Assuming a Body

Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Gay & Lesbian, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Gay Studies, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy
Cover of the book Assuming a Body by Gayle Salamon, Columbia University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Gayle Salamon ISBN: 9780231521703
Publisher: Columbia University Press Publication: March 30, 2010
Imprint: Columbia University Press Language: English
Author: Gayle Salamon
ISBN: 9780231521703
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication: March 30, 2010
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Language: English

We believe we know our bodies intimately-that their material reality is certain and that this certainty leads to an epistemological truth about sex, gender, and identity. By exploring and giving equal weight to transgendered subjectivities, however, Gayle Salamon upends these certainties. Considering questions of transgendered embodiment via phenomenology (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud and Paul Ferdinand Schilder), and queer theory, Salamon advances an alternative theory of normative and non-normative gender, proving the value and vitality of trans experience for thinking about embodiment.

Salamon suggests that the difference between transgendered and normatively gendered bodies is not, in the end, material. Rather, she argues that the production of gender itself relies on a disjunction between the "felt sense" of the body and an understanding of the body's corporeal contours, and that this process need not be viewed as pathological in nature. Examining the relationship between material and phantasmatic accounts of bodily being, Salamon emphasizes the productive tensions that make the body both present and absent in our consciousness and work to confirm and unsettle gendered certainties. She questions traditional theories that explain how the body comes to be-and comes to be made one's own-and she offers a new framework for thinking about what "counts" as a body. The result is a groundbreaking investigation into the phenomenological life of gender.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

We believe we know our bodies intimately-that their material reality is certain and that this certainty leads to an epistemological truth about sex, gender, and identity. By exploring and giving equal weight to transgendered subjectivities, however, Gayle Salamon upends these certainties. Considering questions of transgendered embodiment via phenomenology (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud and Paul Ferdinand Schilder), and queer theory, Salamon advances an alternative theory of normative and non-normative gender, proving the value and vitality of trans experience for thinking about embodiment.

Salamon suggests that the difference between transgendered and normatively gendered bodies is not, in the end, material. Rather, she argues that the production of gender itself relies on a disjunction between the "felt sense" of the body and an understanding of the body's corporeal contours, and that this process need not be viewed as pathological in nature. Examining the relationship between material and phantasmatic accounts of bodily being, Salamon emphasizes the productive tensions that make the body both present and absent in our consciousness and work to confirm and unsettle gendered certainties. She questions traditional theories that explain how the body comes to be-and comes to be made one's own-and she offers a new framework for thinking about what "counts" as a body. The result is a groundbreaking investigation into the phenomenological life of gender.

More books from Columbia University Press

Cover of the book Dekalog 4 by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book The Book of Swindles by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549) by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Engaging the Past by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Visions of Dystopia in China’s New Historical Novels by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book A Short Course in Reading French by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Altered States by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book The Invention of Private Life by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book China's Green Religion by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Shakespeare and the Jews by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Experiencing Animal Minds by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book Robert N. Butler, MD by Gayle Salamon
Cover of the book The Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United States Since 1945 by Gayle Salamon
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy