Karín Lesnik-Oberstein is Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Reading

• 1. The last taboo: women, body hair and feminism - Karín Lesnik-Oberstein2. ‘The wives of geniuses I have sat with’: body hair, genius, and modernity - Daniela Caselli3. A history of pubic hair or reviewers’ responses to Terry Eagleton’s 'After Theory' - Louise Tondeur4. Hairs on the lens: female body hair on the screen - Alice Macdonald5. ‘La justice, c’est la femme à barbe !’: the bearded lady, displacement and recuperation in Apollinaire’s ‘Les mamelles de Tirésias’ - Stephen Thomson6. ‘That wonderful phænomenon’: female body hair and English literary tradition - Carolyn D. Williams7. 'Fur' or hair: l’effroi et l’attirance of the wild-woman - Jacqueline Lazú8. Designers’ bodies: women and body hair in contemporary art and advertising - Laura Scuriatti9. Bikini fur and fur bikinis - Sue Walsh10. Women with beards in early modern Spain - Sherry Velasco11. On Frida Kahlo’s moustache: A reading of 'Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair and its criticism - Neil Cocks

This is a genuinely entertaining and informative book that reveals body hair as a vital methodological lens by which to illuminate not only practices of regulation around gender and sexuality, but also highlighting how these are linked to 'race', colonialism and ultimately to to the ambiguities and efforts to contain the uncertain and fragile boundaries constructed within modern western culture between nature and culture.'