This book examines the confusions and contradictions that manifest in prevalent attitudes towards the body, as well as in related bodily practices.
The body is simultaneously our reference for the certainties of nature and the locus of a desire for transformation and reinvention. The body is at the same time worshipped and despised; an object of desire and of design. Francisco Ortega analyses how the body has become both a screen for the projection of our ideas and imaginings about ourselves and conversely an object of suspicion, anxiety, and discomfort. Addressing practices of corporeal ascesis (such as bodybuilding and dietetics), medical technologies, and radical anatomical modifications, Ortega documents the ambiguous legacy of a western theoretical tradition that has always despised the body.
Utilising a theoretical framework that is mainly informed by the phenomenology of the body, feminist theory, disability studies and the thought of Michel Foucault, Corporeality, Medical Technologies and Contemporary Culture address several ethical and psychological issues associated with the experience and perception of the body in our cultural landscape. Drawing on these diverse areas of philosophical and analytical work, this book will interest those researching Law, Medicine, and Sociology.
Autorentext
Francisco Ortega is Associate Professor at the Institute for Social Medicine of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine of King's College, London (2012-2013).
Zusammenfassung
In France, a country that awards its intellectuals the status other countries give their rock stars, Michel Foucault was part of a glittering generation of thinkers, one which also included Sartre, de Beauvoir and Deleuze. One of the great intellectual heroes of the twentieth century, Foucault was a man whose passion and reason were at the service of nearly every progressive cause of his time. From law and order, to mental health, to power and knowledge, he spearheaded public awareness of the dynamics that hold us all in thrall to a few powerful ideologies and interests. Arguably his finest work, Archaeology of Knowledge is a challenging but fantastically rewarding introduction to his ideas.
Inhalt
1. The body between constructionism and phenomenology 2. The transparent body. Toward a phenomenological critique of the medical visualization of the body 3. From ascesis to bioascesis 4. Bodies on Trial. Glimpses into the legal implications of biological identities and the challenges of disability.