UOW Philosophy is pleased to have Professor Rosalyn Diprose (UNSW)
speaking at the Philosophy Seminar Series on Wednesday, May 4th at
4:30pm in room 19.1003. All are welcome to attend.
Title: "The Body in Politics"
Abstract: This paper tries to answer the question as to the difference
between these 3 types of bodies: first, the naked, beaten body of the
political prisoner or the lip-stitched asylum-seeker in detention;
second the body of the allied soldier or white life-saver caught up in
the Cronulla riots in December 2005; and third, the bodies of the
actors playing bomb disposer in the Hurt Locker (2010), or Bobby
Sands in Hunger (2008), or the Muslim life-savers graduating in 2007.
(A provisional answer might be that 1st kind of body is explicitly and
directly subjected to and by political violence; the 2nd kind is an
agent of political violence but also a product of modes of government
that indirectly perpetuate political violence; and the 3rd kind in
different ways tries to turn this around.) All these bodies have been
marked, in one way or another, by political violence. This violence
though, may not be at its most effective at the point at which the
boot hits muscle or the bullet pierces skin. The violence that marks
the bodies of the asylum-seeker or the white-skinned surfer happened
before any fist was clenched or lip was sewn and before any decision
to do either was made. The violence that marks these bodies was
political and symbolic, but also physical and real. This is the issue
that I will explore in this paper: the intersection of the political,
symbolic and the physicality of bodies, or the role of the body and
feelings in politics.
Bio: Rosalyn Diprose is Professor of Philosophy at the University of
New South Wales. Her books include Corporeal Generosity: On Giving
with Nietzsche, Levinas and Merleau-Ponty (SUNY 2002) and, as co-
editor with Jack Reynolds, Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts (Acumen 2008).
Her current research projects include completing a manuscript on
Community, Sensibility, Responsibility, and an exploration of the
relation between “biopolitics and the phenomenology of life”.
For more information on this and other upcoming talks in Philosophy,
contact Patrick McGivern at [email protected]._______________________________________________
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