation into material making : body and voice in the Judeo-Christian scriptures and the writings of Marx -- The interior structure of the artifact. |
| Responsibility: | Elaine Scarry. |
| More information: |
Abstract:
Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, this work explores the nature of physical suffering. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Henry Kissinger. Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain difficult to describe in words, it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme cases to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry goes on to analyse the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of warfare and torture, and she demonstrates how political regimes use the power of physical pain to attack and break down the sufferer's sense of self. Finally she turns to examples of artistic and cultural activity; actions achieved in the face of pain and difficulty.
Reviews
User-contributed reviews
Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers.
Be the first.
Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers.
Be the first.
Tags
Add tags for "The body in pain : the making and unmaking of the world".
Be the first.
Similar Items
Related Subjects:(14)
- Pain.
- War.
- Torture.
- Douleur.
- Guerre.
- Pijn.
- Martelen.
- Oorlog.
- Schmerz
- Kulturphilosophie
- Krieg
- Leid
- Folter
- Pain -- Psychosocial aspects
User lists with this item (12)
- philosophy(15 items)
by wellred2 updated 2013-03-16
- LindaSFG ceramic 4(34 items)
by lindasfg updated about a month ago
- Limit-Experience(62 items)
by adgold03 updated about 3 weeks ago
- Dissertation 2012(44 items)
by dzumaya updated 2013-04-03
- Body(12 items)
by rudeboyjanek updated about 2 days ago
