Digital world, lifeworld, and the phenomenology of corporeality

The contemporary world is characterised by the pervasive presence of digital technologies that play a part in almost every aspect of our life. An urgent and much-debated issue consists in evaluating the repercussions of these technologies on our human condition. In this paper, I tackle this issue from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. I argue that phenomenology offers a contribution to our understanding of the implications of digital technologies, in the light of its analysis of the essential structures of human experience, and especially of its corporeal grounding. In the light of this analysis, it is possible to investigate the ways in which these essential structures are affected by digital technologies. In particular, it is possible to highlight the ways in which some digital technologies involve a process of disembodiment or simply a superficial embodiment of experience

Femme-liminale: corporeal performativity in death metal

Given the research undertaken into notions of Dark Leisure (Spracklen, 2013), space becomes an engendered negotiated terrain not only in terms of performing masculine inscribed music such as Death Metal but occupying space within the scene itself. Claiming identity through mapping one's relationship to societal constructs of self and notions of belonging within peripheric and marginalised music forms such as Death Metal means that gender becomes foregrounded. Death Metal in its socio-musical constructs is male; the virtuosity and dexterity required to compose and perform it has its legacy in patriarchal cultural practices such as lead guitar solos and traditional band formations being occupied in the majority by men. There are of course exceptions to the rule but they do not occupy leading positions in the genre. There exists a preconceived notion that girls can’t play guitar, let alone Death Metal because its difficulty levels exceed a traditional three chord structure. Women’s involvement is restricted to either bass under the assumption that it is easier than guitar (White Zombie, Bolt Thrower) or in some instances vocals However this is dealt with as a novelty; Angela Gossow (Ex- Arch Enemy) providing a viable example. Whilst an anti-hegemonic, anti-establishment ideological position is maintained in Death Metal, for women who transgress the boundary between audience member or “girlfriend” of a band member, to performing Death Metal, the liminality of experience means occupying a patriarchal space at the same time as transgressing sexist and sexualised gender tropes. Whilst it can be noted that men within the Death Metal scene do not necessarily knowingly ascribe to societal gender constructs as an overt operational paradigm of behaviour, seeing as no single person can divorce themselves in totality away from contemporary cultural texts and practices, fundamental gender codes underpin interaction on and off stage. For women who perform Death Metal, the choice to either accept or deny constructs of femininity and ‘sexiness’ exists as polemics; to acknowledge the male gaze or to reject it can act as primary signification of manoeuvrability within the scene. This paper seeks to deconstruct notions of gender performativity, subversion and extreme metal in order to present a narrative on liminality, sexualisation and corporeality

Coming, Going, and Knowing. Reading Sex and Embodiment in Hebrew Narrative

This article both summarizes and analyzes recent feminist scholarship in literary studies and, in light of that analysis, examines a range of Hebrew terms for sexual intercourse. Particular attention is paid to Genesis and Judges

The somatechnics of enfreakment: literary articulations of the body

Lately, the Victorian freak show has attracted scholarly and literary attention alike. New critical approaches to the freak show set the European exhibition of human corporeal deviance apart from the American side show as popularized by P. T. Barnum. Topics ranging from, the social context of freakery (Tromp et al. 2008) and the cultural history of enfreakment (Kérchy, Zittlau et al. 2012), to the significance of disability in Victorian literature (Craton 2009) and the spectacle of deformity (Durbach 2009) have been addressed by scholars who are concerned with the ethics of embodied difference. In the twenty-first century, the Victorian world of spectacle has emerged as a separate ramification within neo-Victorian literature—this densely visual narrative mode sets up an apt socio-historical frame to delve into the social construction of embodied subjectivities. The present paper explores neo-Victorian enfreakment through the lens of somatechnics reading “[e]mbodiment as the incarnation or materialisation of historically and culturally specific discourses and practises” (Sullivan and Murray, 3). My principal aim is to examine the epistemological speculation of (un)intelligible corporeality by analysing the intersection of gender and ideology on the body. By delving into neo-Victorian reinventions of the divergent body, I seek to address the formation and representation of the complexities of the embodied self. With this objective in mind, I will analyse how the neo-Victorian mode interlocks the Victorian freak-show discourse with the reader perspective to bring subjective responses to corporeality, humanity and normativity to the forefront, and in doing so, turns an exploitative space as the freak show into a site of self-reliance, self-expression and even fulfilment.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

The racist bodily imaginary: the image of the body-in-pieces in (post)apartheid culture

This paper outlines a reoccurring motif within the racist imaginary of (post)apartheid culture: the black body-in-pieces. This disturbing visual idiom is approached from three conceptual perspectives. By linking ideas prevalent in Frantz Fanon’s description of colonial racism with psychoanalytic concepts such as Lacan’s notion of the corps morcelé, the paper offers, firstly, an account of the black body-in-pieces as fantasmatic preoccupation of the (post)apartheid imaginary. The role of such images is approached, secondly, through the lens of affect theory which eschews a representational ‘reading’ of such images in favour of attention to their asignifying intensities and the role they play in effectively constituting such bodies. Lastly, Judith Butler’s discussion of war photography and the conditions of grievability introduces an ethical dimension to the discussion and helps draw attention to the unsavory relations of enjoyment occasioned by such images

Contemporary Representations of the Female Body: Consumerism and the Normative Discourse of Beauty

In the context of the perpetual reproduction of consumerism in contemporary western societies, the varied and often contradictory principles of third wave feminism have been misunderstood or redefined by the dominant economic discourse of the markets. The lack of homogeneity in the theoretical debates of the third wave feminism seems to be a vulnerable point in the appropriation of its emancipatory ideals by the post-modern consumerist narratives. The beauty norm, particularly, brings the most problematic questions forth in the contemporary feminist dialogues. In this paper I will examine the validity of the concept of empowerment through practices of the body, practices that constitute the socially legitimized identity of women in a consumerist western society. My thesis is that the beauty norm is constructed as a socio-political instrument in order to preserve the old, patriarchal regulation of women’s bodies. Due to the power of invisibility of the new mechanisms of social control and subjection, the consumerist discourse offers the most effective political tool for gender inequality and a complex discussion about free will and emancipation in third wave feminism debates. This delicate theoretical issues question not only the existent social order, but the very political purposes of contemporary feminism

Embodied in a metaverse: "anatomia" and "body parts"

In this paper, the artist/author wishes to examine corporeality in the virtual realm, through the usage of the (non)-physical body of the avatar. Two sister art installations created in the virtual world of Second Life®, both of which are meant to be accessed with site specific avatars, will provide the creative platform whereby this investigation is undertaken. While the installation “Anatomia” wishes to propel the visitor towards reflections of an introverted nature, involving the fragility of the physical self; “body parts” seeks to challenge the residents of virtual environments into connecting with the virtual manifestations, i.e., avatars, of others in an emotionally expressive/intimate manner

Writing biology with mutant mice: the monstrous potential of post genomic life

Social scientific accounts identified in the biological grammars of early genomics a monstrous reductionism, ‘an example of brute life, the minimalist essence of things’ (Rabinow, 1996, p. 89). Concern about this reductionism focused particularly on its links to modernist notions of control; the possibility of calculating, predicting and intervening in the biological futures of individuals and populations. Yet, the trajectories of the post genomic sciences have not unfolded in this way, challenging scientists involved in the production and integration of complex biological data and the interpretative strategies of social scientists honed in critiquing this reductionism. The post genomic sciences are now proliferating points from which to understand relations in biology, between genes and environments, as well as between species and spaces, opening up future possibilities and different ways of thinking about life. This paper explores the emerging topologies and temporalities of one form of post genomic research, drawing upon ethnographic research on international efforts in functional genomics, which are using mutant mice to understand mammalian gene function. Using vocabularies on the monstrous from Derrida and Haraway, I suggest an alternative conceptualisation of monstrosity within biology, in which the ascendancy of mice in functional genomics acts as a constant supplement to the reductionist grammars of genomics. Rather than searching for the minimalist essence of things, this form of functional genomics has become an exercise in the production and organization of biological surplus and excess, which is experimental, corporeal and affective. The uncertain functioning of monsters in this contexts acts as a generative catalyst for scientists and social scientists, proliferating perspectives from which to listen to and engage with the mutating landscapes, forms of life, and languages of a post genomic biology

Feminist Geopolitics: Material States

No abstract available

Theodora Skipitares’s textual bodies

Accepted manuscrip