Schildkrout’s “Inscribing the Body” continues to deepen our understanding and comprehension of the multifaceted purposes of the tattoo as a reflection of one’s identity. Schildkrout alludes to how some view tattooing, scarification, painting as rites of passage, possibly within specific cultures or communities. She mentions how Lévi-Strauss (1963) relayed the idea that the body is “a surface waiting for the imprinting of culture” (Schildkrout 321). Her review consists of three departments which interconnect disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. She explores work done by historians/anthropologists/literary scholars studying historical sources, ethnographic work existing on inscribed bodies outside North America and Europe which has been coined as ‘new ethnography,’ and bodies of literature that address contemporary Western body modification. Schildkrout conveys how Western body art has not only become a practice or fashion, but has become a factor in boundaries concerning gender, class, ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture. One of the major influences connected with Western culture’s acceptance of tattooing was and continues to be tribal practices. One of the points that has already been discussed in our seminar was the multifaceted nature of the tattoo as a form of identity, whether that be a negative connotation or not is dependent on the place, culture and time. She underlines the boundaries between three groups when unraveling tattoos—the first being self and society, the second being between groups, and the third being between humans and divinity (Schildkrout 338). Moreover, Schildkrout raises the proposition of how tattoos have been utilized “to express different kinds of identities in different social contexts,” (Schildkrout 322). She rectifies our understanding that while the body is a canvas, it is also a cultural landscape and where an individual defines and creates themselves.
Rubin’s “The Tattoo Renaissance” concentrates on the vitality and complexity of contemporary tattoo. Similar to the points made in Schildkrout’s essay, Rubin highlights the crossing of boundaries between social sciences and humanities—culture, sociology, psychology, history, culture, art, and anthropology. Rubin compares the vitality of the tattoo to that of magic, believing that the tattoo is the only thing that has remained somewhat mysterious and fascinating in that it comes not from an academic practice, but a more spiritual one. Rubin’s inclusion of images throughout his essay was insightful as one is able to understand and analyze more accurately the emotions and feelings that may have been brought about to create such tattoos.