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Priscilla is the co-author, along with Manina Jones, of "Detective Agency: Women Rewriting the Hardboiled Tradition"(California, 1999), and author of "Patriarchal Desire and Victorian Discourse: A Lacanian Reading of Anthony Trollope's Palliser Novels" (Toronto, 1995), and "The Disruption of the Feminine in Henry James" (Toronto, 1992). She co-edited "Pop Can: Popular Culture in Canada" (Prentice-Hall, 1999), and edited the Everyman Paperback edition of "Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady". She has also published numerous articles, and is presently the editor of the 'Canadian Review of American Studies'. Her current project is entitled "Our Cannibals Ourselves: The Body Politic".
While much has been written on body sculpting with weights and exercises, little scholarship has devoted itself to medical interventions in bodily fashioning. Kathy Peiss's "Hope in a Jar" focuses on the cosmetic industry, and Elizabeth Haiken's "Venus Envy" provides a cultural history of plastic surgery; however, virtually no attention has been paid to the new beauty aids offered by biotechnology. My paper will concentrate on new products such as botox, which promises (and apparently provides) new and improved facial beauty without invasive medical procedures.
Offering a brief history of cosmetic surgery and then turning to its contemporary usage by both men and women, my paper will explore the potentials and pitfalls of self-fashioning through biotechnologies. In so doing, I will assess current beauty standards, their impact on racial dynamics, as well as the potentialities of biotechnological interventions.
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