Body Poly-texts: Discourses of the Anorexic Body

It is now increasingly acknowledged that anorexia nervosa is a ‘culture-bound syndrome’ which must be understood within the context of an increasing idealization of female thinness and a high prevalence of dieting and body dissatisfaction, particularly amongst women and girls. Whilst this socioculturally-oriented perspective is important, it is also simplistic to conceptualize anorexia simply as a ‘slimmer's disease’. The ways in which contemporary Western culture is imbricated in anorexia are both complex and multiple. This paper uses a discourse-analytic approach, informed by feminist Foucauldian theory, to examine some of the multiple and often conflicting meanings and discursive constructions of the (female) anorexic body. The paper is based on a series of interviews conducted with 23 women (21 diagnosed as anorexic and 2 self-diagnosed). The analysis focuses on the explication of two discourses: a romantic discourse and a discourse of Cartesian dualism evidenced in the interviews. By contrasting the very different ways in which these two discourses constitute the anorexic body, this paper aims to provide thereby a socioculturally contextualized and gender-oriented account of the multiple discursive constructions of ‘anorexia nervosa’ and ‘anorexic’ bodies. Implications for psychotherapeutic interventions are discussed.     

Pedagogy Beyond Piracy: Un‐Learning the White Body to Recreate a Body of Learning

This essay highlights a range of questions that arise when white suburban students engage urban neighborhoods of poverty and color in the United States. How can involvement in an “other” context move beyond “educational tourism”? The essay presents a pedagogical style that raises questions of the kind of socialized body one inhabits: either one shaped by presumptions of control and rights of academic observation, or one mobilized to risk involvement in a differently communalized episteme. And while the pedagogy described may not be replicable by faculty who do not share the author's background or cross‐cultural orientation, the rhetorical style of the essay itself enacts the tensions that this pedagogy contends with: the efforts of a white male educator – altered by decades of inner city involvement – to open “white” space in the classroom to other norms of embodiment and other modes of learning. Here is the necessity and impossibility of moving beyond “educational tourism.”     

Merleau–Ponty on the Body

The French philosopher Maurice Merleau–Ponty claims that there are two distinct ways in which we can understand the place of an object when we are visually apprehending it. The first involves an intentional relation to the object that is essentially cognitive or can serve as the input to cognitive processes; the second irreducibly involves a bodily set or preparation to deal with the object. Because of its essential bodily component, Merleau–Ponty calls this second kind of understanding 'motor intentional'. In this paper I consider some phenomenological, conceptual, and cognitive neuro–scientific results that help to elucidate and defend the distinction between intentional and motor intentional activity. I go on to argue that motor intentional activity has a logical structure that is essentially distinct from that of the more canonical kinds of intentional states. In particular, the characteristic logical distinction between the content and the attitude of an intentional state does not carry over to the motor intentional case.     

“Tell me I'm sexy . . . and otherwise valuable”: Body valuation and relationship satisfaction

Although extant research demonstrates that body valuation by strangers has negative implications for women, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that body valuation by a committed male partner is positively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner also values them for their nonphysical qualities, but negatively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner is not committed or does not value them for their nonphysical qualities. Study 3 demonstrates that body valuation by a committed female partner is negatively associated with men's relationship satisfaction when that partner does not also value them for their nonphysical qualities but unassociated with men's satisfaction otherwise. These findings join others demonstrating that fully understanding the implications of interpersonal processes requires considering the interpersonal context.     

身体姿势识别倒置效应量的连续性变化

以生理机制上整体可能身体姿势、整体不可能身体姿势和碎片身体姿势作为材料,系统操纵两个角度差为零的身体姿势偏离其竖直状态的角度,对错误率和反应时进行线性拟合。结果发现:(1)整体可能身体姿势、整体不可能身体姿势的识别错误率和反应时与其偏离直立状态角度之间可以拟合显著的线性关系,而碎片身体姿势的识别错误率和反应时与其偏离直立状态角度之间无法拟合显著的线性关系;(2)整体身体姿势(可能身体姿势和不可能的身体姿势)识别均出现了显著的倒置效应,而碎片身体姿势识别未出现倒置效应。这些结果表明身体姿势识别倒置效应量的延续性依赖于整体布局加工。     

Body Without End: Biological Mutualism and the Body of Christ

This article argues that the ecological turn towards biological mutualism enlivens our understanding of the eschatological promise contained in Christ’s resurrected and ascended body. I examine the implications of proposing that Christ’s body was not only incarnate as microbiome, but also rose and ascended as microbiome. First, I analyse contemporary approaches to Christology’s relation to creation and Andrew Davison’s theological exploration of mutualism. I then respond via Irenaeus’ defence of Christ’s bodily resurrection and ascension as promise for all flesh. By reading Irenaeus in light of the mutualistic body, we enrich our understanding of this promise: of fruitfulness for all creation, of fullness for human nature, and that fleshly life is no ultimate barrier to union with God. Finally, I propose that this reading also offers renewed insight into the Eucharist: this promise and its implications are also made manifest at the heart of the church, Christ’s body on earth.     

