ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what such an absence of the face does, politically: what political systems it is situated within and what it can tell about how regard persons, humanity, and monstrosity. The chapter begins by exploring two artists responses to facial war wounds: Paddy Hartleys installation work, and Henry Tonks pastel portraits of patients before and after surgery. In contemporary culture, cosmetic surgery is seen as the way to a more attractive appearance, and in the second section of the chapter examines the notions of beauty and symmetry that lie behind that impulse. It is recognised that enormous psychological strain has to be overcomeas well as the almost inevitable episodes of physiological rejection, if a face transplant is to be successful. In the next section of the chapter consider responses to what, in an attempt to unsettle prejudices, is called face difference, rather than facial disfigurement. Facelessness profoundly unsettles notions of the individual subject as separate, distinct and whole.
