Body and Flesh: A Philosophical Reader

The concept of the body is one of the most recent, and hotly contested areas of inquiry among philosophers today. This volume captures the different theoretical approaches at the core of the current discussion and offers studies that deal with various aspects of the constitution of the body. It is designed primarily to be used on upper–level undergraduate and graduate courses, such as philosophy of the Body, Philosophical Psychology, Gender Studies, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy, and will also be useful as a primary source for philosophers seeking a deeper understanding of the topic. Attempting to cut a third way between the usual alternatives of social Constructionist and Naturalist approaches to the body, this collection turns to both the biological and the social sciences as a starting point for an adequate critique of the body, before moving to offer a cultural analysis. The volume blends seminal essays with the new and original pieces to take the analysis into new areas, and includes contributions from Judith Butler, Susan Bordo, Rom Harré, Maxine Sheets–Johnstone, Mary Rawlinson, Hubert Dreyfus, and Iris Young.

Acknowledgements. Introduction. Situating the Body: Donn Welton. Part I: Contested Constructions: . 1. Sex and Gender. Man and Woman: Rom Harré. 2. Gender and Performance. Selections from Gender Trouble : Judith Butler. 3. Power, Practice, and the Body. "Material Girl": The Effacements of Postmodern Culture: Susan Bordo. 4. The Question of Materiality. Material Bodies: Susan Heckman;. Selection from Bodies that Matter : Judith Butler;. Bringing Body to Theory: Susan Bordo. 5. Renaturalization Theory. Renaturalizing the Body (with the Help of Merleau–Ponty): Carol Bigwood. Part II: Constitutional Matrices: . 6. Lived Body. A Tale of Two Bodies: the Cartesian Corpse and the Lived Body: Drew Leder. 7. Body Image and Body Schema. Body Image and Body Schema in a Deafferented Subject: Shaun Gallagher and Jonathan Cole. 8. Natural Powers and Animate Form. Corporeal Archetypes and Power: Preliminary Clarifications and Considerations of Sex: Maxine Sheets–Johnstone. 9. Affectivity and Eros. Affectivity, Eros and the Body: Donn Welton. 10. Habitualities. The Ghost of Embodiment: on Bodily Habitudes and Schemata: Edward Casey. Part III: The Flesh of Culture: . 11. Biblical Roots. Biblical Bodies: Donn Welton. 12. Situated Bodies. Throwing like a Girl: Iris Young;. Pregnant Embodiment: Iris Young;. "Throwing like a Girl": Twenty Years Later: Iris Young. 13. Slender Bodies. Reading the Slender Body: Susan Bordo. 14. Regimented Bodies. Male Bodies and the "White Terror": Klaus Theweleit. 15. Sculpted Bodies. Women and the Knife: Cosmetic Surgery and the Colonization of Women′s Bodies: Katherine Pauly Morgan. 16. Virtual Bodies. Bodies, Virtual Bodies and Technology: Don Ihde. Index.

Donn Welton is Associate Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has served as the Chair of Philosophy Department at Stony Brook and as co–director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, and has published widely on philosophical psychology, philosophy of the body, and issues in contemporary continental philosophy.

"It may be the most comprehensive and impressive collection to date." Dorothea Olkowski, University to Denver "The volume provides an excellent survey of theories of the body that have been advanced during the Nineties" Lieke van der Scheer, Ethical Perspectives 5