In the never-ending search for future projects, I recently considered extreme body modification as a possible project. It fits with the interest I have in the body — an interest that is shared by many in the discipline — and I think it would provide an interesting alternative to existing engagements with the body.
However, it looks like a couple of people have already beaten me to the punch.
Hi, my name is Alisha Gauvreau and I am a fourth-year Anthropology student at Laurentian University. … For my fourth-year university thesis, I am studying suspension as practiced by members of the body modification community in Canada.
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I’m a graduate student with the UCCS sociology department and I’m working on my masters thesis on non-mainstream body modification.
It is good at least to see from the comments that the community was very receptive to the research these two were conducting.
I convinced Jacqui and Matt to try this place out for our last dinner together. The flan was just as good as I had remembered.
Jacqui and I found Matt’s method of filling his sopapilla with honey before eating it to be a bit strange, but Danny said he does this as well.
Last Minute
I packed my things together then went to the grocery store around 1 a.m. for a few last minute things, like shampoo and coffee. I got some detergent, but it was too big to fit into my suitcase.
I also got money for my trip while I was out, but wasn’t able to get all the money I wanted, because of my daily limit, which produced a generous amount of stress.
To the Airport
Danny and Kion drove me to the airport for my 5 a.m. flight, and I just hoped that I had everything I needed.
Minutiae
I sent off my IRB revisions.
Jacqui was watching Top Chef and I wanted to know the story behind Padma Lakshmi’s scar. The answer had a strange parallel to Palahniuk’s Rant, where the characters achieve limit-experiences by participating in urban crash derbies: “When she was 14 years old, she was involved in a serious automobile accident, causing an injury of her right arm, which required surgery leaving a 7 inch scar, between her elbow and shoulder. … Padma describes the event in the Vogue-April 2001 edition as ‘Flying in a car felt like an exhilarating hallucination, an unbelievable ride that oddly remains one of the most beautiful images in my memory.’”
Links
I am inspired to see that there is an effort to make a space for anthropological books that address a more popular audience, but it is also disheartening to see what I am up against. Though, I wonder how they would receive my idea of writing the book in two volumes, the first volume focused on story and the second focused on theory. I think this would be better than dumping academic theoretical considerations into footnotes or endnotes.
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