INTRODUCTION Ever since the beginning of the modern phenomenological movement disciplined attention has been paid to various patterns of human experience as ...

Suggests an open system of psychological exploration to cut through accepted norms of morality, language, and politics.

"The location of the author’s investigations, the body itself rather than the sphere of subjective representations of self and of function in cultures, is wholly new.... I believe this work will be a landmark in future feminist thinking." —Alphonso Lingis "This is a text of rare erudition and intellectual force. It will not only introduce feminists to an enriching set of theoretical perspectives but sets a high critical standard for feminist dialogues on the status of the body." —Judith Butler Volatile (...) Bodies demonstrates that the sexually specific body is socially constructed: biology or nature is not opposed to or in conflict with culture. Human biology is inherently social and has no pure or natural "origin" outside of culture. Being the raw material of social and cultural organization, it is "incomplete" and thus subject to the endless rewriting and social inscription that constitute all sign systems. Examining the theories of Freud, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, etc. on the subject of the body, Elizabeth Grosz concludes that the body they theorize is male. These thinkers are not providing an account of "human" corporeality but of male corporeality. Grosz then turns to corporeal experiences unique to women—menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, menopause. Her examination of female experience lays the groundwork for developing theories of sexed corporeality rather than merely rectifying flawed models of male theorists. (shrink)

A critical examination of the figure of Oedipus in psychoanalysis and Western culture as it relates to the history of society and capitalism.

Marking a ground-breaking moment in the debate surrounding bodies and "body politics," Elizabeth Grosz's Space, Time and Perversion contends that only by resituating and rethinking the body will feminism and cultural analysis effect and unsettle the knowledges, disciplines and institutions which have controlled, regulated and managed the body both ideologically and materially. Exploring the fields of architecture, philosophy, and--in a controversial way--queer theory, Grosz shows how these fields have conceptually stripped bodies of their specificity, their corporeality, and the vestigal traces (...) of their production as bodies. Her tour de corpe investigates the work of Michel Foucault, Teresa de Lauretis, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler and Alphonso Lingis. Grosz considers their work by examining the ways in which the functioning of bodies transforms understandings of space and time, knowledge and desire. Begining with an exposition of the epistemological implications of bodily and sexual difference, Grosz examines the effects such knowledge have on the reception of meaning. She looks at the relationship between the knowledge of difference and the way that knowledge validates, affirms, avows and valorizes subjects. Grosz then extends this analysis to an investigation of the relationship between space, time, bodies and the spatial "arts" such as architecuture, urban planning and geography. In the last section, Grosz moves toward a radical consideration of bodies and their relationship to transgression and perversity. Controversially showing the ways in which "queer" theory fails to offer a truly transformative conception of bodies and their politics, Grosz finds "queer" a reactive category "which sees itself in opposition to a straight norm and thus defines itself in terms of this norm." Consequentially, "queer" theory inherits the acceptance of an entire range of sexual practices, without "asking what they share and without taking into account the profound tension that may exist among these practices." Grosz's Space, Time and Perversity is a diverse and incisive collection of essays from a renowned feminist philosopher. (shrink)

New to this edition is Deleuze's essay "Pericles and Verdi," which reflects on politics and historical materialism in the work of the influential French ...

For those not yet acquainted with the work of this philosopher, this book provides a point of entry to his complex theories. For those more familiar with Deleuze, this collection should be useful in broadening their understanding of this influential thinker's journey in search of knowledge.

This article draws upon the Deleuzian/Guattarian idea of territorializing movements to trouble the notion of the identity of the learning pre‐school child, produced by developmental psychology, as an individual, natural and developing child as well as the more recent image of the child characterised by autonomy and flexible behaviour. Accordingly, a child's apprenticeship of walking is associated here with the movements of a surfer. This association disturbs the orthodox thought of recognition and representation that makes us define, include and exclude (...) children who do not fit into pre‐established schemes of development and learning. What is created with the image of the walking child as surfer is a line of flight out of a territory marked by resemblance and error. This line of flight challenges the assumption of a theorist of good will, who with the best intentions knows what is best for children. (shrink)

This article draws upon the Deleuzian/guattarian idea of territorializing movements to trouble the notion of the identity of the learning pre‐school child, produced by developmental psychology, as an individual, natural and developing child as well as the more recent image of the child characterised by autonomy and flexible behaviour. Accordingly, a child's apprenticeship of walking is associated here with the movements of a surfer. This association disturbs the orthodox thought of recognition and representation that makes us define, include and exclude (...) children who do not fit into pre‐established schemes of development and learning. What is created with the image of the walking child as surfer is a line of flight out of a territory marked by resemblance and error. This line of flight challenges the assumption of a theorist of good will, who with the best intentions knows what is best for children. (shrink)