The Culture of the Body: Genealogies of ModernityWhat is the body? How was it culturally constructed, conceived, and cultivated before and after the advent of rationalism and modern science? This interdisciplinary study elaborates a cultural genealogy of the body and its legacies to modernity by tracing its crucial redefinition from a live anatomical entity to disembodied, mechanical and virtual analogs. The study ranges from Baroque, pre-Cartesian interpretations of body and embodiment, to the Cartesian elaboration of ontological difference and mind-body dualism, and it concludes with the parodic and violent aftermath of this legacy to the French Enlightenment. It engages work by philosophical authors such as Montaigne, Descartes and La Mettrie, as well as literary works by d'Urfé, Corneille and the Marquis de Sade. The examination of sexuality and the emergence of sexual difference as a dominant mode of embodiment are central to the book's overall design. The work is informed by philosophical accounts of the body (Nietzsche, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty), by feminist theory (Butler, Irigaray, Bordo), as well as by literary and cultural historians (Scarry, Stewart, Bynum, etc.) and historians of science (Canguilhem, Pagel, and Temkin), among others. It will appeal to scholars of literature, philosophy, French studies, critical theory, feminist theory, cultural historians and historians of science and technology. Dalia Judovitz is Professor of French, Emory University. She is also author of Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit and Subjectivity and Representation in Decartes: The Origins of Modernity. |
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Page 2
... Descartes's interpretation of the body as a machine and his elaboration of the mind - body dualism , Mon- taigne's ... Descartes in opposition to the mind , this study explores the construc- tion of the body as an entity whose historical ...
... Descartes's interpretation of the body as a machine and his elaboration of the mind - body dualism , Mon- taigne's ... Descartes in opposition to the mind , this study explores the construc- tion of the body as an entity whose historical ...
Page 5
... Descartes's elaboration of a rational subjectivity founded on the primacy of reason entails the redefinition of the body as a machine whose objective reality is sundered from its subjective existence . This disembodiment of subjectivity ...
... Descartes's elaboration of a rational subjectivity founded on the primacy of reason entails the redefinition of the body as a machine whose objective reality is sundered from its subjective existence . This disembodiment of subjectivity ...
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... Descartes's major legacy to modernism . Before proceeding to a more detailed account of the contents of specific chapters , a brief discussion of the critical background and premises of this study becomes necessary in order to elucidate ...
... Descartes's major legacy to modernism . Before proceeding to a more detailed account of the contents of specific chapters , a brief discussion of the critical background and premises of this study becomes necessary in order to elucidate ...
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... Descartes , however , begins a new way of thinking , since as Martin Heidegger has noted , a theory of knowledge now becomes a requirement for all understanding of the world.12 Descartes's demand that philosophical knowledge conform to ...
... Descartes , however , begins a new way of thinking , since as Martin Heidegger has noted , a theory of knowledge now becomes a requirement for all understanding of the world.12 Descartes's demand that philosophical knowledge conform to ...
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... Descartes's redefinition of the organic character of the body as a system for the circulation of blood and the extensive tech- nological analogies of the body to a machine in his earlier writings , includ- ing such works as the ...
... Descartes's redefinition of the organic character of the body as a system for the circulation of blood and the extensive tech- nological analogies of the body to a machine in his earlier writings , includ- ing such works as the ...
Contents
Montaignes Scriptorial Bodies Experience Sexuality Style | 15 |
Emblematic Legacies Regendering the Hieroglyphs of Desire | 41 |
Cartesian Bodies Virtual Bodies | 65 |
The Automaton as Virtual Model Anatomy Technology and the Inhuman | 67 |
Spectral Metaphysics Errant Bodies and Bodies in Error | 83 |
Incorporations Royal Power or the Social Body in Corneilles The Cid | 109 |
Materialist Machines | 131 |
MenMachines | 133 |
Sex at the Limits of Representation | 147 |
Conclusion | 169 |
Notes | 179 |
211 | |
223 | |
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Common terms and phrases
affirmation Alexis allegory analogy analysis animal Astrea baroque becomes Cartesian Celadon character Chimène concept context Corneille's count's critique culture d'Urfé deception defined Descartes Descartes's desire discourse Discourse on Method disembodiment effort elaboration embodiment emerges entity exchange existence experience fiction figurative Foucault French function gender gesture Honoré d'Urfé ical identity imagination insofar interpretation kidney stone king La Mettrie language legacy Lignon literary lived body logic machine Marquis de Sade Maurice Merleau-Ponty Meditations ment merely Merleau-Ponty metaphysical Mettrie Mettrie's Michel Foucault mind Misfortunes of Virtue Montaigne Montaigne's Montaigne's Essays nature notion novel object organization Paris parody perception perverse philosophical pleasure position present principles Querelle du Cid question rational reader reality redefines reflects representation represents rhetorical Rodrigue Rodrigue's Sade Sade's Sadean script senses sexual difference social soul speech style suggests thing thought tion trans transvestism undermined understanding University Press valor virtual