People everywhere have attempted to change their bodies in an effort to meet their cultural standards of beauty, as well as their religious and/or social obliga

Explores the human body alphabetically by part, detailing practices and beliefs from the past and present and from around the world.

Establishes the body's undeniable presence and strangeness as the material out of which human beings are made

An ethnography of the tattoo community, tracing the practice's transformation from a mostly male, working-class phenomenon to one adapted and propagated by a mo

Social deviance does not involve just criminal behavior—it’s any behavior that violates a cultural norm, and that can involve something as minor as consiste