{"product_id":"the-cosmetic-gaze-bernadette-wegenstein-9780262529662","title":"The Cosmetic Gaze: Body Modification and the Construction of Beauty","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow the act of looking at our own and others' bodies is informed by the techniques, expectations, and strategies of body modification.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf the gaze can be understood to mark the disjuncture between how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen by others, the \u003ci\u003ecosmetic gaze\u003c\/i\u003e--in Bernadette Wegenstein's groundbreaking formulation--is one through which the act of looking at our bodies and those of others is already informed by the techniques, expectations, and strategies (often surgical) of bodily modification. It is, Wegenstein says, also a moralizing gaze, a way of looking at bodies as awaiting both physical and spiritual improvement. In The \u003ci\u003eCosmetic Gaze\u003c\/i\u003e, Wegenstein charts this synthesis of outer and inner transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWegenstein shows how the cosmetic gaze underlies the \"rebirth\" celebrated in today's makeover culture and how it builds upon a body concept that has collapsed into its mediality. In today's beauty discourse--on reality TV and Web sites that collect \"bad plastic surgery\"--we yearn to experience a bettered self that has been reborn from its own flesh and is now itself, like a digitally remastered character in a classic Hollywood movie, immortal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWegenstein traces the cosmetic gaze from eighteenth-century ideas about physiognomy through television makeover shows and facial-recognition software to cinema--which, like our other screens, never ceases to show us our bodies as they could be, drawing life from the very cosmetic gaze it transmits.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Bernadette Wegenstein\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0262529661\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780262529662\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e MIT Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/02\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.72lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.51d","brand":"Bernadette Wegenstein","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43946373841151,"sku":"9780262529662","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_ad307dc8-8cb5-4d0f-898a-f83e3b472eb8.jpg?v=1681512781","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-cosmetic-gaze-bernadette-wegenstein-9780262529662","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}