Critical non-dualistic theories of embodiment: autoimmunity, psychosomatics, dorsality
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Date
2014-09-11
Authors
Conan, Bruce
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Abstract
This thesis suggests that problematic dualistic frameworks are challenged in writing that, in engaging issues of embodiment, does not overlook the biological sciences. This thesis first introduces a brief history of dualistic frameworks, especially in the context of critical animal studies. Each chapter that follows engages a core theme of embodiment: Jacques Derrida's concept of autoimmunity; Sigmund Freud's work on depression, hysteria, and PTSD, along with Elizabeth Wilson's reading of Freud’s work as psychosomatics; and the work of David Wills, whose theory of dorsality suggests an original technicity, or automaticity, at work at the origin of the human species and at the origin of biological life itself. Significant in each chapter is the way in which each theorist draws on concepts, research, or analogies that come from biology in order to strengthen his or her concepts of embodiment.
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critical theory