Books & ideas

Algorithms and the female silhouette

Hélène Bourdeloie & Solenne Carof — 2026-02-17T06:30:00Z

The female silhouette – understood as the body's visible form and socially perceived appearance – has long been shaped by social norms. In the age of social media, these norms are intensifying, prompting, in response, the rise of so-called “body-positive” movements.

The Weight of Discrimination

Isabel Boni-Le Goff — 2024-05-21T13:30:00Z

Based on a study of the social experience of overweight people in three European countries, Solenne Carof's book explores the logics behind weight-based stigmatization.

The Neglected Rights of the Disabled

David Le Breton — 2021-04-12T07:00:00Z

Despite the many measures designed to promote inclusiveness, it is a struggle for disabled people to exercise their rights. In the face of these vulnerable rights, individuals protest and seek solutions to escape the feeling that they are treated as second-class citizens.

Medicine of the Black Body

Élodie Edwards-Grossi — 2018-10-18T07:00:00Z

The flourishing history of the relationship between race and health has recently turned to the origins of medicine in the United States and the decisive role played by enslaved Africans, both dead and alive. A history of duress, from which their voices nevertheless emerge.

The Administration of Pregnancy

Caroline Muller — 2018-04-26T07:00:00Z

While metropolitan France saw the repression of abortion in the early 20^th century, against a backdrop of pro-natalist policy, pregnancy terminations were encouraged by authorities on Réunion Island after 1945. These practices shed light on a biopower constructed at the intersection of gender, class, and race.

Sloganising Bodies

Maëlle Bazin — 2018-02-01T08:00:00Z

Why do people strip naked in the public space? Under French law, public nudity is considered a form of indecent exposure, however more often than not it is in fact about the pleasure of a lifestyle or about conveying a message.

Immodest Modesty

Marie Gaille — 2016-11-24T08:00:00Z

The Renaissance reinvented modesty – that contradictory passion which reveals while hiding. In a masterful book, Dominique Brancher shows how this art of circumvention spanned a variety of knowledge, especially medical knowledge, in the sixteenth century.

The Culture of Qi

Marceau Chenault — 2016-11-21T08:00:00Z

Qi—“breath” or “energy”—lies at the heart of many traditional Asian practices, be they martial or artistic, that rest upon a broader understanding of mind and body. This concept has now become pervasive in Western ideas of health and spirituality. Could this trend be a positive effect of globalization?

Coding the Body

Igor Martinache — 2016-06-30T07:00:00Z

In contrast to general theories that claim to explain sports practices, a recent book sheds light on the forms of socialization and the institutions that make sports an eminently social phenomenon.

This is their body

Sébastien Roux — 2016-03-24T07:22:18Z

How did the body come to play such a crucial part in the definition of contemporary identities? Relying on studies on transplants, childbirth or people's relation to corpses, Dominique Memmi brings to light what is socially and politically at stake in the fact that the self is rooted in the body.