Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism

218 Pages·2001·1.41 MB·English

by  Shannon Sullivan

l i v i n g a c r o s s
a n d
t h r o u g h s k i n s
l i v i n g a c r o s s
a n d
t h r o u g h s k i n s
Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism,
and Feminism
Shannon Sullivan
i n d i a n a u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s
B l o o m i n g t o n a n d I n d i a n a p o l i s
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress
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c o n t e n t s
acknowledgments
vii
abbreviations
ix
introduction
Transactional Bodies after Dewey
1
one
Living Across and Through Skins: Bodies in Transaction
12
two
Discursivity and Materiality:
The Lived Experience of Transactional Bodies
41
three
Communicating with Another:
Transaction and Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Corporeal Existence
65
four
Recon¤guring Gender: Habit, Bodies, and Cultural Change
88
vi
Contents
f ive
Transactional Somaesthetics:
Nietzsche, Women, and the Transformation of Bodily Experience
111
six
Transactional Knowing:
Toward a Pragmatist-Feminist Standpoint Theory
133
conclusion
Transaction and the Dynamic Distinctiveness of Races
157
notes
171
bi bliography
193
index
201
a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
My warm thanks go to the following people for discussions over the last
few years that helped shape the ideas in this book: Vincent Colapietro,
Celeste Friend, Irene Harvey, Lee Horvitz, Bill McKenna, Phillip Mc-
Reynolds, Ashley Pryor, Ben Pryor, Susan Schoenbohm, and Lori Varlotta.
The following people graciously read and commented on earlier versions
of individual chapters, for which I am grateful: John Compton, Dan Con-
way, Brian Domino, Susan Jarratt, Charlene Seigfried, and Emily Zakin. I
am especially grateful to Del McWhorter for reading multiple chapters
multiple times. I appreciate Silvia Stoller’s critical response in the Winter
2000 issue of Hypatia to the article that became Chapter Three for helping
me clarify the relationship of transaction and phenomenology. For their
advice and guidance, particularly that which helped me navigate the pub-
lishing process, I am grateful to John Lachs, Charles Scott, and John Stuhr.
I also happily acknowledge the work of my editor, Dee Mortensen, who
made many fruitful suggestions that are incorporated in the pages that fol-
low, and the skillful copyediting of Karen L. Lew.
The long-standing friendships I have with my sister, Jennifer Sullivan,
and my college roommate Michele Howard have helped sustain me and,
thus, my philosophical work over the years. I am grateful to my parents
Alex George Sullivan and Bettye Sullivan for giving me their love and,
just as importantly, an example of how to free-spiritedly question one’s
life, demonstrating the truth of Dewey’s claim that the habits that consti-
tute the self can be recon¤gured at any age. Above all, I thank Phillip
McReynolds, not only for carefully reading and insightfully commenting
on the entire manuscript, but also for his love and support and the many
philosophical conversations we have had while cooking and hiking, with-
out which this book would not have been possible.
Earlier versions of two of the chapters were originally published in the
journal Hypatia. Chapter Three is a revised and expanded version of
“Domination and Dialogue in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Per-
ception,” published in the Winter 1997 issue, volume 12, pages 1–19. Chap-
ter Four was originally published in a shorter form as “Recon¤guring Gen-
der with John Dewey: Habit, Bodies, and Cultural Change” in the Winter
2000 issue, volume 15, pages 23–42. I am grateful to Indiana University
Press for permission to reprint them here.
a b b r e v i a t i o n s
References to the work of John Dewey are to the following volumes and
are abbreviated in the standard form of initials for the series, followed by
volume number and page number. Thus, for example, the ¤rst page of the
¤rst volume of the Later Works would be listed as LW 1:1.
EW John Dewey: The Early Works: 1882–1898. Ed. Jo Ann Boydston. 5
vols. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1969–1972.
MW John Dewey: The Middle Works: 1899–1924. Ed. Jo Ann Boydston. 15
vols. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1976–1988.
LW John Dewey: The Later Works: 1925–1953. Ed. Jo Ann Boydston. 17
vols. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1988–1991.