Guilty of Pregnancy
Bryce Covert
The Nation
Discrimination against pregnant employees is the clearest sign we have that the American workplace still operates under the archaic idea that men go to work and women remain in the home.
July 19th, 2015 § Comments Off on Discrimination against pregnant employees is the clearest sign we have that the American workplace still operates under the archaic idea that men go to work and women remain in the home. § permalink
The five justices who voted to allow this practice—described in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent as “the chemical equivalent of being burned alive”—did so on the stunning legal theory that because some method of execution must be constitutional, there must be some constitutional means of carrying it out, and thus the use of the drug midazolam as part of the lethal injection cocktail must be constitutional.
July 14th, 2015 § Comments Off on The five justices who voted to allow this practice—described in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent as “the chemical equivalent of being burned alive”—did so on the stunning legal theory that because some method of execution must be constitutional, there must be some constitutional means of carrying it out, and thus the use of the drug midazolam as part of the lethal injection cocktail must be constitutional. § permalink
Dalia Lithwick
Fates worse than Death, Slate
Putting on the ritz
May 26th, 2015 § Comments Off on Putting on the ritz § permalink
Alexsandra Domanovic
Most of the people in power are men.
February 22nd, 2015 § Comments Off on Most of the people in power are men. § permalink
Emily Bazelon on Silicon Valley
It was precisely this ontological question—property or persons?—that the war was fought over.
April 23rd, 2014 § Comments Off on It was precisely this ontological question—property or persons?—that the war was fought over. § permalink
Hayes, Christopher
The New Abolitionism
The Nation
April 22, 2014
“Why do only girls get their periods? Is it because the blood of boys is purer?”
February 27th, 2014 § Comments Off on “Why do only girls get their periods? Is it because the blood of boys is purer?” § permalink
For Teenage Girls, Video Takes Fear Out of a Shunned Topic
Kavitha Rao
New York Times
February 27, 2014
Trayvon Martin’s lifeless body was put on trial for having the audacity to exist and be black.
July 13th, 2013 § Comments Off on Trayvon Martin’s lifeless body was put on trial for having the audacity to exist and be black. § permalink
Smith, Mychal Denzel
“0ur Lives on the Line”
Nation, August 5/12, 2013
She had thought of them as “big,” because one of the first things her friend Ginika told her was that “fat” in America was a bad word, heaving with moral judgment like “stupid” or “bastard,” and not a mere description like “short” or “tall.”
March 13th, 2013 § Comments Off on She had thought of them as “big,” because one of the first things her friend Ginika told her was that “fat” in America was a bad word, heaving with moral judgment like “stupid” or “bastard,” and not a mere description like “short” or “tall.” § permalink
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Don’t try to fool me or fool yourself. Is that really what you saw? What do you think about it? Aren’t you a thinking being? Or do you think you are all body?
February 5th, 2013 § Comments Off on Don’t try to fool me or fool yourself. Is that really what you saw? What do you think about it? Aren’t you a thinking being? Or do you think you are all body? § permalink
Jacques Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, transl. Kristin Ross (Palo Alto, Calif. and London: Stanford Univ. Press, 1991)
(*Rancière quotes J. Jacotot)
Breaking the world of intelligence into two, By installing the division between the groping animal and the learned little man, Between common sense and science.
January 27th, 2013 § Comments Off on Breaking the world of intelligence into two, By installing the division between the groping animal and the learned little man, Between common sense and science. § permalink
Ranciere
The Ignorant Schoolmaster
His success fit into a certain pervasive narrative of cancer – that cancer is something you “defeat,” something you “beat,” less a disease than a test of character.
January 21st, 2013 § Comments Off on His success fit into a certain pervasive narrative of cancer – that cancer is something you “defeat,” something you “beat,” less a disease than a test of character. § permalink
We enabled Lance
Samuel Freedman
Also running through 19th century women’s novels and poetry were out-of-control characters, “maddened doubles [who] functioned as asocial surrogates for [more] docile [female] selves.”
January 17th, 2013 § Comments Off on Also running through 19th century women’s novels and poetry were out-of-control characters, “maddened doubles [who] functioned as asocial surrogates for [more] docile [female] selves.” § permalink
Maureen Corrigan on The Madeoman in the Attic
NPR
It was his hands that wrote the script, his body that set up shots, blocked his actors, and so forth.
July 6th, 2011 § Comments Off on It was his hands that wrote the script, his body that set up shots, blocked his actors, and so forth. § permalink
“Inside the Box: Notes From Within the European Artistic Research Debate”
Michael Baers, e-flux
About As the Academy Turns, Tion Ang’s telenovela-style video about the contemporary art academy.
Bodily processes and states can be inspected by external observations.
July 1st, 2011 § Comments Off on Bodily processes and states can be inspected by external observations. § permalink
“Ghosts in Machine” entry in Wikipedia.
More: “Thus a person’s bodily life is as much a public affair as are the lives of animals. But minds do not exist in space, nor are their operation subject to mechanical laws. The workings of the mind are not witnessable by other observers; its career is private. A person therefore lives through two collateral histories: one consisting of what happens to and with the body (public); the other consisting of what happens to and in the mind (private). However, the problem with this theory is that in order for this to happen there would have to be a division in reality where the mind is not governed by mechanical laws. This creates a dichotomy as reality can not be divided and nothing can exist outside of reality.”
The subject-object problem, a longstanding philosophical issue, is concerned with the analysis of human experience, and of what within experience is “subjective” and what is “objective”.
April 27th, 2011 § Comments Off on The subject-object problem, a longstanding philosophical issue, is concerned with the analysis of human experience, and of what within experience is “subjective” and what is “objective”. § permalink
Wikipedia
“The Subject-Object Problem”
The problem with this is that, again, the law is not settled about whether our genetic makeup is more the property of the excavating mind of the scientist or the individual property of a particularly identified body.
September 27th, 2010 § Comments Off on The problem with this is that, again, the law is not settled about whether our genetic makeup is more the property of the excavating mind of the scientist or the individual property of a particularly identified body. § permalink
“Freshmen Specimen”
Patricia Williams, article in The Nation, September 27th, 2010.
This article questions the ethics of DNA sampling.
The field of human-animal experiments is dubbed “chimera” research, named for the she-monster in Greek mythology that has a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail… Maybe the problem is not so much chimeras in science as chimeras in politics.
September 25th, 2010 § Comments Off on The field of human-animal experiments is dubbed “chimera” research, named for the she-monster in Greek mythology that has a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail… Maybe the problem is not so much chimeras in science as chimeras in politics. § permalink
“Slouching Toward Washington”
Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, Sept 25, 2010
Like everything else in the world, we have a nature: we’re bodily, we can’t control what happens around us, and we are constantly the objects of other people’s judgments. Sartre called this part of ourselves “being-in-itself.” But at the same time we’re subjects, or what he, following Hegel, called “being-for-itself”: we make choices about what we do with our bodies and appetites, experience ourselves as the center of our worlds and judge the passing show and other people’s roles in it. For Sartre, the rub is that it’s impossible for us to put these two halves of ourselves together. At any given moment, a person is either an object or a subject.
June 20th, 2010 § Comments Off on Like everything else in the world, we have a nature: we’re bodily, we can’t control what happens around us, and we are constantly the objects of other people’s judgments. Sartre called this part of ourselves “being-in-itself.” But at the same time we’re subjects, or what he, following Hegel, called “being-for-itself”: we make choices about what we do with our bodies and appetites, experience ourselves as the center of our worlds and judge the passing show and other people’s roles in it. For Sartre, the rub is that it’s impossible for us to put these two halves of ourselves together. At any given moment, a person is either an object or a subject. § permalink
“Lady Power”
Nancy Bauer in The New York Times, June 20, 2010
She is referencing Sartre’s book, Being and Nothingness, which discusses being-for-itself.
“Me embodying the position that I’m analyzing is the very thing that makes it so powerful.” Of course, the more successful the embodiment, the less obvious the analytic part is. And since Gaga herself literally embodies the norms that she claims to be putting pressure on (she’s pretty, she’s thin, she’s well-proportioned), the message, even when it comes through, is not exactly stable. It’s easy to construe Gaga as suggesting that frank self-objectification is a form of real power.
June 20th, 2010 § Comments Off on “Me embodying the position that I’m analyzing is the very thing that makes it so powerful.” Of course, the more successful the embodiment, the less obvious the analytic part is. And since Gaga herself literally embodies the norms that she claims to be putting pressure on (she’s pretty, she’s thin, she’s well-proportioned), the message, even when it comes through, is not exactly stable. It’s easy to construe Gaga as suggesting that frank self-objectification is a form of real power. § permalink
“Lady Power”
Nancy Bauer in The New York Times, June 20, 2010
The man who drools at women’s body parts is punished, but then again so is everyone else in the place.
June 20th, 2010 § Comments Off on The man who drools at women’s body parts is punished, but then again so is everyone else in the place. § permalink
“Lady Power”
Nancy Bauer in The New York Times, June 20, 2010
We know that it is now possible to successfully transplant a hand and that the brain can reconstitute its bodily schema to include foreign members.
January 1st, 2008 § Comments Off on We know that it is now possible to successfully transplant a hand and that the brain can reconstitute its bodily schema to include foreign members. § permalink
“What Should We Do with Our Brain?” Catherine Malabou, Fordham University Press, New York, 2008
The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body
January 12th, 2007 § Comments Off on The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body § permalink
“Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters”
Martin, Courtney E., Free Press, 2007
Bodies will have to pay for their excesses of language.
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on Bodies will have to pay for their excesses of language. § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
A language that claims to regulate all the others, to rule all bodies, will be called dictatorial and totalitarian.
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on A language that claims to regulate all the others, to rule all bodies, will be called dictatorial and totalitarian. § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
Mortal Bodies.
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on Mortal Bodies. § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
In order to validate the equation existence = individual = body, contemporary doxa must courageously absorb humanity into a position vision of animality.
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on In order to validate the equation existence = individual = body, contemporary doxa must courageously absorb humanity into a position vision of animality. § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
Negri is right concerning what the postmoderns ‘know’: the body is the only concrete instance for desolate individuals aspiring to enjoyment.
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on Negri is right concerning what the postmoderns ‘know’: the body is the only concrete instance for desolate individuals aspiring to enjoyment. § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
The great majority of artists, today, choreographers, painters, videomakers, try to expose the secret of bodies, of the desiring and machinic lives of bodies. It is the global trend of arts which proposes us a body art… They all impose upon the visible the hard relationship of bodies to the great and indifferent noise of the universe.
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on The great majority of artists, today, choreographers, painters, videomakers, try to expose the secret of bodies, of the desiring and machinic lives of bodies. It is the global trend of arts which proposes us a body art… They all impose upon the visible the hard relationship of bodies to the great and indifferent noise of the universe. § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
In the contemporary world, the individual recognizes the objective existence of bodies alone, and, first of all, of his or her own body.
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on In the contemporary world, the individual recognizes the objective existence of bodies alone, and, first of all, of his or her own body. § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
…”In the pragmatics of desires, in the evidence of the domination of trade and business, in the formal law of sale and purchase, the individual is convinced of, and formatted by, the dogma of our finitude, of our exposition to enjoyment, suffering and death.”
There are only bodies and languages.*
September 9th, 2006 § Comments Off on There are only bodies and languages.* § permalink
“Bodies, Languages Truths”
Alain Badiou’s lecture delivered at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Sept 9th, 2006.
*Take this statement with a grain of salt. Badiou isn’t stating this as an absolute; he is answering his own question:
“What is the dominant ideology today?” He then states, “There is the free market, the technology, the money, the job, the blog, the reelections, the free sexuality, and so one. But I think all that can be concentrated in a single statement.” (And then he says: “There are only bodies and languages.”)
Time for Another Body Count in Iraq
January 12th, 2006 § Comments Off on Time for Another Body Count in Iraq § permalink
“Time for Another Body Count in Iraq”
Rampton, Sheldon, PR World, 2006
The mind exists because there is a body to furnish it with contents.
August 3rd, 2003 § Comments Off on The mind exists because there is a body to furnish it with contents. § permalink
Antonio Damasio, Looking for Spinoza, Harcourt Brace, 2003.
The entire series of spasms in Bacon is of this type: scenes of love, of vomiting and excreting, in which the body attempts to escape from itself through one of its organs in order to rejoin the field or material structure.
January 1st, 2003 § Comments Off on The entire series of spasms in Bacon is of this type: scenes of love, of vomiting and excreting, in which the body attempts to escape from itself through one of its organs in order to rejoin the field or material structure. § permalink
“Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation”
Giles Deleuze, University of Minnesota Press, 2003, page 12.
The real victory was what this period did to the psyche of the black man. And the greatness of this period was that we armed ourselves with dignity and self-respect. The greatness of this period was that we straightened our backs up. And a man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.
August 16th, 1965 § Comments Off on The real victory was what this period did to the psyche of the black man. And the greatness of this period was that we armed ourselves with dignity and self-respect. The greatness of this period was that we straightened our backs up. And a man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent. § permalink
Martin Luther King, 1965, when giving President Johnson the pen to sign the Voting Rights Act.
Conversely, it happens that movement, passing from soul to body and from body to soul, propagates itself indefinetely in a locus of anxiety certainly closer to that space where Malebranche placed souls than to that in which Descartes situated bodies.
January 3rd, 1965 § Comments Off on Conversely, it happens that movement, passing from soul to body and from body to soul, propagates itself indefinetely in a locus of anxiety certainly closer to that space where Malebranche placed souls than to that in which Descartes situated bodies. § permalink
“Madness & Civilization”
Michel Foucault, Random House, 1965 page 90.
“The body’s power is increased or diminished. Emotions are bodily changes plus ideas about these changes which can help or hurt a human.” It happens when the bodily changes we experience are caused primarily by external forces or by a mix of external and internal forces. Spinoza argued that it was much better for a person, himself or herself, to be the only adequate cause of bodily changes, and to act based on an adequate understanding of causes-and-effects with ideas of these changes logically related to each other and to reality; when this happens the person is active, and Spinoza describes the ideas as adequate.
January 1st, 1883 § Comments Off on “The body’s power is increased or diminished. Emotions are bodily changes plus ideas about these changes which can help or hurt a human.” It happens when the bodily changes we experience are caused primarily by external forces or by a mix of external and internal forces. Spinoza argued that it was much better for a person, himself or herself, to be the only adequate cause of bodily changes, and to act based on an adequate understanding of causes-and-effects with ideas of these changes logically related to each other and to reality; when this happens the person is active, and Spinoza describes the ideas as adequate. § permalink
Wikipedia entry on the passions. First two sentences are from Spinoza’s Definitions. On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions, 1883.
Or, they become mesmerized by the mirror-like other and attempt, as they previously had done in controlling their own body, to assert their will.
January 1st, 1807 § Comments Off on Or, they become mesmerized by the mirror-like other and attempt, as they previously had done in controlling their own body, to assert their will. § permalink
Wikipedia, in an article discussing Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic.
Indeed, we must no longer try to situate passion in a casual succession, or halfway between the corporeal and the spiritual; passion indicates, at a new, deeper level, that the soul and the body are in perpetual metaphorcal relation… soul and body are always each other’s immediate expression.
January 3rd, 1700 § Comments Off on Indeed, we must no longer try to situate passion in a casual succession, or halfway between the corporeal and the spiritual; passion indicates, at a new, deeper level, that the soul and the body are in perpetual metaphorcal relation… soul and body are always each other’s immediate expression. § permalink
“Madness & Civilization”
Michel Foucault, Random House, 1965 page 88.
One more step, and the entire system becomes a unity in which body and soul communicate immediately in the symbolic values of common qualities.
January 2nd, 1700 § Comments Off on One more step, and the entire system becomes a unity in which body and soul communicate immediately in the symbolic values of common qualities. § permalink
“Madness & Civilization”
Michel Foucault, Random House, 1965 page 87.
…”This is what happens in the medicine of solids and fluids, which dominates eighteenth-century practice. Tension and release, hardness and softness, rigidity and relaxation, congestion and dryness– These qualitative states characterize the soul as much as the body…”