Bodies and Subjects in Merleau-Ponty and Foucault: Towards a Phenomenological/Poststructuralist Feminist Theory of Embodied Subjectivity
Open Access
- Author:
- Levin, Julia
- Graduate Program:
- Philosophy
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 05, 2008
- Committee Members:
- Shannon Wimberley Sullivan, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Nancy A Tuana, Committee Member
John Philip Christman, Committee Member
Jane Juffer, Committee Member - Keywords:
- merleau-ponty
foucaul
subjectivity
embodiment
feminism - Abstract:
- This dissertation is about feminism, embodiment, subjectivity, and liberation from oppressed ways of bodily being. My primary claim is that subjectivity is fundamentally embodied, and that understanding this is beneficial for feminism. A feminist theory of embodiment must account for the lived experiences of multiple and varied embodied subjects in multiple and varied social situations, for the genealogical histories behind such embodied subjectivities, and for the possibility of their engaging in progressive, liberatory change on both a personal and a political level. I approach a liberatory theory of embodiment using two traditionally divergent but in my view complimentary approaches: Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and Foucault’s poststructuralism. I argue that it is possible to read Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology in concert with Foucault’s postmodernism by highlighting their similarities, showing that their differences are complimentary rather than contradictory, and elucidating how each provides elements that can strengthen areas that are lacking in the other. My claim is that both figures present similar theories of subjectivity as fundamentally embodied and contextualized, yet with different foci that each provide necessary components of a complete theory: Merleau-Ponty focuses on the experiential, material aspects of embodied being in his discussions of habits, body images, and the “I can”, while Foucault emphasizes the power relationships and the discursive and historical forces that contribute to body-subjects’ construction. Read together, the two provide a theory of embodiment as discursive yet still material, and as historically and culturally situated, yet still capable of agentic, liberatory transformation. As an example of the application of such a theory to feminist liberatory practices, I examine the body-discipline of karate as a means of transforming oppressive, restrictive body-habits into the habits of a body-subject who is freer and more open to possibilities and pleasures. I further show how engaging in karate (or other body disciplines) enhances the body-subject’s ability to work for progressive change on a collective level. It is my contention that combining phenomenological insights from Merleau-Ponty with poststructuralist insights from Foucault provides feminists with a thorough and robust foundation for understanding both the necessity and the possibility for such transformation.