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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 38
Page 1
... existence . Rather than treating the body as a given , these studies compel us to question and explore its conditions of possibility . However , this effort to inquire into the construction of the body must take into account the ...
... existence . Rather than treating the body as a given , these studies compel us to question and explore its conditions of possibility . However , this effort to inquire into the construction of the body must take into account the ...
Page 5
... existence . This disembodiment of subjectivity , accompa- nied by the mechanical reduction of the body , has important consequences , since embodiment will cease to define the condition of the lived , experiential body and will refer ...
... existence . This disembodiment of subjectivity , accompa- nied by the mechanical reduction of the body , has important consequences , since embodiment will cease to define the condition of the lived , experiential body and will refer ...
Page 7
... materiality no longer references the subject of knowl- edge , nor its modalities of existence as a representational entity . Devoid of any formal or conceptual potential , the objective materiality of Introduction • 7.
... materiality no longer references the subject of knowl- edge , nor its modalities of existence as a representational entity . Devoid of any formal or conceptual potential , the objective materiality of Introduction • 7.
Page 8
... existence , finds itself speaking , unable to escape the materiality of representation . The disembodiment of the sub- ject that underlies its definition as " I think , therefore I am " marks its virtual existence , its hypostatic ...
... existence , finds itself speaking , unable to escape the materiality of representation . The disembodiment of the sub- ject that underlies its definition as " I think , therefore I am " marks its virtual existence , its hypostatic ...
Page 12
... existence . The body is presented as a parody of the Cartesian logic of the machine , since it is saturated with forms of activ- ity whose violent nature it cannot sustain without destroying the very mean- ing of sexuality as embodied ...
... existence . The body is presented as a parody of the Cartesian logic of the machine , since it is saturated with forms of activ- ity whose violent nature it cannot sustain without destroying the very mean- ing of sexuality as embodied ...
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