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
... interpretation of the body as a machine and his elaboration of the mind - body dualism , Mon- taigne's visionary comments anticipate the fate of the body and its elabora- tion in Western metaphysical discourse . If Montaigne admits to ...
... interpretation of the body as a machine and his elaboration of the mind - body dualism , Mon- taigne's visionary comments anticipate the fate of the body and its elabora- tion in Western metaphysical discourse . If Montaigne admits to ...
Page 3
... interpretations of bodies , ranging from an understanding of the body in terms of issues of legibility that script its complexion into the fabric of the world , to its abstraction and subsumption within a new order based on the ...
... interpretations of bodies , ranging from an understanding of the body in terms of issues of legibility that script its complexion into the fabric of the world , to its abstraction and subsumption within a new order based on the ...
Page 6
... interpretation . This latter model of embodiment has the advantage of decentering the subjective pres- ence of the body by inscribing the logic of experience within an intersubjec- tive modality based on communication . The capacity of ...
... interpretation . This latter model of embodiment has the advantage of decentering the subjective pres- ence of the body by inscribing the logic of experience within an intersubjec- tive modality based on communication . The capacity of ...
Page 8
... interpretation in Montaigne proliferates and proves to be inexhaustible , because representation as material embodiment opens itself up to multiple interpretations that undermine efforts of subjec- tive closure . It is precisely this ...
... interpretation in Montaigne proliferates and proves to be inexhaustible , because representation as material embodiment opens itself up to multiple interpretations that undermine efforts of subjec- tive closure . It is precisely this ...
Page 18
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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