Invented Skins: Epidermal Readings in Brazilian Art and Literature

A wide-ranging exploration of skin in text, images, and cultural memory.

Skin is unique to each individual. Acting as a record, it details aspects of a person and a collective memory. Each skin possesses a sensitivity that touches and it is touched by the world. It mediates temperature fluctuations and is marked by cuts, accidents, and its own history. Skin marks us in the world, giving us the outline of individuals. Invented Skins focuses on the skin to consider the social dimension of texts and images throughout cultural memory, showing that skin is a biological reality that occupies a physical and psychic space but also unfolds in the imagination.