[Artmajors] Art History Professor Publishes Ground-Breaking Book on Female Body Image

[Patti Doster]

Art History Professor Publishes Ground-Breaking Book on Female Body Image

July 1, 2018



For ten years, Emily L. Newman has worked on the way that contemporary artists have explored issues surrounding the way that artists explore and address the anxieties, diseases, and celebrations of the female physique. In June of 2018, Routledge, the world's leading academic publisher in the Humanities and Social Sciences, published her first book specifically on the topic. As part of their series, Routledge Research in Gender and Art, Female Body Image in Contemporary Art: Dieting, Eating Disorders, Self-Harm, and Fatness is released at a time when these issues are repeatedly being discussed and addressed at length in society.



Surprisingly, no book exists that addresses these concepts in the visual arts. Covering dozens of artists, Newman looks to examine how issues concerning female body image became a viable topic for artists. As she explains, “Beginning in the 1960s, feminists started to break down barriers, making topics that concerned the female body exclusively much more possible. Through autobiographical performances and videos, women began to share their experiences more than ever before.”



While the book begins in the 1960s, Newman covers artists working up until the present moment. Additionally, she works to expand the fields of media and materials that address the topics, as well as including as many international artists as possible. Yet, at the root of these artists’ concerns about the female body, is the Western preoccupation with thin, idealized white women. In that vein, Newman hopes that this book will begin to chip away at the prioritization of a certain type of body that is inaccessible to most women. These brave artists who share their stories about bariatric surgery or cutting, help to viscerally explain the torture that women have put themselves through to “fit in” to Western society.



Previously, Newman organized a well-received exhibition on the topic in New York and hopes to do so again in the future. Her upcoming projects include an edited collection on Hallmark Television, a co-authored book on Femininity, Sports, and Visual Culture, and a new book project on Contemporary Art on Television.



Newman, an Associate Professor of Art History specializes in contemporary art, gender studies, and popular culture. While teaching at Texas A&M University-Commerce for seven years, she has worked to develop and expand the curriculum to include more diversity, focusing particularly on women artists and artists of color. Prior to this publication, she has coedited two books with former colleague Emily Witsell: ABC Family to Freeform TV: Essays on the Millennial-focused Network and Its Programs and The Lifetime Network: Essays on "Television for Women" in the 21st Century. Additionally, she has published articles on a variety of topics in such journals as Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, The Journal of American Culture, The Journal of Illustration, and The Communication Review. She is also a contributor to Art Focus Oklahoma, and has been interviewed by Jezebel, HuffPost Women, and Marketplace. Additionally, she worked to bring Patrick Doughtery to campus, where his sculpture Deep in the Heart was located in front of the Gee Library for over three years.



This fall, the Department of Art plans to celebrate the book’s release with a lecture and book signing. For more information on Female Body Image in Contemporary Art, see https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.routledge.com_Female-2DBody-2DImage-2Din-2DContemporary-2DArt-2DDieting-2DEating-2DDisorders-2DSelf-2DHarm_Newman_p_book_9780415346801&d=DwIGaQ&c=oqyuZuih6ykib6aKiBq22_bich4AVfYGoLertJN0bEc&r=PwH_G1P90zInP-cEd69CtgMkD48rEM5jsAJHNKQGxec&m=pT4i5gkaFCvy2H-3-g6gAlfJ4hlIOWv9yGAFz8TKoPw&s=J-eieUtaxCvmYFIzdxzyOY5f8KSjjsoh2gkBgqi6ps0&e=.



Patti Doster | Coordinator of Art Activities
Department of Art
Patti.Doster at tamuc.edu <mailto:Patti.Doster at tamuc.edu>

PO Box 3011 | Commerce, TX 75429
Tel. 903.886.5208 | Fax 903.886.5987 | www.tamuc.edu <http://www.tamuc.edu>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.tamuc.edu/pipermail/artmajors/attachments/20180710/d9b9515c/attachment-0001.html>