The Culture of the Body: Genealogies of Modernity (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

A cultural history of the evolution of the modern body, as glimpsed at six critical moments | What 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.

What 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.

Contents......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 I. Baroque Embodiments......Page 26 1. Montaigne's Scriptorial Bodies: Experience, Sexuality, Style......Page 28 2. Emblematic Legacies: Regendering the Hieroglyphs of Desire......Page 54 II. Cartesian Bodies, Virtual Bodies......Page 78 3. The Automaton as Virtual Model: Anatomy, Technology, and the Inhuman......Page 80 4. Spectral Metaphysics: Errant Bodies and Bodies in Error......Page 96 5. Incorporations: Royal Power, or the Social Body in Corneille's The Cid......Page 122 III. Materialist Machines......Page 144 6. Men-Machines......Page 146 7. Sex at the Limits of Representation......Page 160 Conclusion......Page 182 Notes......Page 192 Bibliography......Page 224 Index......Page 236 ISBN13,9780472097425,(cloth),ISBN13,9780472067428,(paper),ISBN13,9780472023219,(electronic) University of Michigan Press Contents 12 Introduction 14 I. Baroque Embodiments 26 1. Montaigne's Scriptorial Bodies: Experience, Sexuality, Style 28 2. Emblematic Legacies: Regendering the Hieroglyphs of Desire 54 II. Cartesian Bodies, Virtual Bodies 78 3. The Automaton as Virtual Model: Anatomy, Technology, and the Inhuman 80 4. Spectral Metaphysics: Errant Bodies and Bodies in Error 96 5. Incorporations: Royal Power, or the Social Body in Corneille's The Cid 122 III. Materialist Machines 144 6. Men-Machines 146 7. Sex at the Limits of Representation 160 Conclusion 182 Notes 192 Bibliography 224 Index 236