Telling Flesh: The Substance of the Corporeal [Paperback]

Vicki Kirby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0415910293 | ISBN-13: 978-0415910293 | Edition: 1

In Telling Flesh , Vicki Kirby addresses what may be the major theoretical issue in both the social sciences and feminist theory, namely the nature/culture dualism. Her particular focus is on postmodern approaches to corporeality. Kirby explores how these approaches look at the body in terms of meaning, and she argues that they result in the assumption that language is an enclosed domain and the materiality of the body a constructed artifact. Kirby examines the implications of this assumption in the work of Jane Gallop, Judith Butler, and Drucilla Cornell, as well as in recent cyber-criticism. She argues that their notion of culture does not, as they intended, disrupt the conservative implications of the nature/culture division. Instead, nature and culture contrive to haunt their work in the form of an undeclared fear of the flesh.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The strength of Telling Flesh lies in Kirby's keen diagnostic eye. She has an amazing grasp of the intricacies of complex theoretical positions in contemporary cultural studies and she follows them through tenaciously.
I was most impressed by Vicki Kirby's sophisticated critical analysis of some of the most widely used but least understood concepts in deconstruction, psychoanalysis, linguistics, poststructuralism, pheonomenology, and feminine theory.
–Gail Weiss Hypatia

About the Author

Vicki Kirby teaches in the Department of Sociology, Culture and Communication at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (September 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415910293
• ISBN-13: 978-0415910293
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,568,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Substantial reworking of 'differance', May 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Telling Flesh: The Substance of the Corporeal (Paperback)

Brilliant critical poststructuralist feminist text.

As a former anthropologist Vicky Kirby is obsessed with materiality and undertakes a incredible task of redefining what that might mean in current postructuralist (western) thought.

First chapter surveys the problematic identity of the famous semiotic 'sign' of linguistics. She utilises the writings of Jaques Derrida extensively (his idea of differance and writing in the general sense), but makes crucial, subtle, fundamental differences.

She does not entirely conflate the binaries, as many poststructuralist theorist presume to do. Instead she reworks the bar of duality into a hologramatic partitioning - infinite internal devisions which leave neither materiality nor ideality intact.

In the 2nd + 3rd chapters she critiques the work of Drucilla Cornell, Judith Butler, Donna Haraway + others. She demonstrate their inadvertant reinscription of the binaries they seek to conflate.

Final chapters look at materiality and corporeality in cyberspace. She critisises prevailing logocentric view on technology and the body.

Essential reading for students, academics looking for ways out of relativist poststructural positions. Serves as grounding for a cultural materialist perspective(?).

Very difficult reading, though perhaps necessarily so. Presumes some knowledge of Ferdinand D. Saussures 'A Course in General Linguistics' and postructuralist readings of this eg. Jaques Derrida's 'Of Gramatology.'

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beginning at the Beginning, November 5, 2001

By 

helen MciKeever (Memphis, Tenn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Telling Flesh: The Substance of the Corporeal (Paperback)

This is a valuable and interesting book for anthropology as well as feminist theory as it asks very foundational questions about the boundaries between nature and culture but in a non-linear fashion. Although Merleau-Ponty is not mentioned, Kirby takes up some kinds of issues that M-P would and did find fascinating: differenc/identity; root questions in the nature of gender; the discordance and concordance of the thinking/sensible being, of being human subject and object.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting...and enlightening, April 22, 2000

By 

Asali Nyuki - See all my reviews

This review is from: Telling Flesh: The Substance of the Corporeal (Paperback)

This book introduces what humans are made of, and bonds the boundary between our feelings, and our 'flesh' side. It is good if you are interested in somewhat of a metaphysical approach, and I recommend it for anyone with the time and open mind to read it.