skip navigation

Not in the United States?
change your preferences.

Mediating the Human Body

Technology, Communication, and Fashion

• Edited by Leopoldina Fortunati, James E. Katz, Raimonda Riccini

• Price: $85.00
• Binding: Hardback (also available in Paperback)
• Pages: 392
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 1st May 2003
• ISBN: 978-0-8058-4480-1

About the Book

The ever-increasing integration of technology and the human body is attracting attention from religious, business, and political leaders around the world, and the topic promises to be a significant social issue in the 21st century. In Mediating the Human Body: Technology, Communication, and Fashion, editors Leopoldina Fortunati, James E. Katz, and Raimonda Riccini bring together a thoughtful group of leading international scholars and analysts to explore the effects of new technologies on human beings. They focus specifically on the intersection of new communication technologies and the body, and offer novel insights based on recent theoretical progress and current research on new interpersonal technology.

Through literary analysis, historical comparisons, analytical reports, and speculative interpretations, the contributors to this volume seek to understand the experience of the body as it is mediated among competing forces and intellectual domains. Arising from The Human Body Between Technologies, Communication and Fashion symposium held in Milan, Italy, contributions cover a wide array of topics and offer varied perspectives on how communication technologies are assimilated into people's lives, bodies, and homes, and thus become part of individuals' self-images and social relationships. From this multidisciplinary, multi-national base, the volume illuminates the sense and dimension of this interpenetration between body and technology. In its broad scope, the topics range from the wellsprings of consciousness to the use of technology as a fashion statement.

Bringing together scholarship from a variety of disciplines, including communication, medicine, technology, and human-computer interaction, this distinctive anthology will provide new insights to scholars and advanced students exploring body-technology intersections and the attendant implications. Mediating the Human Body offers a unique contribution to future discussions, and will be relevant to continuing study and research in communication and technology, human-computer interaction, gender studies, social psychology, and design.

Table of Contents

Contents: P. Gamba, Foreword. L. Fortunati, J.E. Katz, R. Riccini, Introduction. Part I:The Body Between Science, Technology, and Art. T. Maldonado, The Body: Artificialization and Transparency. G.O. Longo, Body and Technology: Continuity or Discontinuity? M. Somalvico, Bodies and Robots. R. Strassoldo, Sade Triumphant: The Body in Contemporary Art. A. Neiger, The Narrated Body: The Representation of Corporeality in Contemporary Literature. L. Fortunati, Real People, Artificial Bodies. Part II:The Body Communicating Between Technology, Fashion, and Identity. J.E. Katz, M. Aakhus, H.D. Kim, M. Turner, Cross-Cultural Comparisons of ICTs. C. Lobet-Maris, Mobile Phone Tribes: Youth and Social Identity. R. Ling, Fashion and Vulgarity in the Adoption of the Mobile Telephone Among Teens in Norway. V. Oksman, P. Rautiainen, Extension of the Hand: Children's and Teenagers' Relationship With the Mobile Phone in Finland. R. Riccini, Women's Identities and Everyday Technologies. A. Contarello, Body to Body: Copresence in Communication. G. Strocchi, The Next Frontier of Technology: Awaiting UMTS. Part III:Dressing Technologies. G. Pacifici, P. Girardi, Slaves and Free People in the Gaily Colored Empire. E. Danese, Inside the Surface: Technology in Modern Textiles. S.B. Kaiser, Fashion, Media, and Cultural Anxiety: Visual Representations of Childhood. P. Calefato, Wearing Communication: Home, Travel, Space. A. Poli, The Equipped Body: Wearable Computers and Intelligent Fabrics. Part IV:The Body and Technologies for Health and Well-Being. D. Riccò, Artificial Sensory Perception: Vicarious Technologies for Synesthesia. M. Chiapponi, Health Care Technologies: The Contribution of Industrial Design. J. Frascara, The Third Skin: Wearing the Car, Ignoring Safety. A. Dominoni, Conditions of Microgravity and the Body's "Second Skin." P. Gerundini, M. Castellani, The Technologies of Body Visualization. L. Fortunati, J.E. Katz, R. Riccini, Conclusion: Bodies Mediating the Future.