Changing our bodies, changing ourselves? From Popular culture: A users Guide written by Susie OBrien and Imre Szeman is an excerpt which comes from a chapter in the Identity and the Body textbook. The textbook d
Ripudaman Singh Kohli O'Brien and Szeman (221-33)
ENGL 109, Section 107
Johannah Bird
October 20, 2011
Changing Bodies and Minds in the Modern World
“Changing our bodies, changing ourselves? From Popular culture: A user’s Guide” written by Susie O’Brien and Imre Szeman is an excerpt which comes from a chapter in the “Identity and the Body” textbook. The textbook discusses the “powerful impact of cultural practices” which it has on the daily lives and a “sense of identity” of humans. Susie O’Brien is an assistant professor at McMaster University for courses offered in the Humanities while Imre Szeman is Canada research chair in Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta. In the chapter, the authors discuss the variety of relationships between the identity and the body of an individual.
The authors of the article, explore the various ways of popular culture in which North America which is obsessed with the body. The modern ways which there are in the world today are bounded to references which are made to the body, from products for the body to representations of the body. The dualist philosophy described as “I think therefore I am” (Descartes’s famous formula) through “…overlapping oppositions- spirit vs. matter, mind vs. bod, reason vs. passion, nature vs. culture - … map out relations of being …and relations of power” (Susie O’brien and Imre Szeman, 2). This suggests that the body and mind are connected to represent the identity of a person, it can be proven that the modification to the body is a way of changing one’s identity. The authors describe and question the different ways in which postmodernism has affected the world, these include the human body being either natural or cultural, physical capital and social status, enhancing the healthy body and transcending the body.