身体之为"窍":宋明儒学中的身体本体论建构

在先秦儒学与医学之中,身体之“窍”（七窍／九窍）被视为“精神”的“孔窍”、“门户”与“通道”,它们内根于“五脏”,外联于天地之气。保持“孔窍”的通畅,无论对“卫生”,抑或对“修身”均意味重要。其中,耳、目、口三窍尤为儒家修身所注重。阴阳五行理论兴起后,身体之“窍”与天地万物之“窍”之间的同构关系得到彰显。 在承继前人五脏“开窍于目”、“开窍于耳”、“开窍于口”、“开窍于鼻”、“开窍于二阴”这一思想基础上,理学家一方面深刻挖掘出身体之窍的本体论向度,提出一个完整的“天地之心”的发窍路线图：“天地之心”发窍于人心,人心（通过五脏六腑）发窍于耳目口鼻四肢这一连续性的发窍结构,并借助于汉儒身体之“窍”与天地万物之“窍”之间的同构关系思想,揭示出天地之心一人心（灵窍）一七窍一体结构的时间性（“七窍”、“灵窍”与天地万物的运作的同步性）,另一方面,呈现出丰富的“七窍”与“心窍”修身经验,这些经验极大丰富了孔孟“四勿”与“践形”功夫。 儒家强调身体之窍、心窍的“虚”、“无”性格,与萨特所代表的意识现象学有着本质的区别。儒家“通身是窍”的理念折射出儒家的“主体性”乃是扎根于生生不已、大化流行之中与他者、天地万物相互感应、相互应答的身心一如的存在,这种主体性本身就嵌在身体之中,无论是“惕然动乎中,赧然见乎色”之耻感,抑或是“恻然动乎中”之“不忍”、“悯恤”、“顾惜”之同感,乃至生意津津之一体生命的生机畅遂感、乐感,皆是深深嵌入身体之中“觉情”与“实感”。儒家身体的这种本体论向度,不仅迥异于Hans Jonas所批评的存在主义的虚无主义精神气质,而且为克服这种虚无主义提供了深厚的理论资源。     

When the Body Speaks:

No abstract available for this article.     

Body parts and the market place: insights from Thomistic philosophy.

With rare exceptions, Roman Catholic moral theologians condemn the sale of human organs for transplantation. Yet, such criticism, while rhetorically powerful, often oversimplifies complex issues. Arguments for the prohibition of a market in human organs may, therefore, depend on a single premise, or a cluster of dubious and allied premises, which when examined cannot hold. In what follows, I will examine the ways in which such arguments are configured. For example, Thomas Aquinas' (1224-1274) understandings of embodiment and moral uses of the body are usually interpreted as, and cited in support of, foreclosing a market in human organs. Aquinas' principle of totality requires that one preserve the wholeness of the human body. In approaching Aquinas' texts, I will assume the role of a revisionist who takes seriously his core commitments, while at the same time indicating that one can further develop his understanding of the body in ways which are supportive of the sale of human organs while remaining in conformity with the author's core concerns. Such considerations will provide significant grounds for concluding that a market in human organs for transplantation appreciates the embodied nature of the human person, respects the body and its parts as personal, rather than as mere things, is consistent with acknowledging God's dominion over our lives and bodies, and constitutes an appropriate utilization of God's gifts to us. Moreover, such a market would likely create significant opportunities charitably to help others, to enhance human dignity and to protect against the serious dehumanization of current national bureaucratic procedures for organ donation.     

Virtual Anatomy: From the Body in the Text to the Body on the Screen

This paper analyzes the transformations in anatomical representation introduced by the Visible Human Project, the first complete virtual anatomy object. By comparing the process of production of book based classical anatomy with that of the Visible Human Project, the paper identifies the medium specificity of anatomical knowledge, the extent to which its powers of demonstration and analysis are conditioned by the medium in which they take place. The paper argues that anatomy can be productively thought of as a kind of writing practice, in which material flesh is written into different media as traces. Because the production of such traces always involves the destruction of the body involved the paper also interrogates the biopolitical hierarchies involved in anatomical knowledge.