Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism

Explores the dynamic relationship between bodies and the world around
them.

What if we lived across and through our skins as much as we
do within them? According to Shannon Sullivan, the notion of bodies in transaction
with their social, political, cultural, and physical surroundings is not new. Early
in the 20th century, John Dewey elaborated human existence as a set of patterns of
behavior or actions shaped by the environment. Underscoring the continued relevance
of his thought, Sullivan brings Dewey into conversation with Continental
philosophers -- Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty -- and feminist philosophers -- Butler
and Harding -- to expand thinking about the body. Emphasizing topics such as the
role of habit, the discursivity of bodies, communication and meaning, personal and
cultural structures of gender, the improvement of bodily experience, and
understandings of truth and objectivity, Living Across and Through Skins
acknowledges the importance of the body's experience without placing it in
opposition to psychological, cultural, and social aspects of human life. By focusing
on what bodies do, rather than what they are, Sullivan prompts a closer look at
concrete, physical transactions that might be changed to improve human experiences
of the world.

"1117247401"
Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism

Explores the dynamic relationship between bodies and the world around
them.

What if we lived across and through our skins as much as we
do within them? According to Shannon Sullivan, the notion of bodies in transaction
with their social, political, cultural, and physical surroundings is not new. Early
in the 20th century, John Dewey elaborated human existence as a set of patterns of
behavior or actions shaped by the environment. Underscoring the continued relevance
of his thought, Sullivan brings Dewey into conversation with Continental
philosophers -- Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty -- and feminist philosophers -- Butler
and Harding -- to expand thinking about the body. Emphasizing topics such as the
role of habit, the discursivity of bodies, communication and meaning, personal and
cultural structures of gender, the improvement of bodily experience, and
understandings of truth and objectivity, Living Across and Through Skins
acknowledges the importance of the body's experience without placing it in
opposition to psychological, cultural, and social aspects of human life. By focusing
on what bodies do, rather than what they are, Sullivan prompts a closer look at
concrete, physical transactions that might be changed to improve human experiences
of the world.

11.99 In Stock
Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism

Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism

by Shannon Sullivan
Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism

Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism

by Shannon Sullivan

eBook

$11.99  $15.95 Save 25% Current price is $11.99, Original price is $15.95. You Save 25%.

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Explores the dynamic relationship between bodies and the world around
them.

What if we lived across and through our skins as much as we
do within them? According to Shannon Sullivan, the notion of bodies in transaction
with their social, political, cultural, and physical surroundings is not new. Early
in the 20th century, John Dewey elaborated human existence as a set of patterns of
behavior or actions shaped by the environment. Underscoring the continued relevance
of his thought, Sullivan brings Dewey into conversation with Continental
philosophers -- Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty -- and feminist philosophers -- Butler
and Harding -- to expand thinking about the body. Emphasizing topics such as the
role of habit, the discursivity of bodies, communication and meaning, personal and
cultural structures of gender, the improvement of bodily experience, and
understandings of truth and objectivity, Living Across and Through Skins
acknowledges the importance of the body's experience without placing it in
opposition to psychological, cultural, and social aspects of human life. By focusing
on what bodies do, rather than what they are, Sullivan prompts a closer look at
concrete, physical transactions that might be changed to improve human experiences
of the world.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780253109118
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Publication date: 03/22/2001
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 224
File size: 335 KB

About the Author

Shannon Sullivan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies
at the Pennsylvania State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

1.
Introduction: Transactional Bodies after Dewey
2. Living Across and Through
Skins: Bodies in Transaction
3. Discursivity and Materiality: The Lived
Experience of Transactional Bodies
4. Communicating with Another:
Transaction and Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Corporeal Existence
5.
Reconfiguring Gender: Habit, Bodies, and Cultural Change
6. Transactional
Somaesthetics: Nietzsche, Women, and the Transformation of Bodily
Experience
7. Transactional Knowing: Toward a Pragmatist-Feminist
Standpoint Theory
8. Conclusion: Transaction and the Distinctiveness of
Races

Notes
Bibliography
Index

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews