Body

“Beauty and Concepts of the Ideal,” in A Cultural History of the Human Body, Vol. 6: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Modern Age, Ivan Crozier, ed. (London: Berg, 2010), 127-45. Uncorrected page proofs.

by Christopher E. Forth

HIV Interventions: Beyond the flesh/information distinction (Review essay)

by Mizanur Rahaman

(2012) 21 Science as Culture (forthcoming)

Contemporary Post-postmodernism: Transfiguring the Imperfect Human Body

by Claire Jones

My undergraduate thesis.

"A Living Relic: Venice’s Doge and His Paradoxical Two Bodies"

by Michelle Laughran

Presented April 2, 2012 at the Royal Body Conference at Royal Holloway University of London, UK

Analysis of the dual role of the doge as titular ruler and yet simultaneously primus inter pares, following the lines... more Analysis of the dual role of the doge as titular ruler and yet simultaneously primus inter pares, following the lines of a Kantorowiczian political theology is, of course, not new in Venetian studies. Paradoxically, though, Kantorowicz is not seamlessly transferable to the Venetian context, however rampant dual-body imagery was in the city’s ceremonial life. After all, the king’s immortal body royal had to depend symbiotically on its body natural, relying upon the later’s unique capacity for biological reproduction in order to ensure continuity of the dynastic bloodline which would allow the monarchy, at least in theory, both to endure in perpetuity. In Venice, however, such a formulation was impossible, not least because, as part of the measures to limit potential ducal reigns, doges – like popes – tended to be elected at an advanced age. Hence, a different formulation of the two-bodies model had to be devised for the Venetian context. Only by becoming the living incarnation of the relics of Saint Mark could the otherwise constitutionally (and perhaps, for that matter, even biologically) largely impotent doge manage to embody both a widely-recognized, powerfully stabilizing influence and a monarchic sacrality.

The Modern Concept of Fashion and its Origins in Romanticism

by Yvonne Foerster-Beuthan

draft only,
forthcoming in Limbus, Australian Yearbook of German Literary and Cultural Studies, Rombach: 2012

In this essay I briefly survey central aspects of the modern concept of fashion that in the period around 1800 were... more In this essay I briefly survey central aspects of the modern concept of fashion that in the period around 1800 were not only relevant to the debate about fashion itself but also in Romantic thought. What is especially significant for the modern is the idea that fashion is a medium of individuality, which for its part is important in civil society as a characteristic feature of an educated citizenry. This development away from a condemnation of fashion as something purely superficial to a new functional definition based on political and economic considerations is presented in the first half of the paper. It is followed by a second key concept in fashion. Temporality is of crucial importance both for fashion itself and for current fashion happenings in particular. Firstly, the perception of temporality and temporal development of fashion happenings is a condition of understanding fashion conceptually. And secondly temporality is a central element for modern fashion creation, as time itself is made visible in the products of fashion. This should illustrate how the ‘temporality’ of fashion has similarities to central concepts of the Romantics, especially Romantic irony.

Nqabayo's Nomansland: San rock art and the somatic past

by Geoffrey Blundell

Body-Representation & the Construction of Visual Meanings: a few interpretations

by Anabela Pereira

Il corpo da scrivere: dal tatuaggio al piercing

by Marco Menicocci

Published first time in "Pagine del tempo" 3/2000; http://www.FortePiano.it/PaginedelTempo/Materiali/pdtmat014.htm, ISSN 1720-3732

Uso espressivo delle modificazioni del corpo. La trasgressività espressiva è sovente più apparente che reale e gli usi... more Uso espressivo delle modificazioni del corpo. La trasgressività espressiva è sovente più apparente che reale e gli usi espressivi del corpo, apparentemente trasgressivi, si rivelano, nel peggiore dei casi, messaggi coerenti con le strutture di potere; migliore dei casi, solo come grida che sono emesse ma non trovano ricezione: messaggi che partono senza arrivare mai.

Il linguaggio della vagina - Antropornologia 1

by Marco Menicocci

Published in Antrocom Online Journal of Anthropology, 7, 2, 2011; pp. 271-289

La cultura delle masse è oggi una cultura prevalentemente visuale. Tra i segni visuali da tempo in crescita è quello,... more La cultura delle masse è oggi una cultura prevalentemente visuale. Tra i segni visuali da tempo in crescita è quello, caratteristico, della depilazione pubica femminile. Originata all'interno della cultura porno come segno di passività, questa pratica si è incontrata con i simboli della pulizia, dell'igiene, del rispetto, trasformando così il proprio significato in quello di autonomia e libertà. Così le donne possono depilarsi per scopi erotici minimizzando però la valenza sessuale del gesto tramite la tendenza alla super-igiene.

Declerck, G. (2011). L’insoutenable pesanteur de l’être. Pesanteur physique et pesanteur ontologique dans la pensée de Heidegger

by Gunnar Declerck

Complete reference:
Declerck, G. (2011). L’insoutenable pesanteur de l’être. Pesanteur physique et pesanteur ontologique dans la pensée de Heidegger. Revue philosophique de Louvain, vol. 109, n°3, pp.489-525, DOI 10.2143/RPL.109.3.2131168.

Résumé
La finalité de ce texte est de questionner l’usage que fait Heidegger, du début à la fin de son œuvre, du... more Résumé
La finalité de ce texte est de questionner l’usage que fait Heidegger, du début à la fin de son œuvre, du champ lexical de la pesanteur pour exprimer le rapport du Dasein à l’être, rapport pensé sous la figure de la prise en charge. Après avoir rappelé le contexte et les passages où Heidegger mobilise ce champ lexical, et en avoir proposé une interprétation dans l’orbe de la conceptualité de l’analytique existentiale, nous tenterons de mettre à jour les raisons qui ont pu le pousser, en quelque sorte à son insu, à placer le rapport du Dasein à l’être sous le signe du phénomène de pesanteur. Nous chercherons à ce titre à montrer, depuis une description phénoménologique de l’expérience de la pesanteur physique (poids du corps propre aussi bien que poids des objets) que cette convocation du phénomène de poids pour dire l’épreuve ontologique constitutive du Dasein, loin d’être anodine, est motivée par la structure même de ce phénomène – phénomène où le Dasein est conduit à expérimenter de manière privilégiée le « qu’il est et a à être » où se réalise originairement sa compréhension de l’être.

Abstract
The aim of this text is to question the use made by Heidegger, from the start to the end of his work, of the lexical field of weight to express the relationship of Dasein to being, a relationship thought under the modality of taking on a load. Having recalled the context and the passages in which Heidegger mobilises this lexical field, and having proposed an interpretation in the sphere of the conceptuality of the existential analytic, we shall attempt to bring to light the reasons that may have led him, somehow unwittingly, to place the relationship of Dasein to being under the heading of the phenomenon of weight. We shall seek in this regard to show from a phenomenological description of the experience of physical weight (weight of the body proper as well as the weight of objects) that this convocation of the phenomenon of weight to express the ontological experience constitutive of Dasein, far from being anodyne, is motivated by the very structure of this phenomenon – a phenomenon in which Dasein is led to experience in a privileged way the “that he is and has to be” in which his understanding of being is originally realised. (translated by J. Dudley)

Il mondo degli affini. Rappresentazioni, corpi e icone”in Silvia Leonzi (eds.), Michel Maffesoli. Fenomenologie dell’immaginario, Armando, Roma, 2009

by Alessandro Porrovecchio

Co-authored with Giada Fioravanti. ISBN 968-88-6081-414-2

“Pop(ular) Porno. Adolescenti, corpi e socializzazione”, in “Comunicazionepuntodoc”, n. 2, Logo Fausto Lupetti Editore, Bologna, 2010

by Alessandro Porrovecchio

ISBN: 978-88-95962-44-3

“La Re-incarnazione del Leader. Dal doppio corpo del Re al corpo mediale del Premier”, in “Comunicazionepuntodoc”, n. 3, Logo Fausto Lupetti Editore, Bologna, 2010

by Alessandro Porrovecchio

ISBN: 978-88-95962-44-3

“Lui, lei e l’Altro. Il corpo del doppio nella fantascienza”, in “Comunicazionepuntodoc”, n. 4, Logo Fausto Lupetti Editore, Bologna, 2011

