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Somatic Desire

Recovering Corporeality in Contemporary Thought

Edited by Sarah Horton; Stephen Mendelsohn; Christine Rojcewicz and Richard Kearney - Contributions by Christine Rojcewicz; Andrea Staiti; Brian Treanor; Richard Kearney; Gonçalo Marcelo; Sarah Horton; Emmanuel Falque; John Manoussakis; Stephen Mendelsohn; Richard Rojcewicz; Miguel de Beistegui; Alphonso Lingis and Christopher Yates

The essays in this volume all ask what it means for human beings to be embodied as desiring creatures—and perhaps still more piercingly, what it means for a philosopher to be embodied. In taking up this challenge via phenomenology, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of literature, the volume questions the orthodoxies not only of Western metaphysics but even of the phenomenological tradition itself. We miss much that has philosophical import when we exclude the somatic aspects of human life, and it is therefore the philosopher’s duty now to rediscover the meaning inherent in desire, emotion, and passion—without letting the biases of any tradition determine in advance the meaning that reveals itself in embodied desire. Continental philosophers have already done much to challenge binary oppositions, and this volume sets out a new challenge: we must now also question the dichotomy between being at home and being alienated. Alterity is not simply something out there, separate from myself; rather, it penetrates me through and through, even in my corporeal experience. My body is both my own and other; I am other than myself and therefore other than my body. Additionally, this book is a conversation, not a presentation of a new orthodoxy. Thus, the hope is that these essays will open the way for further dialogue that will continue to radically rethink our understanding of embodied desire. Gathered together here are twelve essays that address these issues from deeply interrelated albeit unique perspectives from within the field.

Lexington Books

Pages: 234 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-4985-8144-8 • Hardback • January 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-8145-5 • eBook • January 2019 • $99.50 • (£77.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Metaphysics, Philosophy / Aesthetics, Philosophy / Mind & Body, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

Somatic Desire

Recovering Corporeality in Contemporary Thought

Hardback

eBook

Summary

The essays in this volume all ask what it means for human beings to be embodied as desiring creatures—and perhaps still more piercingly, what it means for a philosopher to be embodied. In taking up this challenge via phenomenology, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of literature, the volume questions the orthodoxies not only of Western metaphysics but even of the phenomenological tradition itself. We miss much that has philosophical import when we exclude the somatic aspects of human life, and it is therefore the philosopher’s duty now to rediscover the meaning inherent in desire, emotion, and passion—without letting the biases of any tradition determine in advance the meaning that reveals itself in embodied desire. Continental philosophers have already done much to challenge binary oppositions, and this volume sets out a new challenge: we must now also question the dichotomy between being at home and being alienated. Alterity is not simply something out there, separate from myself; rather, it penetrates me through and through, even in my corporeal experience. My body is both my own and other; I am other than myself and therefore other than my body. Additionally, this book is a conversation, not a presentation of a new orthodoxy. Thus, the hope is that these essays will open the way for further dialogue that will continue to radically rethink our understanding of embodied desire. Gathered together here are twelve essays that address these issues from deeply interrelated albeit unique perspectives from within the field.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 234 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-4985-8144-8 • Hardback • January 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-8145-5 • eBook • January 2019 • $99.50 • (£77.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Metaphysics, Philosophy / Aesthetics, Philosophy / Mind & Body, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

Author

Sarah Horton is teaching fellow in philosophy at Boston College.

Stephen Mendelsohn is teaching fellow in philosophy at Boston College.

Christine Rojcewicz is teaching fellow in philosophy at Boston College.

Richard Kearney is Charles H. Seelig chair of philosophy at Boston College.

Table of Contents

Section I: “Somatic Desire: Uncovering Corporeality in Phenomenology and Hermeneutics” Christine Rojcewicz
Chapter One: “Desire, Body, and Freedom: Themes from Husserl's ‘Studies on the Structures of Consciousness’” Andrea Staiti (Università degli Studi di Parma)
Chapter Two: “Lateralization and Leaning: Somatic Desire as a Model for Supple Wisdom” Brian Treanor (Loyola Marymount University)
Chapter Three: “The Recovery of the Flesh in Ricoeur and Merleau-Ponty” Richard Kearney (Boston College)
Chapter Four: “Ricoeur on the Body – A Response to Richard Kearney” Gonçalo Marcelo (Universidade de Coimbra / Católica Porto Business School)

Section II: “The Body in Love and Sickness” Sarah Horton
Chapter Five: “Embrace and Differentiation: A Phenomenology of Eros” Emmanuel Falque (L’Institut Catholique de Paris) and Richard Kearney (Boston College)
Chapter Six: “Toward an Ethics of the Spread Body” Emmanuel Falque (L’Institut Catholique de Paris)
Chapter Seven: “Dying to Desire: Soma, Sema, Sarx, and Sex” John Panteleimon Manoussakis (College of the Holy Cross)

Section III: “The Inscribed Body: Text and the Afterlife of the Flesh” Stephen Mendelsohn
Chapter Eight: “Anxiety, Melancholy, and Shrapnel” Richard Rojcewicz (Duquesne University)
Chapter Nine: “The Poetics of Lack and the Problem of Ground in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger” Christopher Yates (University of Virginia)
Chapter Ten: “From the Writing of Desire to the Desire of Writing: Reflections on Proust” Miguel de Beistegui (The University of Warwick).
Chapter Eleven: “Miracle” Alphonso Lingis (Pennsylvania State University)

Somatic Desire

Recovering Corporeality in Contemporary Thought

Somatic Desire

Recovering Corporeality in Contemporary Thought

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