Shapeshifters : a journey through the changing human body Cover Image

Book

Shapeshifters : a journey through the changing human body / Gavin Francis.

Summary:

"From birth to death, a lyrical exploration of the role of transformation in human life. To be alive is to be in perpetual metamorphosis: growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, physician and writer Gavin Francis considers the inevitable changes all of our bodies undergo-such as birth, puberty, and death, but also laughter, sleeping, and healing-and those that only some of our bodies will: like getting a tattoo, experiencing psychosis, suffering anorexia, being pregnant, or undergoing a gender transition. In Francis's hands, each event becomes an opportunity to explore the meaning of identity and the natures-biological, psychological, and philosophical-of our selves. True to its own subject, Shapeshifters combines Francis's lyrical imagination and deep knowledge of medicine and the humanities for a life-altering read."-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9781541697522
ISBN: 1541697529
Physical Description: [xiii], 282 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Edition: First U.S. edition.
Publisher: New York : Basic Books, 2018.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Transformation -- Werewolves: agitation at the full moon -- Conception: the first and second reason for existing -- Sleep: the chamber of dreams -- Bodybuilding: unhelmed by fury -- Scalp: of horns, terror and glory -- Birth: reshaping the heart -- Rejuvenation: an alchemy of youth and beauty -- Tattooing: the art of transformation -- Anorexia: the enchantment of control -- Hallucination: a sphere of devils -- Puberty: suddenly accelerated youth -- Pregnancy: the most meticulous work -- Gigantism: two giants of Turin -- Gender: the two lives of Tiresias -- Jetlag: the brain that holds the sky -- Bonesetting: an algebra of healing -- Menopause: third face of the goddess -- Castration: hope, love, and sacrifice -- Laughter: some eminency in ourselves -- Prosthetics: humanity 2.0 -- Memory: palaces of forgetting -- Death: the celebration of life -- Transformations.