Synopses & Reviews
Naráyanas best-seller gives its reader much more than “Friendly Advice.” In one handy collection—closely related to the world-famous Pañcatantra or
Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom —numerous animal fables are interwoven with human stories, all designed to instruct wayward princes. Tales of canny procuresses compete with those of cunning crows and tigers. An intrusive ass is simply thrashed by his master, but the meddlesome monkey ends up with his testicles crushed. One prince manages to enjoy himself with a merchants wife with her husbands consent, while another is kicked out of paradise by a painted image. This volume also contains the compact version of
King Víkramas Adventures, thirty-two popular tales about a generous emperor, told by thirty-two statuettes adorning his lion-throne.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org
Review
"Dworkin and Wachs have produced the best analysis we have of this crucial moment in the history of sports and gender. They combine real rigor with wit and perceptiveness in a book that will become a standard reference for years to come."
- Toby Miller, author of SportSex
Review
"A terrific critique of the ways that the media create and then sell the desire for perfect (but different) bodies to men and women. Dworkin and Wachs beautifully weave gender theory with empirical analyses of consumer culture for a very readable study."
- Judith Lorber, author of Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives and Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change
Review
"In this critical cultural expose, Dworkin and Wachs peel back the surface layers of the health and fitness craze and reveal a festering, discomfiting malaise about gender and sexuality. If the old feminist slogan, 'Our Bodies, Ourselves' helped women regain control over their bodies, Dworkin and Sachs suggest a new slogan, 'Our Bodies, Our Culture.' For only when we see how our bodies have been taken from us, repackaged and returned as deformed and puny, can we see that we've been sold dis-ease and discomfort in the guise of health and fitness."
"Dworkin and Wachs have produced the best analysis we have of this crucial moment in the history of sports and gender. They combine real rigor with wit and perceptiveness in a book that will become a standard reference for years to come."
"A terrific critique of the ways that the media create and then sell the desire for perfect (but different) bodies to men and women. Dworkin and Wachs beautifully weave gender theory with empirical analyses of consumer culture for a very readable study."
“Body Panic is an excellent media analysis for those interested in gender, cultural, or media studies. . .a book detailing the complex interplay of media message about health in relation to gender, race, class, and sexuality is a welcome addition to the ongoing dialogue on health and fitness.”
Review
"Body Panic is an interesting, careful, and timely book, and my guess is that it will be a valuable source for anyone interested in the sport-body-gender nexus for years to come."-Kevin Young,American Journal of Sociology
Review
“The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance.”
-Willis G. Regier,The Chronicle Review
Review
“No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience.”
-The Times Higher Education Supplement,
Review
“The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes.”
-New Criterion,
Review
“Published in the geek-chic format.”
-BookForum,
Review
“Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs.”
-Tricycle,
Synopsis
Are you ripped? Do you need to work on your abs? Do you know your ideal body weight? Your body fat index? Increasingly, Americans are being sold on a fitness ideal not just thin but toned, not just muscular but cut that is harder and harder to reach. In
Body Panic, Shari L. Dworkin and Faye Linda Wachs ask why. How did these particular body types come to be "fit"? And how is it that having an unfit, or "bad," body gets conflated with being an unfit, or "bad," citizen?
Dworkin and Wachs head to the newsstand for this study, examining ten years worth of men's and women's health and fitness magazines to determine the ways in which bodies are "made" in today's culture. They dissect the images, the workouts, and the ideology being sold, as well as the contemporary links among health, morality, citizenship, and identity that can be read on these pages. While women and body image are often studied together, Body Panic considers both women's and men's bodies side-by-side and over time in order to offer a more in-depth understanding of this pervasive cultural trend.
Synopsis
Dworkin and Wachs analyze 10 years of health and fitness magazines to uncover how bodies are made in popular culture
Are you ripped? Do you need to work on your abs? Do you know your ideal body weight? Your body fat index? Increasingly, Americans are being sold on a fitness ideal--not just thin but toned, not just muscular but cut--that is harder and harder to reach. In Body Panic, Shari L. Dworkin and Faye Linda Wachs ask why. How did these particular body types come to be "fit"? And how is it that having an unfit, or "bad," body gets conflated with being an unfit, or "bad," citizen?
Dworkin and Wachs head to the newsstand for this study, examining ten years worth of men's and women's health and fitness magazines to determine the ways in which bodies are "made" in today's culture. They dissect the images, the workouts, and the ideology being sold, as well as the contemporary links among health, morality, citizenship, and identity that can be read on these pages. While women and body image are often studied together, Body Panic considers both women's and men's bodies side-by-side and over time in order to offer a more in-depth understanding of this pervasive cultural trend.
About the Author
Shari L. Dworkin is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and a Research Scientist at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies (New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University).
Faye Linda Wachs is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Psychology and Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona).