The Body as Text establishes the importance of cultural readings of the Body. Focusing on various bodies that cultures establish in their indigenous dialogues, the book moves through readings incorporated by/in classical witchcraft, Iron-age bog people of Northern Europe, and pornography.
The Landscape of the Mind concerns itself with cultural ways of finding meaning in and imposing meaning on a specific landscape, the American West. The book traces these transformations from early Spanish explorers, to Native Americans, to Mountain Men, to The Cowboy, to an immigrant group (the Mormons), to current images. No book now in print has dealt with the nature of such transformations. The book is a direct response to Elias Canetti's insightful comment that, «The talent for transformation which has given man so much power over all other creatures has as yet scarcely been considered or begun to be understood.»