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The body in pain : the making and unmaking of the world / Elaine Scarry.
Author
Scarry, Elaine
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
New York : Oxford University Press, 1985.
Description
vii, 385 pages ; 25 cm
Availability
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Architecture Library - Stacks
BJ1409 .S35 1985
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Firestone Library - Stacks
BJ1409 .S35 1985
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Firestone Library - Stacks
BJ1409 .S35 1985
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Lewis Library - Stacks
BJ1409 .S35 1985
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Details
Subject(s)
Pain
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War
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Torture
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Summary note
Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, this work explores the nature of physical suffering. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Henry Kissinger. Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain difficult to describe in words, it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme cases to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry goes on to analyse the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of warfare and torture, and she demonstrates how political regimes use the power of physical pain to attack and break down the sufferer's sense of self. Finally she turns to examples of artistic and cultural activity; actions achieved in the face of pain and difficulty.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Structure of torture : the conversion of real pain into the fiction power
The structure of war : the juxtaposition of injured bodies and unanchored issues
Pain and imaging
The structure of belief and its modulation into material making : body and voice in the Judeo-Christian scriptures and the writings of Marx
The interior structure of the artifact.
Show 2 more Contents items
ISBN
0195036018
9780195036015
0195049969
9780195049961
LCCN
85015585
OCLC
12285656
Other standard number
99814214487
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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The body in pain : the making and unmaking of the world / Elaine Scarry.
id
SCSB-2356003