SKU: 29085829471

The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World

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The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the WorldPart philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious that confront it. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case

Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it.

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 Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate.


Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 04/23/1987
ISBN: 9780195049961
Pages: 385
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 8.06h x 5.38w x 0.75d

Review Citations: Commonweal 06/18/2004 pg. 27
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SKU: 29085829471

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colette fardella
Bozeman, US
★★★★★ 5
great for 4th grade
Format: Paperback
my 4th grader loved this book, wish more were paperback
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Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2026
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Anne Christofferson
Grantham, US
★★★★★ 5
Good Artwork
Format: Paperback
This was a well drawn graphic novel
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Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2026
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Amyb
Pawtucket, US
★★★★★ 5
Daughter loved it!
Format: Paperback
She loved this so much, read on one day! Three of her friends borrowed it to read too. Love books being shared! Only upset the sequel wasn't available immediately
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Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2024
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Simon
New York, US
★★★★★ 4
the art is gorgeous
Format: Kindle
I like boo as a chacter a lot!!! I enjoyed the writing and the art!!! I can't wait for the next volume!!! Only complaint is it feels too short!!!
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Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2024
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Michael
New York, US
★★★★★ 5
It so cool
Format: Kindle
Is there a 3 one
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Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2026

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