1st Edition

Somatechnics Queering the Technologisation of Bodies

By Samantha Murray, Nikki Sullivan Copyright 2009
    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    Somatechnics highlights the reciprocal bond between the sôma and the techné of 'the body' and the techniques in which bodies are formed and transformed as crafted responses to the world around us. Structured around the themes of the governance of social bodies, the gendering of sexed bodies and the techniques associated with the formation of the self, Somatechnics presents a groundbreaking study of body modification. Its contributions to the work of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Deluze and Guattari make it a must read for scholars of sociology, cultural and queer studies and philosophy.

    Introduction, Nikki Sullivan, Samantha Murray; Part One The Somatechnics of the Social Body; Chapter 1 Diseased States: The Role of Pathology in the (Re)Production of the Body Politic, Jessica Cadwallader; Chapter 2 Bodies Politic? Public Sculptures and the Queering of National Space in London's Trafalgar Square, Rosemary Betterton; Chapter 3 King's Member, Queen's Body: Transsexual Surgery, Self-Demand Amputation and the Somatechnics of Sovereign Power, Susan Stryker, Nikki Sullivan; Chapter 4 Asian Sex Workers in Australia: Somatechnologies of Trafficking and Queer Mobilities, Audrey Yue; Part Two Somatechnologies of Sex/Gender; Chapter 5 Queering Spinoza's Somatechnics: Stem Cells, Strategic Sacralisations and Fantasies of Care and Kind, Robin Mackenzie; Chapter 6 Sexing the Cherry: Fixing Masculinity, Marie Fox, Michael Thomson; Chapter 7 Speaking Transsexuality in the Cinematic Tongue, Eliza Steinbock; Chapter 8 'Banded Bodies': The Somatechnics of Gastric Banding, Samantha Murray; Part Three Somatechniques of the Self; Chapter 9 Queer Monsters: Technologies of Self-Transformation in Bulwer's Anthropometamorphosis and Braidotti's Metamorphoses, Elizabeth Stephens; Chapter 10 A Somatechnological Paradigm: How do you Make Yourself a Body without Organs?, Matt Lodder; Chapter 11 Between the Foot and the Floor, Dancing with Nietzsche and Klossoswki, Philipa Rothfield; Chapter 12 Queer Substances and Normative Substantiations: Of Drugs, Dogs and other Piggy Practices, Kane Race;

    Biography

    Nikki Sullivan is Associate Professor of Critical and Cultural Studies and Director of the Somatechnics Research Centre at Macquarie University, Australia. Samantha Murray is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Somatechnics Research Centre and the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University, Australia.

    'The emergence of somatechnics as an exciting new area of study will be celebrated by all those who deploy postconventional theory in the analysis of embodiment. This is a collection rich in provocative and productive ideas brought into conversation by a stellar cast of established and upcoming contributors. It fully illustrates the queer potential of transdisciplinarity.' Margrit Shildrick, Queen's University Belfast, UK 'This thought-provoking volume will leave any reader pondering their own embodied being in the world.' Critical Race and Whiteness Studies