Phenomenology of the Broken Body

<p>Some fundamental aspects of the lived body only become evident when it breaks down through illness, weakness or pain. From a phenomenological point of view, various breakdowns are worth analyzing for their own sake, and discussing them also opens up overlooked dimensions of our bodily constitution. This book brings together different approaches that shed light on the phenomenology of the lived body—its normality and abnormality, health and sickness, its activity as well as its passivity. The contributors integrate phenomenological insights with discussions about bodily brokenness in philosophy, theology, medical science and literary theory. <i>Phenomenology of the Broken Body</i> demonstrates how the broken body sheds fresh light on the nuances of embodied experience in ordinary life and ultimately questions phenomenology’s preunderstanding of the body.</p> <p>Introduction</p><p><i>Espen Dahl, Cassandra Falke, Thor Eirik Eriksen</i></p><p><b>Section I: Vulnerable Bodies</b></p><p>1. Weakness and Passivity: Phenomenology of the Body after Paul</p><p><i>Espen Dahl</i></p><p>2. The Vulnerable Body – Merleau-Ponty and Psychoanalysis</p><p><i>Ståle Finke</i></p><p>3. Bodily Pain and the Breakdown of Language in Algerian Testimony and Literature</p><p><i>Alexandra Megearu</i></p><p>4. Framing Embodiment in Violent Narratives</p><p><i>Cassandra Falke</i></p><p><b>Section II: Suffering Bodies</b></p><p>5. Only Vulnerable Creatures Suffer: On Suffering, Embodiment and Existential Health</p><p><i>Ola Sigurdson</i></p><p>6. The Body Beyond Scientific Certainty – Brokenness, Uncanniness, Affectedness</p><p><i>Thor Eirik Eriksen</i></p><p>7. No Way Out: A Phenomenology of Pain</p><p><i>Christian Grüny</i></p><p>8. The Phenomenology of Fatigue</p><p><i>Katherine Morris</i></p><p><b>Section III: Recovery and Life´s Margins</b></p><p>9. Suffering’s Double Disclosure and the Structure of Normality in Experience</p><p><i>James McGuirk</i></p><p>10. Recovery as Re-attunement: Repairing the Body-World Relationship</p><p><i>Drew Leder</i></p><p>11. Notes from a Heart Attack</p><p><i>Kevin Aho</i></p><p>12. Broken Pregnancies</p><p><i>Talia Welsh</i></p><p>13. Dying Bodies and Dead Bodies: A Phenomenological Analysis of Dementia, Coma and Brain Death</p><p><em>Fredrik Svenaeus</em></p>