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Titelbild TransHumanities 2020

Abstract Susana Rocha Teixeira

Body Modifications in 20th and 21st Century American Literature, TV-Series and Movies
In the 20th/21st century, ‘beautiful’ bodies (and faces), body modifications like plastic/cosmetic surgeries or other procedures artificially enhancing ‘beauty’, seem to have become more and more important to the ‘West’ in general and to the United States and its culture in particular. Recent statistics reveal that cosmetic/beauty enhancing procedures are booming in the United States where most (surgical) procedures (compared to other countries) are made, followed by Mexico and Brazil. (see Nina Degele) Additionally, the rise of the American celebrity culture (e.g., including watching, evaluating, talking about and desiring celebrity’s bodies), and the particular growing number, popularity and economic success of American 20th and 21st century cultural artifacts/products, e.g. literary texts (mostly popular literature), TV-series (e.g. Nip/Tuck) and movies (See Anthony Elliott) seem to reflect this trend. The scientific community has already done much research on bodies, body modifications (and its cultural significance) and the representation of particular bodies and body modifications in cultural products (e.g. literary texts or movies), for instance with regard to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting. However, the analysis/interpretation of American 20th and 21st century cultural products/artifacts (e.g. literary texts, TV-series and movies) – how they represent current, popular American body images and modifications in order to understand the American culture, obsession with beauty (see Anthony Elliott) and beautiful bodies – still seems to be a desideratum, which this research project aims to address and fulfill. The main assumptions of the thesis are that American bodies: a. are a result of the European modernity/Enlightenment, where the modern self/individual (and his/her ‘modern’ mind and body) were ‘born’; b. have become a source to create personal and collective identity; c. have become signs, which refer to and represent the “American Dream”; d. have become signs and sources of “new and happy combinations” (Peter Ackroyd) in the United States’ postmodern, hyperrealist, media- and consumer society. In order to tackle the complex issue and to furnish evidence to the assumptions of the thesis, the research project will focus on an interdisciplinary approach, i.e. apply theories and methods from literary and cultural studies, linguistics, sociology (e.g., cultural sociology), psychology, philosophy and history, to analyze how/which bodies are depicted in cultural products and what this says about the 20th/ 21st century American obsession with beauty, bodies and body modifications. Since most of the theories and methods applied emerged after the “Linguistic Turn” (followed by various other “Turns”, e.g., “The Cultural Turn” and “The Body Turn”) and additionally, the main (and already well-known) assumption of the thesis is that bodies can be read as text, linguistic theories (e.g., Saussure, Derrida) will be essential to the thesis. In order to create a representative result, the corpus will include a selected variety of 20th and 21st century American TV-series, movies and literary texts (mostly popular literature) like novels, poems and dramas, which deal with this thesis’ issues.

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