We all have a body, but how does it impact upon our day to day life? This book sets out to explore how ordinary women, men and children talk about their bodies, through four central themes:- * physical and emotional bodies * illness and disability * gender * ageing. A coherent collection of such empirical research, The Body in Everyday Life provides an accessible introduction to the sociology of the body, a field previously dominated by theoretical or philosophical accounts.

A doctor and a theologian explore the relationship between Christian faith and medicine, encouraging a more biblical view of health and health care by individuals and churches

This book takes its point of departure from the overwhelming interest in theories of the body and performativity in sociology and cultural studies in recent years. It explores a variety of ways of looking at dance as a social and artistic (bodily) practice as a means of generating insights into the politics of identity and difference as they are situated and traced through representations of the body and bodily practices. These issues are addressed through a series of case studies.

The Internet in Everyday Life is the first book to systematically investigate how being online fits into people's everyday lives. Opens up a new line of inquiry into the social effects of the Internet. Focuses on how the Internet fits into everyday lives, rather than considering it as an alternate world. Chapters are contributed by leading researchers in the area. Studies are based on empirical data. Talks about the reality of being online now, not hopes or fears about the future effects of the Internet.

In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in the contemporary social study of the body which has raised important theoretical and methodological questions regarding traditional social and cultural analysis. It has also generated corporeal theories that highlight the fluid, shifting, yet situated character of the body in society. In turn, these corporeal theories have implications for social relations in an era of new technologies and global market economies. The Body and Everyday Life offers a lively and comprehensive introduction to the study of the body. It uses case studies in performance practices to examine the key concepts, methods and critical insights gained from this area. It includes sections on: ethnographies of the body bodies of performance performing gender the ageing performing body. This book clearly illustrates the complex relationships that exist between the body, society and everyday life, and considers the negative and positive implications for the development of future socio-cultural analysis in the field. It will be an invaluable introduction for students of sociology, body studies, gender studies, dance and performance, and cultural studies.

Offering an introduction to the main themes and issues that have emerged in the study of the body over recent years, Helen Thomas illustrates the complex relationships that exist between the body, society and everyday life.

Why are we so insistent that women and men are different? This introduction to gender provides a fascinating, readable exploration of how society divides people into feminine women and masculine men. Gender and Everyday Life explores gender as a way of seeing women and men as not just biological organisms, but as people shaped by their everyday social world. Examining how gender has been understood and lived in the past; and how it is understood and done differently by different cultures and groups within cultures; Mary Holmes considers the strengths and limitations of different ways of thinking and learning to ‘do’ gender. Key sociological and feminist ideas about gender are covered from Christine Pisan to Mary Wollstonecraft; and from symbolic interactionism to second wave feminism through to the work of Judith Butler. Gender and Everyday Life illustrates gender with a range of familiar and contemporary examples: everything from nineteenth century fashions in China and Britain, to discussions of what Barbie can tell us about gender in America, to the lives of working women in Japan. This book will be of great use and interest to students to gender studies, sociology and feminist theory.