Marks of Toil: Work and Disfigurement in Literature, Film and Philosophy

Are people nothing more than their physical capital--what their bodies can produce and provide? This philosophical treatise examines the idea of mutational bodies as it has appeared in fiction and cinema since the industrial era, theorizing that capitalism and other modern collective systems require transformations both literal and figurative for the individual to survive. Infringements on individualism include both the concept of eternity, which asks that we resign ourselves to life and d...