PhaenEx: journal of existential and phenomenological theory and culture
Dec 17, 2012 → Sep 13, 2013
PhaenEx: journal of existential and phenomenological theory and culture
Call for papers for special edited issue: Judgement and Embodiment (volume 9.3, to be published in Fall/Winter 2014)
Editors: Alexis Shotwell (Carleton University) and Ada Jaarsma (Mount Royal University)
Feminist judgements about embodiment tend to be normative, identifying and undermining social prescriptions about bodily practices that limit flourishing and intensify oppression; conversely, feminist judgements are also often pragmatic, modeling forms of embodiment that aspire to emancipatory ways of living in the world. Embodiment can be seen, then, as an object of critique as well as a method of transformative critique, and both aspects of embodiment are animated by modes of judgement. Bodily practices that align with feminist resistance may make new capacities of judgement possible: for example, the cultivation of senses that are allergic to prejudicial forms of power and are attuned to non-oppressive relational dynamics. Might we affirm judgement itself as an embodied practice? Such a claim would be somewhat at odds with prevailing liberal scripts about judgement which warn us that judging another’s bodily practices might be impolite or impolitic. Existential and phenomenological approaches to critical theory call such liberal formulations into question, making way for more open-ended and positive conceptions of the intersections of judgement with embodiment.
This special issue will elaborate and explore the problem of embodiment, specifically from the vantage point of feminist concerns about domination and discrimination, on the one hand, and creative and affirmative becoming, on the other. We are especially interested in articles that reflect on particular—or even exemplary—cases that stage the problem of judgement and embodiment.
Deadline: September 5, 2013
Papers should be prepared for anonymous review, and they can be sent to Alexis Shotwell or Ada Jaarsma.