Frances E. Mascia-Lees is Professor of Anthropology at Simon's Rock College of Bard where she is also co-director of Women's Studies. She is the author of Toward a Model of Women's Status. Patricia Sharpe is Professor of Literature and Women's Studies at Simon's Rock College of Bard.

"This exciting book engages the most current debates about the representation of the human body, particularly the female body, in various media such as literature, film, and popular magazines. Thoroughly conversant with the latest in feminist criticism, gender theory, and the predicaments of postmodern culture, the authors explore various narratives and images through which the gendered body is currently represented. "What makes this a coherent volume is the shared interest throughout the essays in the representation of the body surface (tattooing, perfuming, weightlifting) and body penetration (rape, torture) and the relationship of these matters to the issue of gender. This volume thus combines a theoretical sophistication with attention to a variety of fascinating case studies that illuminate the predicament of the body in postmodern culture." — Howard Eilberg Schwartz, Stanford University

• 1. Introduction: Soft-Tissue Modification and the Horror WithinFrances E. Mascia-Lees and Patricia Sharpe 2. The Greatest Story (N)Ever Told: The Spectacle of RecantationHelena Michie 3. Cinematic Gifts: The Moral and Social Exchange of Bodies in Horror FilmsLouise Krasniewicz 4. Olfactory Constitution of the Postmodern Body: Nature Challenged, Nature AdornedColleen Ballerino Cohen 5. Vandalized Vanity: Feminine Physiques Betrayed and PortrayedAnne Bolin 6. As You Stand, So You Feel and Are: The Crying Body and the Nineteenth-Century TextRobyn R. Warhol 7. Torture: A Discourse on PracticeÑacuñán Sáez 8. The Marked and the Un(re)marked: Tattoo and Gender in Theory and NarrativeFrances E. Mascia-Lees and Patricia Sharpe Contributors