Phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty says about the body, “I do not simply possess a body; I am my body. The body is the vehicle of being in the world and it is integral to our perceptions and to any understanding of the human experience.” The focus of my research is to examine relationships between bodies and worlds, and what that means for having a sense of self. In short, I attempt to go beyond a typical understanding of the body to look deeper at how our bodies fit (and don’t fit) within society and are a physically and socially constructed entity that influences our identity. The way we move, adorn, and utilize our bodies reflects and helps shape our sense of who we are; so much so in fact, it is thought that our appearance is linked with our essence. Grasping the significance of the body involves studies of historical, social, and cultural variations in experience and identity. We must recognize how our own bodies and identities are located within a particular social, cultural, and historical context.
Expertise: body studies in TV, film, and pop culture; lived experience of the body; autoethnography