scholarly journals Human corporeality in Georges Bataille’s heterology

Author(s):  
Svetlana A. Gorchakova ◽  

In the heterology of G. Bataille, a person appears as a being doomed to death and revealing gaps in the depths of himself. That is why the idea of human corporeality turns out to be connected with the idea of inner experience, which represents a movement to the «edge of the possible» and through which death is revealed. It is death and the ability to discover it that makes a person who he is, affirming the transgressiveness of the human body and human being. Death, being absolutely heterogeneous, constitutes a person as a self-that-dies, revealing the gap that comprises its nature. Awareness of death leads to a feeling of eroticism, which contains the simultaneous affirmation of life in combination with the acceptance of death. Moreover, death is the semantic core of eroticism. The human is a «gaping hole» opening wide to the other, and all his being presupposes discontinuity and ecstasy, which means that only excess puts a man on the edge, allowing him to transcend all boundaries. In this case, the inner experience turns out to be in many ways a body experience, because the heterogeneous is constantly manifested in the ultimate experiences of the body and the ultimate manifestations of the human corporeality, where horror and lust, attractiveness and disgust are fused together. Human experience is the experience of the limits and gaps in which a person seeks to get beyond his limits, to surpass his anthropomorphic and body boundaries in an act of self-waste. Thus, being on the extreme edge, the human discovers death through transgression, but exactly in the understanding and acceptance of death he acquires true being and overcomes his own corporeality.

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Jovo Radoš

Abstract The theme presented is aimed at attempting to perceive the fundamental qualities of the man’s personality (body, soul and spirit) from the philosophical, anthropological and theological point of view and, at the same time, to establish the value reflections towards its (current and universal) existential orientations. Namely, today's experience shows us that tendencies with notable prevailing of corporality over the other constitutive properties of the human being are constantly getting stronger. The body cult is vigorously stressed: body building and fitness clubs, as well as special gyms and wellness facilities (saunas, hydro massage baths, tepidariums are advertised, which should satisfy the increased corporal‐hedonistic and corporal‐aesthetic motives. This disturbing of the essential and human structure established by God demands the return to the original settings of Christian trichotomy (not serving the body but serving of the body), whereby a balanced and harmonious relationship between the body, the soul, and the spirit is developed by equally bearing in mind all three areas on which all three "gymnastics" are tuned and effectively performed, which leads to overall development and fulfilment of a human being.


2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-191
Author(s):  
Nicholas Xenos

David McNally styles this book as beginning in a polemic and ending in a “materialist approach to language” much indebted to the German critic Walter Benjamin. The charge is that “postmodernist theory, whether it calls itself poststructuralism, deconstruction or post-Marxism, is constituted by a radical attempt to banish the real human body—the sensate, biocultural, laboring body—from the sphere of language and social life” (p. 1). By treating language as an abstraction, McNally argues, postmodernism constitutes a form of idealism. More than that, it succumbs to and perpetuates the fetishism of commodities disclosed by Marx insofar as it treats the products of human laboring bodies as entities independently of them. Clearly irritated by the claims to radicalism made by those he labels postmodern, McNally thinks he has found their Achilles' heel: “The extra-discursive body, the body that exceeds language and discourse, is the ‘other’ of the new idealism, the entity it seeks to efface in order to bestow absolute sovereignty on language. To acknowledge the centrality of the sensate body to language and society is thus to threaten the whole edifice of postmodernist theory” (p. 2).


2011 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
Sandra Junker

This article deals with the idea of ritual bodily impurity after coming into contact with a corpse in the Hebrew Bible. The evanescence and impermanence of the human body testifies to the mortality of the human being. In that way, the human body symbolizes both life and death at the same time; both conditions are perceivable in it. In Judaism, the dead body is considered as ritually impure. Although, in this context it might be better to substitute the term ‘ritually damaged’ for ‘ritually impure’: ritual impurity does not refer to hygienic or moral impurity, but rather to an incapability of exercising—and living—religion. Ritual purity is considered as a prerequisite for the execution of ritual acts and obligations. The dead body depends on a sphere which causes the greatest uncertainty because it is not accessible for the living. According to Mary Douglas’s concepts, the dead body is considered ritually impure because it does not answer to the imagined order anymore, or rather because it cannot take part in this order anymore. This is impurity imagined as a kind of contagious illness, which is carried by the body. This article deals with the ritual of the red heifer in Numbers 19. Here we find the description of the preparation of a fluid that is to help clear the ritual impurity out of a living body after it has come into contact with a corpse. For the preparation of this fluid a living creature – a faultless red heifer – must be killed. According to the description, the people who are involved in the preparation of the fluid will be ritually impure until the end of the day. The ritual impurity acquired after coming into contact with a corpse continues as long as the ritual of the Red Heifer remains unexecuted, but at least for seven days. 


Author(s):  
Oksana Romaniuk ◽  
Bohdan Zadvornyi

The article is devoted to theoretical and methodological substantiations of the body flexibility development practically applying the stretching techniques. It was generalized scientific data on the organization and methodological features of stretching exercises. Semantic content and structural componential model of stretching usage in the process of flexibility development and the estimation of the changes of this characteristic according to the age were carried out. In particular, some parameters were highlighted especially which allow to recommend that methodology both for individual and group usage were analyzed. Besides, it was analyzed the diversity of physiological mechanism of the influence of stretching on human body, especially it was singled out the effect on mental and physical spheres of human being. The generalized scientific data on the theoretical and practical aspects of flexibility development with the help of stretching techniques indicate the priority of usage of this method in many types of physical activities irrespective of the scope of its practical application.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-111
Author(s):  
Carlos Rios Llamas

ABSTRACTFoucault conceived the human being as defined by biopower forces. After that, the industrial society treated the body as an element of the production process, and the care of the self was derived to healthcare institutions. Recently, Paula Sibilia studied the industrial human being from the capitalism on his transformation through technology and digital hybrids. She thinks that the human body could be at the end in the form we know it. But in the perspectives of both Foucault and Sibilia, the body projects could be at their own obsolescence because they leave a key element aside: the obesogenic environment which is implicit into the current modern technological society. This abstract pretends to visualize how body projects and modernity are interconnected and confronted, from their assumptions and fundamentals, against obesity. RESUMENDe acuerdo con Faucault el cuerpo humano es modelado a partir de dispositivos que corresponden con las formas de poder y con las funciones que se le asignan en una sociedad y en una situación espaciotemporal específica. En esta lógica, el cuidado del cuerpo frente a la obesidad como amenaza, se habría de estudiar desde el entorno social y su evolución en las últimas décadas. Así, mientras que a mediados del siglo XX, las sociedades industriales definieron el cuerpo por su utilidad en los procesos de producción, y el cuidado de uno mismo se derivó a las instituciones como garantes del bienestar, en las últimas décadas las hibridaciones tecnológicas y digitales amenazan el cuerpo biológico y cultural en la forma que lo conocemos. Algunos autores indican que esta forma de cuerpo podría llegar a su fin ante la imbricación de nuevos aditamentos como prótesis, dopaje y alteraciones quirúrgicas. En una lectura desde el margen de los avances en el campo tecnocientífico y biopolítico, todos los proyectos de corporeidad encontrarían hoy su propia obsolescencia ante la obesidad que se instituye como pandemia y que amenaza al cuerpo desde la cultura, la medicina, la economía, la política y los estudios ambientales. Es oportuno, entonces, develar los vínculos entre el cuidado del cuerpo y la contemporaneidad, y desde la obesidad como amenaza de los supuestos avances tecnocientíficos. Por eso, en la conceptualización de “ambientes obesogénicos” se abre una posibilidad para analizar el proyecto contemporáneo de cuerpo desde los espacios donde se construye y se modela su cuidado, y a partir de sus formas de resistencia ante los cambios tecnocientíficos.


2018 ◽  
pp. 146-172
Author(s):  
Eric Daryl Meyer

Chapter 6 takes up the end of the human story with God, the eschatological transformation of the human being through the resurrection of the body end entry into perfect communion with God. Conventionally, theologians have imagined resurrected of human body as being whole and intact, but with several basic vital functions negated—namely digestion and sexual expression. Arguing that such a maneuver safeguards the materiality of the human body precisely by negating its animality, this chapter seeks to construct a vision of transformed human life with God in which digestion and sexual expression are at the center of human communion with God and fellow creatures. The chapter’s efforts are aided by the wealth of the tradition itself: biblical and liturgical imagery such as the wedding feast of the Lamb, eucharistic theology, and Christian nuptial mysticism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 251-255
Author(s):  
Du Hyun Ro ◽  
Hyun Sik Gong

Homunculus is a term used to refer to any representation of a miniature human being. In scientific fields, the word homunculus has been used to refer to any scale model of the human body that represents physiological, psychological, or other human functions. The hand is thought as a homunculus of the body in Hand Acupuncture Therapy, a type of alternative medicine in Korea. Hand acupuncture therapists believe stimulating the hand can improve bodily health. Although there is a need for scientific evidence regarding this concept, those that perform hand acupuncture seem to recognize the importance of hand in our body.


Author(s):  
Jake Poller

In Island (1962), Aldous Huxley presents a utopian community in which theinhabitants aim to become "fully human beings" by realizing their "potentialities."I demonstrate how Huxley's notion of the "human potentialities" havebeen misrepresented, both by scholars and by the founders of the Esalen Institute.Huxley's focus on human potentialities arose from a shift in his thinkingfrom the other-worldly mysticism of The Perennial Philosophy (1945) to thelife-affirming traditions of Tantra, Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. In Island,the population attempt to realize their human potentialities and engage in anexperiential spirituality that celebrates the body and nature as sacred throughthe use of the moksha-medicine and the practice of maithuna. I argue thatwhereas Tantric adepts practised maithuna as a means to acquire supernormalpowers (siddhis), in Island the Palanese version of maithuna is quite differentand is used to valorize samsara and the acquisition of human potentialities.


Author(s):  
Vivek Shirke

The main objective of health science is to provide better health to every human being. Indian system of medicine commonly known as Ayurveda has a holistic approach towards the disease and provides treatment without affecting the other parts of the body. Similarly, it is effective in preventing an individual from getting diseased in the future. In Ayurveda, diseases can be classified into two basic categories such as -ailments treated or managed by Shodhan therapy and the ailments treated by surgical intervention. Further, it’s suggested that in conditions where surgery is indicated, one can try Shodhan or Panchkarma therapies before performing surgery or/ if the patient is not fit for surgery or not willing to undergo a surgical procedure. Similarly, Acharya has specified that physician should not advocate Surgery in diseases which can be treated by Shodhan and Shaman therapies (conservative management). Panchakarma is a combination of five procedures of purification- Vamana (Emesis), Virechana (Purgation), Niroohavasti (Decoction enema), Nasya (instillation of medicine through nostrils), and Anuvasanavasti (Oil enema). These procedures aim at plucking away the deep-rooted imbalances in the body.


1998 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-156
Author(s):  
Henning Eichberg

Contradictions of Modernity. Conflicting Configurations and Societal Thinking in Grundtvig's »The Human Being in the World«A Worm - a God. About the Human Being in the World. Ove Korsgaard (ed.). With contributions of Niels Buur Hansen, Hans Hauge, Bosse Bergstedt, Uffe Jonas and Knud Bjarne Gjesing. Odense Universitetsforlag 1997.By Henning EichbergIn 1817, Grundtvig wrote »Om Mennesket i Verden« which can be regarded as a key to the understanding of his philosophy and psychology, but which is difficult to place in relation to his later folkelig, societal engagement. A recent reedition of this text together with some actual comments by Grundtvig researchers is an occasion to quest deeper about this relation.However, it is not enough to ask - as Grundtvig research has done for a long time - what Grundtvig wanted to say, but his text can be regarded as a document of how modem orientation in the world is characterized by conflicting linguistic and metaphorical patterns, which sometimes may tell another story than intended.On the one hand, Grundtvig's text speaks of a lot of dualistic contradictions such as life vs. death, light vs. darkness, truth vs. lie, God vs. devil, human fall vs. resurrection, body vs. spirit, nature vs. history and time vs. eternity. In contrast to the author's intention to produce clarity and lucidity - whether in the spirit of Christianity or of modem rationality - the binary constructions give rather a confusing picture of systematical disorder where polarity and polemics are mixed, antagonism and gradual order, dichotomy and exclusive either-or, paradoxes and dialectical contradictions. On the other hand,Grundtvig tries again and again to build up three-pole imaginations as for instance the threefold human relation to time, space and truth and the three ages of spiritual seeing, feeling and conceptualization resp. of mythology (childhood), theology (youth) and history (adult age). The main history, Grundtvig wants to tell in his text, is built up around the trialectic relation of the human being to the body, to the spirit and to itself, to the living soul.The most difficult to understand in this relation seems to be what Grundtvig calls the spirit, Aanden. Grundtvig describes it as Aandigt Samfund mellem Menneske og Sandhed, »the spiritual community between the human being and the truth«, and this may direct our attention towards samfund, meaning at the same time association, togetherness and society. Aanden is described by threefold effects - will, conscience and faith, all of them describing social relations between human beings resp. their psychological correlate. The same social undertone is true when Grundtvig characterizes three Aande-Livets Spor (»traces of spiritual life«): the word, the history and love. If »the spirit« represents what is larger or »higher« than the single human being and what cannot be touched by his or her hand, then this definition fits exactly to society or the sociality of the human being. Social life - whether understood as culture, social identity or folk (people) - is not only a quantitative sum of human individuals, but represents another quality of natural order. Thus it has its logic that Grundtvig places the human being in between the realms of minerals, plant and animal life on the one hand and the »higher« order on the other, which can be understood as the social existence.In this respect, the societal dimension is not at all absent in his philosophy of 1817. However, it is not enough to state the implicite presence of sociality as such in the earlier Grundtvigian thinking before his folkelig break-through. What was the sociality, more concretely, which Grundtvig experienced during the early modernity? In general, highly dichotomous concepts are dominating the modem discourse as capitalism vs. feudalism, materialism vs. idealism, modernity vs. premodemity, democracy vs. absolutism or revolution vs. restoration; Grundtvig was always difficult to place into these patterns. Again, it might be helpful to try a trialectical approach, transcending the dualism of state and market by civil society as a third field of social action. Indeed, it was civil society with its farmers' anarchist undertones which became the contents of Grundtvig's later folk engagement.


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