Facial reconstruction

Seminar 5 Saving Face(s)

Last week we looked at clinical and social responses to functionally damaged bodies: bodies that were no longer able to fulfil the responsibilities associated with the role of a soldier, a worker, a man or woman. This week we turn to responses less concerned with functionality (with what the perfect body can DO) and more with difference: with how a citizen's body should look, and the degree to which it differs or can be allowed to differ from social and cultural norms. Our first example returns us to wartime, and to the disfiguring effects of battle wounds to the face. While facial injuries do not necessarily reduce their sufferers' physical ability to function in society, they are nonetheless disruptive. What does this tell us about the nature and pursuit of perfection?

Weekly Questions:

• What is distinctive about facial trauma?
• How have societies responded to visible facial difference -- whether produced by trauma or by other causes -- in comparison to traumatic limb loss or mental strain?
• Plastic surgery, reconstructive surgery, cosmetic surgery: what's in a name?
• Can we compare surgeries to correct scars or alter racialised differences to gender-affirming or other identity-reinforcing surgeries?

Readings: See Talis