Corpus (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) [Paperback]

Jean-Luc Nancy (Author), Richard A. Rand (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Perspectives in Continental Philosophy | Publication Date: October 15, 2008

How have we thought the body? How can we think it anew? The body of mortal creatures, the body politic, the body of letters and of laws, the mystical body of Christ-all these (and others) are incorporated in the word Corpus, the title and topic of Jean-Luc Nancy's masterwork.Corpus is a work of literary force at once phenomenological, sociological, theological, and philosophical in its multiple orientations and approaches. In thirty-six brief sections, Nancy offers us at once an encyclopedia and a polemical program-reviewing classical takes on the corpusfrom Plato, Aristotle, and Saint Paul to Descartes, Hegel, Husserl, and Freud, while demonstrating that the mutations (technological, biological, and political) of our own culture have given rise to the need for a new understanding of the body. He not only tells the story of this cultural change but also explores the promise and responsibilities that such a new understanding entails.The long-awaited English translation is a bold, bravura rendering. To the title essay are added five closely related recent pieces-including a commentary by Antonia Birnbaum-dedicated in large part to the legacy of the mind-body problemformulated by Descartes and the challenge it poses to rethinking the ancient problems of the corpus. The last and most poignant of these essays is The Intruder,Nancy's philosophical meditation on his heart transplant. The book also serves as the opening move in Nancy's larger project called The deconstruction of Christianity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Translation of 'Corpus,' an essay on the body written by the French philosopher between 1990 and 1992, as well as other writings that revisit the work.

Jean-Luc Nancy gives us bodies in their gravitational weight, their mutual touch, their joy and their devastation, their self-evident presence and their constant elusiveness. From the dazzlingly layered complications of the opening Corpus to the meditatively personal accessibility of the closing The Intruder, these essays display the necessary connections and mutual exclusions of flesh and word. Nancy's work on bodies, already canonical, engages traditions we thought we knew-Platonism, Cartesianism, Christianity-and shows us how much newness is possible still.-Karmen MacKendrick

About the Author

Jean-Luc Nancy is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Universit Marc Bloch,Strasbourg. Among the most recent of his many books to be published in English are Corpus; The Ground of the Image; Listening; Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity; Noli me tangere: On the Raising of the Body; On the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores; and The Truth of Democracy (all Fordham).

RICHARD A. RAND is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Alabama. He haspublished essays on British, American, and French literature, and has translated works by Jacques Derrida and Jean Paulhan.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Fordham University Press; 3 edition (October 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823229629
• ISBN-13: 978-0823229628
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #658,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mens sana, December 3, 2008

By 

Alvaro Lewis "jwatson5" (Redwood City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Corpus (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) (Paperback)

The primary essay in this work, Corpus, reminds me a little of that comedian who would smash melons, scattering seeds and fruit flesh everywhere. Under the hammer here, to be both pounded and enlarged, is Corpus, the body. The writing is ebullient and intelligent, the rhetoric takes flight. This expression plants all kinds of seeds and it is a relief to read about the importance, potential, and relations of bodies, so often shadowed by mounting emphasis on intellect and reason. The body has reasons of its own worthy of sustained attention. Corpus is far more an inspired and improvisational rift on a theme rather than an accumulation of fact or anecdote for the sake of an argument. The French text is included beside the English translation for the entire text of Corpus. This work will be a pleasure to reread and rethink. The eccentricity of its style may one day cause me to wonder what I was doing reading this, but its beauty is undeniable.

The other essays in this book, "On the Soul", "On the Extension of the Soul" address Aristotle, Descartes, and Spinoza and mind-body problems. The final essay, "The Intruder" is a fascinating exploration of Nancy's relation to his own body and soul and self after his heart transplant. This last piece jolts readers back to an emphasis on and appreciation of our own bodies.