ABSTRACT
The history of self-inflicted starvation — variously conceptualised as asceticism, evil, spectacle, martyrdom, insanity, hysteria, self-empowerment and ‘beauty' – has been a long, multi-faceted, and largely female one. From the medical curiosity of fasting saints and hysterical women to the post/modern quest towards individuation and self-identity through ‘management' of the-body-as-project, anorexia nervosa has inspired and yielded an increasingly detailed and sophisticated understanding of its complex and wide-ranging motivation, meaning and expression (Saunderson and O'Kane, 1999).
