The Body Beautiful?

Beauty is very much a polysemic concept that is in constant flux both in time and in space. While at once it has the capacity to empower, it may simultaneously degrade or subjugate those who fail to attain it. However, at the same time, those so-called 'failed subjects' may be free from normativizing definitions of Western beauty and are therefore free to expand upon it. Contemporary beauty may therefore be defined by the tension between two oppositional forces: the rigid formation of a canon and the moment when canonization is overthrown by the change that occurs in an increasingly diverse and globalized world. Emerging from the scholarship of second-wave feminist academics, what this edited volume proves is that the debate surrounding beauty is rapidly evolving as diverse, global voices contribute new perspectives that, at once, attest to the established canon of beauty while letting emerge more nuanced layers of definition