The Body Social: Symbolism, Self and Society

by Anthony Synnott

In this captivating book Anthony Synnott explores a subject which has been woefully ignored: our bodies. He surveys the history for thinking about the body and the senses, then focuses on specific themes: gender, beauty, the face, hair, touch, smell and sight. He concludes with a review of classical and contemporary theories of the body and the senses. Thinking about the body will never be the same after reading this book.

Genres: Sociology

309 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 1993

Reviews

[Isabella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in my spare time after a tip someone gave me. It took me a while to get started, I'm pretty sure I had it lying around for over 6 months. I tried starting a few times but just couldn't get in the flow. Until I started reading it while all my classes were on methodology and suddenly I realised that this little book covers many of the big thinkers in a very accessible way. It doesn't get really theoretical, and it doesn't get to the bottom of everything he discusses. Rather it is a great overview that touches on many subjects and one that somehow does manage to get quite a bit deeper than I initially expected. Of all the classes I've had about the history of Anthropology, and all the texts and books I (half) read, this'll be the one to keep. The one to open up every now and then to recollect what it is all built upon.

[Pádraic]

Read about 60% of this one. Mostly fine, engaging, not too dense with the theoretical stuff. But the analysis just isn't there, it's all surface level. Also, you know when you can tell something on gender has been written by a man? There's a whole chapter like that in here. Like, it's fine, he's trying to get to the bottom of some real social double-standards, but he just induces the occasional eyeroll in the way he expresses it.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a few years for a sociology class and wrote a paper on it. I wish I could find the paper because this is a pretty interesting book, seeing as how I can actually remember some of it's contents (it was for a class, after all). What stands out in particular, and I don't know why I read these lines over and over- probably because it was so horrifying. Synnott discusses religious ascetics in earlier centuries who would consume vomit, pus, and drink water that had been used to bathe lepers (I may be off a bit with the specifics- maybe it wasn't leprosy but I distinctly remember reading of nuns/ascetics who would drink the water that was used to bathe people with festering sores).