by Alessandro Porrovecchio

ISBN: 978-88-95962-44-3

Deleuze’s bodies, philosophical diseases and the thought of illness

by Laura Cull

Like those who inspired him – Spinoza, Nietzsche & Artaud – Deleuze experienced a poor state of health during much... more Like those who inspired him – Spinoza, Nietzsche & Artaud – Deleuze experienced a poor state of health during much of his working life: beginning in 1968 with the first major episode of the pulmonary illness that would dog the philosopher’s body until his fatal defenestration in 1995. But what was the relationship, for Deleuze, between philosophy and illness, between thought and the body in poor health? In his late interview with Claire Parnet, Deleuze proposes that ‘illness sharpens a kind of vision of life or a sense of life’. Rather than merely thinking about one’s illness, one might use a fragile state of health to develop a mode of thought that is more tuned-in to life, Deleuze suggests. Alternatively, in Pure Immanence, Deleuze argues that, for Nietzsche, ‘Illness is not a motive for a thinking subject, nor is it an object for thought: it constitutes, rather, a secret intersubjectivity at the heart of a single individual’. In these ways, and indeed in Nietzsche and Philosophy, Deleuze suggests that illness need not just separate us from our power to act; ‘the same physiological state may weaken some powers but open up new possibilities of feeling or bring about new capacities for acting and being acted upon’. However, in The Logic of Sense, Deleuze also speaks of ‘philosophical diseases’; arguing that idealism, for instance ‘is the illness congenital to the Platonic philosophy’.

This paper will explore the value Deleuze attributes to illness in relation to thought as evidence of his embodied approach to philosophy. Contra Peter Hallward’s recent critique, I will argue against the idea of Deleuze’s thought as an ascetic philosophy that calls for a dissolution of the material self in order to become the adequate vessel for the passage of a dematerialised thought. Rather, I will suggest that the reason why Deleuze is interested in the thought that emerges from illness is because it involves a heightened awareness of our capacity to affect and be affected by other material bodies.

A Lived Hermetic of People and Place: Phenomenology and Space Syntax

by David Seamon

Published in: A. Sema Kubat et al., eds., Proceedings, 6th International Space Syntax Symposium, vol. 1, pp. iii-1-16. Istanbul: ITU, Faculty of Architecture (2007).

This paper examines ways in which a phenomenological approach might contribute to space syntax research, drawing on... more This paper examines ways in which a phenomenological approach might contribute to space syntax research, drawing on three themes that mark the heart of phenomenological investigation: (1) understanding grounded in real-world experience; (2) human immersion in world; and (3) describing the lifeworld—a person or group’s everyday world of taken-for-grantedness of which the person or group is typically unaware. A major phenomenological question is how space syntax concepts, particularly the spatial configuration of the “deformed grid,” point toward a particular kind of place structure in which the spatial-temporal regularity of individual participants potentially coalesces into a larger environmental dynamic—what is termed “place ballet”—that both sustains and is sustained by an attachment to and a sense of place.

Key words: body, body-subject, deformed grid, phenomenology, place, place ballet

Perfected Body, Divine Body and Other Bodies in the Nātha-Siddha Sanskrit Texts

by Lubomír Ondračka

Pre-print of the paper presented at the 13th Sanskrit Conference (Edinburgh 2006).

Body, biometrics and identity

by sonia massari

States of Emergency: Urban Space and the Robotic Body in the Metropolis Tales

by Lawrence Bird

published in "Mechademia", Volume 3, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (December 2008).

The tradition of the oppressed shows us that the “state of emergency” in which we live is not the exception but the... more The tradition of the oppressed shows us that the “state of emergency” in which we live is not the exception but the rule.
—Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”

This paper documents three tellings of "Metropolis": Fritz Lang's film (1926), Osamu Tezuka's manga (1949), and Rintarô's animated film (2001). It makes the case for a political and historical understanding of their imagery of bodies and cities disrupted.

“Tambour-Ka, Cyclones, and Awakenings of Body and Spirit in Pineau’s Macadam Dreams.” New Mango Season: A journal of Caribbean Women Writing 1.1 (2007)

by Jacqueline Couti