What do we mean when we talk about ''the body''? This Reader challenges the assumption that it can be invoked as a neutral, or indeed natural, point of reference in critical discussion or cultural practice. The essays collected here foreground the historical construction of ''the body'' throughout a range of discourses from the modern to the postmodern, and seek to present it not as a biological ''given'', but as a contestable signifier in the articulation of identities.