Recent Work in Moral Anthropology

This special focus issue brings to the Journal of Religious Ethics fresh considerations of moral anthropology as practiced by four emergent voices within the field. Each of these essays, in varying ways, seeks not only to advance an understanding of ethics in a particular time, place, and context, but to draw our attention to shared aspects of the human condition: its discontinuities and fractures, its practices of perception and attention, its interplays of emotion, intuition, and reason, and its thoroughly intersubjective nature. To learn something of Thai Buddhist life‐worlds, contemporary Russian modes of being, or the experience of immorality in today's China, each essay argues in turn, is to gain new insight into ourselves.     

The Deceiving Mirror. Altered Body Perception and Alexithymia in a Group of Sports Adolescents and Adults

Recent literature emphasizes an altered perception of the body in subjects practicing sport to pursue an ideal body image. Sometimes such bodily misperception is associated with the inability to recognize and express emotions, and addiction to sport. This research investigates the relationship between body image and alexithymia in a group of 363 sportive adolescents and adults, including 78 males and 285 females, aged 11 to 68?years. Participants completed the Anamnestic Data Questionnaire, Body Uneasseness Test, and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Results highlight differences between adolescents and adults, especially about externally oriented thinking, concern for body image, and compulsive self-monitoring.     

The virtual body of Christ and embrace of the seriously ill

ABSTRACT

Since the time of the Apostle Paul, the body of Christ has always been a virtual body, made up of members who were not always physically present to one another but were nevertheless part of the same catholic community. Virtual presence in today’s society comes most often via digital technology, a reality that prompts many Christian leaders and theologians to warn of the dangers of disembodied existence. This paper challenges the claim that virtual presence via digital technology is necessarily an inferior form of presence. Using autoethnographic research of living with advanced-stage cancer, the author explores how virtual connection via technology can sometimes be a superior form of presence for those undone by illness and other traumas. The article concludes with a call to churches to draw on biblical, theological, and liturgical resources to help imagine how digital devices can be used to practice healing forms of attentiveness to those who need it most.     

Differences in personality characteristics between body-modified and non-modified individuals: associations with individual personality traits and their possible evolutionary implications

After a long history of negative stigmatisation, the practices of tattooing and body piercing have become fashionable in the last decade. Today, 10% of the population in modern western societies have some form of body modification. The aim of this study was to quantify the demographic and personality traits of tattooed and pierced individuals and to compare them with a control group of individuals without body modifications. These comparisons are based on questionnaires completed by 359 individuals that investigate the details of body modification, and which incorporate five personality scales. We describe several sex differences in ornament style and location. We found no relevant differences between modified and non-modified individuals in relation to demographic variables. This indicates that some of the traditional attitudes towards tattoos and piercings appear to be outdated. However, we found striking differences in personality traits which suggest that body-modified individuals are greater sensation seekers and follow a more unrestricted mating strategy than their non-modified contemporaries. We discuss these differences in light of a potential signalling function of tattoos and piercings in the mating context. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Positively Embodied Approach to Psychotherapy

Abstract

This article introduces a practical model for therapists to promote recovery from eating and body image problems in their clients. The history of The Body Positive, a nonprofit eating disorders prevention organization that addresses the impact of gender and other intersecting identities on body image, is shared. Five competencies are offered that were developed through The Body Positive’s feminist-informed process of dialog with students engaged in activism against sizeism in their communities. The competencies (Reclaim Health, Practice Intuitive Self Care, Cultivate Self Love, Declare Your Own Authentic Beauty, and Build Community) offer resources to support therapists to model an alive, attuned relationship to their own bodies as well as skills to guide their clients to a kinder and more passionate embodiment.     

Mainstream body‐character breach films and subjectivization

The authors analyze a unique cinematic corpus – ‘body‐character breach films’ (one character, initially played by a certain actor, occupies the body of another character) – demonstrating Lacan's notion of traversing the fantasy, both on the level of the films’ diegesis and that of spectatorship. Breaching the alliance between actors and their characters perturbs the viewer's fantasy of wholeness enabled by this very alliance. Consequently, a change in subject/spectatorial position in relation to the lack in the Other is induced, enhanced through the visualization of various scenarios of unconscious fantasies (mostly incest). These are meant to unsettle the spectator into an awareness of how a conscious fantasy conceals another unconscious fundamental fantasy, thereby encouraging a change in spectatorial position (from ‘perverse’/fetishistic to ‘neurotic’). Conflating this change with Lacan's notion of traversing the fantasy, the authors contend that mainstream cinema has the capacity to induce a process of subjectivization (assuming responsibility for one's own desire). This process is contingent on four conditions: identification with the protagonist's fantasy to conceal the lack in the Other; dissolution of this fantasy, initiated by the body‐character breach; rhetorical strategies (the coding of unconscious scenarios cinematically); and an ethical dimension (encouraging the subject/spectator to follow her/his desire).     

青少年身体不满意与自杀意念的关系:一个有调节的中介模型

为考察青少年对身体的满意度和自杀意念的关系，探讨自尊是否在青少年身体不满意和自杀意念的关系中起中介作用，以及这个过程是否受到友谊质量的调节作用。采用身体不满意量表、自杀意念量表、自尊量表和友谊质量量表对来自湖北、安徽、河南、吉林四省六所高中的802名高一学生进行调查，结果显示：（1）身体不满意对自杀意念具有显著的正向预测作用；（2）自尊在身体不满意和自杀意念的关系中起部分中介作用；（3）友谊质量在身体不满意通过自尊影响自杀意念的中介模型后半段起调节作用，即在友谊质量较低的青少年中，自尊对自杀意念的影响更大。因此，青少年身体不满意和自杀意念之间存在有调节的中介效应。