The Future of Flesh: A Cultural Survey of the Body. Edited by Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, and Effie Yiannopoulou

Transcription

1 The Future of Flesh

2 The Future of Flesh: A Cultural Survey of the Body Edited by Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, and Effie Yiannopoulou

3 THE FUTURE OF FLESH: A CULTURAL SURVEY OF THE BODY Copyright Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, and Effie Yiannopoulou, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: May

4 For Tereza, Konstantinos, Maria Anna, Katerina, and Christina, with all our Love

5 Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments ix xi 1. Toward the Futures of Flesh: An Introduction 1 Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, Effie Yiannopoulou Part I Disintegrating Bodies 2. The Past of Flesh: Mortal and Immortal Bodies in Ancient Greek Poetry 19 Ekaterini Douka-Kabitoglou 3. The Dead and Dying Body from Hume to Now 43 Thomas Laqueur 4. Langscapes of Death, Inscapes of Memory, and Philoktetes Postmodern Painscript 61 Savas Patsalidis 5. Fleshly Evils: Clinical and Cultural (IL)Logics of the Chronic Pain Subject in Contemporary U.S. Society 79 Cindy L. Linden Part II Artistic Representations of Mutating Flesh 6. Chuck Palahniuk and the Violence of Beauty 101 Elisabeth Bronfen 7. Eye, Agency, and Bodily Becomings: Processing Breast Cancer in and through Images 115 Katve-Kaisa Kontturi 8. Fantastic 4-Body-ings: Ideal Grotesqueness in the Comic-Book Culture 133 Christina Dokou 9. Emergence: New Flesh and Life in New Media Art 155 Edwina Bartlem

6 viii Contents Part III Posthuman Enfleshments 10. Fleshing Out Virtual Bodies: White Heterosexual Masculinity in Contemporary Cyberfantasy Cinema 181 Nicola Rehling 11. Flesh Encounters Biotechnology: Speculations on the Future of the Biological Machine 199 Domna Pastourmatzi 12. Modernity and the Other Body: The Human Contract with Mute Animality 221 Linda Williams 13. Meta(l)flesh 241 Rosi Braidotti Contributors 263 Index 267

7 Figures 7.1 Sketches (1999) The Young Family (2002) EXOSKELETON Semi-Living Dolls Display (2000) A Semi-Living Worry Doll Extra Ear: Ear On Arm 172

8 Acknowledgments Our sincerest thanks and gratitude go to our contributors for their unfailing patience and trust in us throughout this project. Their intellectual vigor, enthusiasm, and original research have inspired and illuminated the main concerns of The Future of Flesh and made the task of editing a profoundly rewarding experience for us. We are also grateful to our friends and colleagues, Ruth Parkin-Gounelas and Maria Margaroni, for their constructive comments on an earlier version of the introduction, as well as the Editorial Director, Farideh Koohi-Kamali, and Associate Editor, Brigitte Shull, of Palgrave Macmillan for their encouragement and excellent cooperation. Finally, we extend our special thanks to Tasos Paschalis for his sterling technical support and enduring humor, and our librarians, Fotini Stavrou and Kleoniki Skoularika, for their invaluable help during the research stage of this project. The editors and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to use copyright material: The Nobel Foundation 2005 for permission to reprint Harold Pinter s poem The Dead from his Nobel Lecture, Art, Truth, and Politics. Helena Hietanen for Sketches (1999), color photographs taken by Eva Persson. Patricia Piccinini for The Young Family (2002), Silicone, polyurethane, leather, plywood, human hair 80x150x110cm, photograph by Graham Baring. Stelarc for EXOSKELETON, Cankarjev Dom, Warehouse, Vhrinka, Slovenia (2003), photograph by Igor Skafar Robot Construction F18 Hamburg, funded by Kampnagel, Hamburg, and for EXTRA EAR: EAR ON ARM, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Australia (2006), photograph by Nina Sellars Surgical Team: Malcolm Lesavoy, MD; Sean Bidic, MD; William Futrell, MD. Project coordinator: Jeremy Taylor, October Films, funded by Discovery US. The Tissue Culture and Art for Semi-Living Dolls Display (2000), and A Semi-Living Worry Doll H, McCoy Cell line, Biodegradable/ bioabsorbable Polymers and Surgical Sutures Dimensions: 2cm x 1.5cm x 1cm from The Tissue Culture & Art(ificial) Wombs Installation, Ars Electronica (2000). Lexington Books for a slightly modified version of Nicola Rheling s essay Terminal Bodies: White Masculinity and Virtual Disembodiment in Popular Cinema which will be published in her forthcoming book Extra- Ordinary Men: White Heterosexual Masculinity and Contemporary Popular Culture.