Area chair
The Body Art and Images area examines a wide range of contemporary and historical bodily practices—including but not limited to piercing, tattooing, scarification, styling, sculpting, and painting. As an area of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association, we recognize the need to be an interdisciplinary outlet. In order to further our understanding of the body and cultural practices around its manipulation or its uses for expression, we hope to include a diversity of perspectives (historical, sociological, psychological, religious, indigenous, etc.), experiences (personal, artistic, and/or those of both artists using their own bodies as canvas or those whose work it is to assist others in bodily forms of expression, and others), and theoretical interpretations from a variety of specializations (scientific studies of tattoos, gender-based studies on body art, critical theory, aesthetics, etc.). We are interested in building a community of people who share this vision.