Research Catalog

Title

Saving face : disfigurement and the politics of appearance / Heather Laine Talley.

Author

Talley, Heather Laine.

Publication

New York : New York University Press, [2014]

Supplementary Content

Cover image

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

ix, 259 pages; 23 cm

Summary

"Imagine yourself without a face--the task seems impossible. The face is a core feature of our physical identity. Our face is how others identify us and how we think of our 'self'. Yet, human faces are also functionally essential as mechanisms for communication and as a means of eating, breathing, and seeing. For these reasons, facial disfigurement can endanger our fundamental notions of self and identity or even be life threatening, at worse. Precisely because it is so difficult to conceal our faces, the disfigured face compromises appearance, status, and, perhaps, our very way of being in the world.In Saving Face, sociologist Heather Laine Talley examines the cultural meaning and social significance of interventions aimed at repairing faces defined as disfigured. Using ethnography, participant-observation, content analysis, interviews, and autoethnography, Talley explores four sites in which a range of faces are "repaired:" face transplantation, facial feminization surgery, the reality show Extreme Makeover, and the international charitable organization Operation Smile,. Throughout, she considers how efforts focused on repair sometimes intensify the stigma associated with disfigurement. Drawing upon experiences volunteering at a camp for children with severe burns, Talley also considers alternative interventions and everyday practices that both challenge stigma and help those seen as disfigured negotiate outsider status.Talley delves into the promise and limits of facial surgery, continually examining how we might understand appearance as a facet of privilege and a dimension of inequality. Ultimately, she argues that facial work is not simply a conglomeration of reconstructive techniques aimed at the human face, but rather, that appearance interventions are increasingly treated as lifesaving work. Especially at a time when aesthetic technologies carrying greater risk are emerging and when discrimination based on appearance is rampant, this important book challenges us to think critically about how we see the human face"--

Subjects

• Disfigured persons
• Physical-appearance-based bias
• Surgery, Plastic > Social aspects
• Aesthetics > Social aspects
• Face > Social aspects

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-249) and index.

Call Number

JFE 14-7311

ISBN

• 9780814784112 (pbk.)
• 0814784119 (pbk.)

LCCN

2014009793

OCLC

863200931

Author

Talley, Heather Laine.

Title

Saving face : disfigurement and the politics of appearance / Heather Laine Talley.

Publisher

New York : New York University Press, [2014]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-249) and index.

Connect to:

Cover image

Research Call Number

JFE 14-7311