On problematising the words 'embodiement' and 'embodied'
There has been a rather pronounced tendency or trend over the last decade for the use of the word embodiment. One of the dictionary's definition translate like this: a concrete representation of an otherwise nebulous concept; or giving concrete form to an abstract concept.
Then three possible variations of meaning are offered:
objectification - the act of representing an abstraction as a physical thing
soul - the human embodiment of something; "the soul of honor"
personification, incarnation - the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas
It seems to point to a relation between an abstract or even nebulous concept and a human condition of being. If we refer to embodiment as an objectification we can only refer to the body as an object.
From the above definition, there is little correlation between the complex idea that a body can refer to and the idea of embodiment. not even the word physical which again does not equal to body.
We might also argue that it is perhaps used as a generalising metaphor which in turn can be seen as symptomatic of the problematic gap which remain in relation to 'the body' in performance.
Which body are we talking about?
*http://www.sfmelrose.org.uk/pleasure-pain/
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Aporia (from standford encyclopedia)
Derrida calls the second aporia “the ghost of the undecidable (Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, pp. 24-26). A decision begins with the initiative to read, to interpret, and even to calculate. But to make such a decision, one must first of all experience what Derrida calls “undecidability.” One must experience that the case, being unique and singular, does not fit the established codes and therefore a decision about it seems to be impossible. The undecidable, for Derrida, is not mere oscillation between two significations. It is the experience of what, though foreign to the calculable and the rule, is still obligated. We are obligated – this is a kind of duty—to give oneself up to the impossible decision, while taking account of rules and law. As Derrida says, “A decision that did not go through the ordeal of the undecidable would not be a free decision, it would only be the programmable application or unfolding of a calculable process” (Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, p. 24). And once the ordeal is past (“if this ever happens,” as Derrida says), then the decision has again followed or given itself a rule and is no longer presently just. Justice therefore is always to come in the future, it is never present. There is apparently no moment during which a decision could be called presently and fully just. Either it has not a followed a rule, hence it is unjust; or it has followed a rule, which has no foundation, which makes it again unjust; or if it did follow a rule, it was calculated and again unjust since it did not respect the singularity of the case. This relentless injustice is why the ordeal of the undecidable is never past. It keeps coming back like a “phantom,” which “deconstructs from the inside every assurance of presence, and thus every criteriology that would assure us of the justice of the decision” (Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, pp. 24-25). Even though justice is impossible and therefore always to come in or from the future, justice is not, for Derrida, a Kantian ideal,
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Process-relational theory Adrian J Ivakhiv paper
Process-Relational Theory and the Eco-Ontological Turn:
Clearing the Ground Between Whitehead, Deleuze, and Harman
Calls for a nonhuman or posthuman “turn” can be taken as echoing a call for an “ecological turn” that environmental thinkers have made for decades. Precursors to an “ecological ontology” and/or an “ecological epistemology” can be found in the work of Bateson, Maturana and Varela, Gibson, Ingold, and others. More recently, philosophers influenced by Deleuze and Guattari (such as Stengers, Delanda, Protevi, and Berressem) have taken up these calls for an eco- or geo-philosophy.
This paper argues that in this task of developing an ecophilosophy, there is value in recognizing a “process-relational” tradition as running in parallel to subtantialist, materialist, idealist, and dualist philosophies over the centuries. Such a tradition, while loosely construed and somewhat artificial, unites philosophers as disparate as Heraclitus, Chuang Tzu, and Nagarjuna with Peirce, Whitehead, Hartshorne, Simondon, Deleuze, and Stengers.
The bulk of the paper responds to Graham Harman’s recent critique of process-relational approaches. Harman argues that process-relational thinkers have already had their day and have failed to account for the stabilities and inner depths of objects that make up a (posthuman) world.
Adrian J Ivakhiv
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Notes on Professor Isabelle Launay met at the Nice Conference (June 2011) and the notion of SURVIVANCE (survival+resistance)
Isabelle Launay développe sa recherche sur trois secteurs : le classique (l’Opéra), le contemporain et post-moderne (Bagouet), les modernes (Wigman, Laban, Gert). Elle ne croit donc pas que les courants esthétiques, ici chorégraphiques, se suivent selon une nécessité idéelle. L’art ne serait donc pas dans l’histoire. Est-ce à dire, comme l’écrivait le dernier Lyotard, que les œuvres se succèdent selon une pente légèrement orientée, indifférentes au temps ?
La solution de l’énigme se trouve dans un texte à paraître : La geste des fantômes, où elle introduit la notion warburgienne de survivance. Comme survivance de formes gestuelles, mais aussi de pathos, ce qui implique que l’on ne se trouve pas seulement sur le plan de l’esthétique, mais aussi de l’anthropologie, ou pour le dire autrement, pas seulement, sur le plan de ce qui reviendrait du fait d’être abrité depuis toujours dans un stock immémorial d’images et de formes gestuelles, mais reviendrait en ayant toujours la force de provoquer les effets de destination onto-cosmétique, identiques à ceux provoqués dans des époques antérieures. Par exemple, dans le monde archaïque du culte, de la magie, du rituel, ce qu’on pourrait résumer, à la suite du texte de Luc de Heusch, avec le terme d’extase : possession, divination , etc (La transe et ses entours, la sorcellerie, l’amour fou, Saint Jean de la Croix, 2006)
by Jean-Louis Déotte accessed @ http://revues.mshparisnord.org/appareil/index.php?id=651
