In preparation for this class session, we read two articles: Enid Schildkrout\u2019s \u201cInscribing the Body\u201d and Arnold Rubin\u2019s \u201cThe Tattoo Renaissance.\u201d Schildkrout\u2019s article presents an overview of anthropological scholarship on tattooing, covering a wide range of topics under the tattooing umbrella. I enjoyed reading about Ahmed and Stacy\u2019s concept of \u201cdermographics,\u201d or \u201chow the skin becomes\u2026meaningful in different cultural contexts\u201d (320). I think it is interesting to imagine the skin as meaningful even when undecorated; the canvas itself has meaning and potential devoid of the artwork placed on it. I also liked the word \u201cdermographics.\u201d Later, Schildkrout made an important point regarding the larger amount of scholarship on piercing versus tattooing. Tattoos become a part of the skin, so when the skin decomposes, tattoos disappear with it. Piercings, due to being metal, outlast a decomposing body, leaving evidence of modification behind. Schildkrout also briefly mentioned tattooing for medical purposes; in addition to talking about Simon Forman, who we learned about in Caplan\u2019s book, he wrote that on certain mummies\u2019 bodies, \u201ccorrelations can be made between the placement of inscriptions and arthritic joints\u201d (326).\u00a0 Additionally, I learned that in most polytheistic Polynesian cultures, though the people were tattooed, the gods were not. Thus, tattooing can be used to separate humanity from divinity. Schildkrout also cited scholars who researched the effects of tourism on tattooing customs in areas such as Papua New Guinea and North Africa. I found the example of the Nuba men interesting; though Schildkrout talked about body painting rather than tattooing, these men began to paint themselves with the most eye-catching designs they could rather than with traditionally meaningful designs for the purpose of better photography.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After finishing Schildkrout\u2019s article, I moved on to Arnold Rubin\u2019s \u201cThe Tattoo Renaissance.\u201d Rubin walked through the career moves of several early influential tattoo artists, whom he divided into two \u201cRenaissance generations.\u201d I loved Rubin\u2019s extensive inclusion of pictures of the work he was discussing. I think my favorite pictures to look at were those of Ed Hardy\u2019s back pieces. They are all so massive and so detailed; I cannot imagine how long and painful they were to complete. I would also love to see how some of these pieces look today, assuming some of the people they are on are still alive. The Bicentennial Backpiece was interesting because of how different it is from a lot of Hardy\u2019s other works. The proportions on the woman feel a little strange, but it is otherwise super well executed. Finally, I was drawn to Leo Zulueta\u2019s Indonesian\/Punk design arm tattoo as well \u2013 it is super bold but also simple. It reminds me a lot of a more classic version of the modern \u201ccyber sigilism\u201d tattoo trend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In preparation for this class session, we read two articles: Enid Schildkrout\u2019s \u201cInscribing the Body\u201d and Arnold Rubin\u2019s \u201cThe Tattoo Renaissance.\u201d Schildkrout\u2019s article presents an overview of anthropological scholarship on tattooing, covering a wide range of topics under the tattooing umbrella. I enjoyed reading about Ahmed and Stacy\u2019s concept of \u201cdermographics,\u201d or \u201chow the skin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11910,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}