The body of nature and culture

the long version

Exploring the relationship of human bodies with nature and culture, this book looks at how humans affect their natural and cultural environments and how those environments affect humans. Examining how the body has been modelled, and the ways in which the body, disease and illness have been figured in metaphors, the book argues for an environmentally sustainable and healthy relationship between the body and the earth. The book explores: the body as machine; the body as landscape; the body as land, and land as body; the body as ₁cyborg₂ (or cybernetic organism); and disease and illness as an invading army to be fought and defeated on the battlefield of the body. It also celebrates the body as earth or land, the grotesque body, the monstrous body and the Taoist body of Tai chi. These bodies are expressed in carnivalesque tales, eco-friendly illness narratives and health-recovery stories. Ultimately the book explores how to make the relationship and interaction between human beings/bodies and ecosystems/ecology ecologically sustainable.