Körpergeschichten

Body language in the media is an important means of self-characterisation. Countless studies prove the significance of representations of the body in the media with regard to humanising processes, creating celebrities and constituting image. Looking back on the past plays a decisive role in an individual’s perception of their own body and self-narration. In its capacity to focus on physicality and transform it into cultural artefacts, media narration is a resource for biographical self-reflection and self-characterisation on the one hand, and yet it also offers us the chance to envision life and its physical boundaries differently on the other, such as in terms of combining the body with technology. A fundamental idea which is crucial when reflecting on identity theory is connected to this way of considering existence: body images are not a static set of symbols that are merely adopted by individuals; instead they emerge and develop in processes of mutual perception over time. Against this background, this book highlights the diachronic dimension of the process of forming an identity at the point of interplay between individual body narratives and the dynamics of mediatisation as well as that between cultural semiotics and utopian ideas of societal transformation.

With contributions by
Anke Abraham, Maria Schreiber, Tina Denninger, Daniela Schiek, Stefan Dreßke, Sina Schadow, Annette R. Hofmann, Guido Bröckling, Christian Paulick, Thomas Damberger, Martin Hennig, Thomas Wilke, Ralf Vollbrecht, Corinne Büching, Olaf Sanders, Sebastian Knell.