Research Catalog

Title

Face : a visual odyssey / Jessica Helfand.

Author

Helfand, Jessica

Publication

• Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2019]
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

ix, 261 pages : illustrations (some color); 26 cm

Summary

An elaborately illustrated A to Z of the face, from historical mugshots to Instagram posts. By turns alarming and awe-inspiring, 'Face' offers up an elaborately illustrated A to Z-from the didactic anthropometry of the late-nineteenth century to the selfie-obsessed zeitgeist of the twenty-first. Jessica Helfand looks at the cultural significance of the face through a critical lens, both as social currency and as palimpsest of history. Investigating everything from historical mugshots to Instagram posts, she examines how the face has been perceived and represented over time; how it has been instrumentalized by others; and how we have reclaimed it for our own purposes. From vintage advertisements for a "nose adjuster" to contemporary artists who reconsider the visual construction of race, Face delivers an intimate yet kaleidoscopic adventure while posing universal questions about identity.

Subjects

• Trivia and miscellanea
• Face perception > Miscellanea

Genre/Form

• miscellanies.
• Trivia and miscellanea
• Trivia and miscellanea.
• Miscellanées.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Prologue -- Anthropometry -- Biometrics + bias -- Caricature + close-ups -- Diagnosis -- Eugenics -- Facsimilies + fragility -- The gaze -- Heredity -- Identity -- Judgment -- Keepsakes -- Likenesses + lies -- Masks + mirrors -- Narcissism -- Othering -- Physiognomy -- Quackery -- Relatability -- Surveillance + spectatorship -- Typecasting -- Users + the uncanny -- Vanity -- Wit -- Xenophobia -- You -- Zeitgeist.

ISBN

• 9780262043427
• 0262043424

LCCN

• 2019013950
• 16108403

OCLC

• on1090007129
• 1090007129
• SCSB-9585263

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library