Meredith Jones (author)
Meredith Rachael Jones (born 1965) is an Australian cultural theorist, currently employed at Brunel University London as Professor in Arts and Humanities, and as the director of its Institute of Communities and Society.
[6] In 2015, Jones became a Reader in gender and media studies, as well as the Director of the Research Centre for Global Lives, in the College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences at Brunel University London.
[11] She has examined the cultural impact of the availability of graphics-editing software such as Photoshop, which have problematised the ideal of photography as a means to capture an accurate and authentic representation of reality.
She contends that societal attitudes are changing in a way that sees skin as a surface that is increasingly being considered for its visually expressiveness, causing it to take on screen-like properties.
It is hosted on Spotify but also available on Apple Podcasts, Patreon, and YouTube Jones' first book[11] was reviewed by Brenda Weber, Professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University Bloomington,[58] who wrote in Women's Studies Quarterly about it and two other books:[59] Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies by Cressida Heyes,[60] and Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture by Victoria Pitts-Taylor.
[59] Drawing on "representative samples from the current mediascape" and commenting on "television's role in making body-modification practices intelligible," each pays particular attention to the program Extreme Makeover.
[59] This ABC (America) program began in 2002 and led "the putsch for the extreme" that brought "a new level of self-reinvention [into the] mainstream [by turning] [w]hat had formerly been the preserve of Hollywood stars and the terminally rich [into] the new aspiration for those determined to change their image.
"[62] Weber states that each of the books "succeeds in offering a useful and intelligent reading of plastic surgery as a cultural practice that speaks of and shapes our present contemporary moment, in which image functions as indexical to identity".
[59] Each author situates their analysis "within a broader theoretical context of feminism and cultural studies ... using a blended methodological approach [and] ... include complex schools of thought (such as postmodern and poststructural, Foucauldian, and actor–network theories).
She discussed the way in which cosmetic surgery operates at both ends of the mother / infant dyad, with most working "at making the appearance increasingly youthful: dermabrasions ideally create a baby-like skin, blepharoplasties widen the eyes, [and] lip enhancements give the mouth a perpetual baby pout.
"[65] By contrast, breast augmentation emphasises the area that "most differentiates a woman from a child ... [as a] full bosom signifies fertile, sexualised adulthood and represents the opposite of childhood asexuality and innocence.
[4] Jones was inspired to pursue a career in academia from watching her mother study at La Trobe University as a mature age student after winning a scholarship.
