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SoSe 19: The Flesh

Jan Slaby

Kommentar

There is much discussion in philosophy about different understandings of the body. For instance, phenomenologists distinguish between the lived body (Leib) and the objective body (Körper). In the philosophy of mind, rivaling accounts of the embodiment of mental capacities are hotly debated. The flesh is a more elusive topic. Emerging in Merleau-Ponty’s late works as an unstable intermediate between Leib and Körper, and hinted at by Foucault without much elaboration, flesh has for the most part evaded the intellectualistic musings of most mainstream philosophers. However, the flesh has had a different career within the field of Black Studies. Here, the notion of flesh is employed to signal a zero degree of social conceptualization that originates in the brutal subjection of native Africans in the course of transatlantic chattel slavery. When feminist scholar Hortense Spillers spoke of the hieroglyphics of the flesh she initiated a strand of work that became massively influential in Black Studies. The aim of the course is to engage in-depth with this line of thought. The seminar will read parts of Alexander Weheliye’s book Habeas Viscus (2014), and discuss seminal texts by Hortense Spillers and Sylvia Wynter (among others). The course will also tackle related topics that concern aspects of racialization, historicity, sociogenesis, biopolitics and, more generally, recent critiques of western humanism and mainstream philosophy by scholars in Black Studies, Black Feminists and Critical Race Theorists. The seminar will be conducted in English; most or all readings will be in English as well. Schließen

Literaturhinweise

Main Texts: Hortense Spillers (1987), Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book. In: Diacritics 17(2), 64-81. Alexander G. Weheliye (2014), Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Schließen