{"product_id":"beauty-and-the-beast-michael-taussig-9780226789866","title":"Beauty and the Beast","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBeauty and the Beast \u003c\/i\u003ebegins with the question: Is beauty destined to end in tragedy? Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Colombia, Michael Taussig scrutinizes the anxious, audacious, and sometimes destructive attempts people make to transform their bodies through cosmetic surgery and liposuction. He balances an examination of surgeries meant to enhance an individual's beauty with an often overlooked counterpart, surgeries performed--often on high profile criminals--to disguise one's identity. Situating this globally shared phenomenon within the economic, cultural, and political history of Colombia, Taussig links the country's long civil war and its bodily mutilation and torture to the beauty industry at large, sketching Colombia as a country whose high aesthetic stakes make it a stage where some of the most important and problematic ideas about the body are played out. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCentral to Taussig's examination is George Bataille's notion of \u003ci\u003edepense\u003c\/i\u003e, or \"wasting.\" While depense is often used as a critique, Taussig also looks at the exuberance such squandering creates and its position as a driving economic force. Depense, he argues, is precisely what these procedures are all about, and the beast on the other side of beauty should not be dismissed as simple recompense. At once theoretical and colloquial, public and intimate, \u003ci\u003eBeauty and the Beast \u003c\/i\u003eis a true-to-place ethnography--written in Taussig's trademark voice--that tells a thickly layered but always accessible story about the lengths to which people will go to be physically remade.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Michael Taussig\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226789861\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226789866\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/30\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 192\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.50lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.60d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/01\/2013","brand":"Michael Taussig","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43946349560063,"sku":"9780226789866","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_4617a1ea-8de3-470d-8d6c-378be348449f.jpg?v=1681512641","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/beauty-and-the-beast-michael-taussig-9780226789866","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}