Beauty and the Norm

Recent decades have seen the rise of a global beauty boom, with profound effects on perceptions of bodies worldwide. Against this background, Beauty and the Norm assembles ethnographic and conceptual approaches from a variety of disciplines and across the globe to debate standardization in bodily appearance. Its contributions range from empirical research to exploratory conversations between scholars and personal reflections.  Bridging hitherto separate debates in critical beauty studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, the history of science, disability studies, gender studies, and critical race studies, this volume reflects upon the gendered, classed, and racialized body, normative regimes of representation, and the global beauty economy. 

Claudia Liebelt, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology at Bayreuth University, Germany. Her primary research interests are gender, beauty and body aesthetics, intimate labor, embodiment, and Islam in Turkey.  Sarah Böllinger, M.A., is Ph.D. Candidate and Junior Fellow of the International Graduate School of African Studies at Bayreuth University, Germany. She is the director of becks, the administrative department for disabled and chronically ill students. Ulf Vierke, Ph.D., is Director of Iwalewahaus, the Museum for Contemporary African Arts, at Bayreuth University, Germany. He also acts as the Head of DEVA, the Digital Research Archive of African Studies.