Abstract

Mairin Odle is assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama. Her first book, Skin Deep: Tattoos, Scalps, and the Contested Language of Bodies in Early America, is forthcoming from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Her work explores how cross-cultural body modifications in early America remade both physical appearances and ideas about identity. Focusing on indigenous practices of tattooing and scalping, the book traces how these practices were adopted and transformed by colonial powers.