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- Foultier, Anna Petronella
(author)
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Letting the body find its way: skills, expertise, and Bodily Reflection
- 2023
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In: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. - : Springer. - 1568-7759 .- 1572-8676. ; 22:4, s. 799-820
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- What forms of consciousness can the subject have of her body in action? This is a recurrent issue in contemporary research on skilled movement and expertise, and according to a widespread view, the body makes itself inconspicuous in performance in favour of the object or goal that the activity is directed to. However, this attitude to consciousness in bodily performance seems unsatisfying for an understanding of skilled action, and the work of several researchers can be seen as responding to this view: Montero, Legrand, Ravn and others in the philosophy of expertise and of dance have developed various notions of consciousness and cognition to account for the mindful processes at play in performance.Two related questions can be distinguished here: (1) Is there an inherent conflict between skilled action and at least more than marginal awareness of that action, or is it possible – and even desirable – to reflect on our own performance without considerably impeding on it? (2) What forms of consciousness pertaining to the body in action must we distinguish in order to answer the first question?This paper gives an overview of this discussion, focusing on the second issue, although the first will come into play in so far as it is linked with the latter question. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s analyses of bodily reflection and on dancers’ descriptions, I show that there is, in phenomenological terms, a bodily level of reflection: a fully conscious and exploratory activity that is led by the skilled body, and that is explicitly aimed at by many performers.
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- Foultier, Anna Petronella, 1966-
(author)
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The ethical night of libertinism : Beauvoir’s reading of Sade
- 2023
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In: Continental philosophy review. - : Springer. - 1387-2842 .- 1573-0611 .- 1573-1103. ; 56:1, s. 41-61
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper examines Simone de Beauvoir’s reading of the eighteenth century writer and libertine Marquis de Sade, in her essay "Must we Burn Sade?"; a difficult and bewildering text, both in pure linguistic terms and philosophically. In particular, Beauvoir’s insistence on Sade as a “great moralist” seems hard to reconcile with her emphasis, in The Ethics of Ambiguity, on the interdependency of human beings and her exhortation to us to promote other people’s freedom, as well as the aspiration of The Second Sex to equal relations between the genders. While earlier scholars addressed the ethico-political implications of Beauvoir’s essay, they insisted that the ambiguity so fundamental in her philosophy is denied by the Sadean hero, and that the Other can never be attained in his system. In this essay, I argue that Sade paradoxically emerges as an ethical model in Beauvoir’s text: as a writer, he assumes the ambiguity of the human condition in the extreme. Further, Sade reveals the potential of sexuality if it is explored in a form of eroticism that largely transgresses behavior constructed as normal: his writings open up new forms of existence, where, contrary to prevailing ideas, woman’s sexual freedom is claimed as equal to man’s, where genders are unstable and heterosexuality no longer the standard. Beauvoir’s fascination with Sade in this essay can be linked with the seemingly unresolvable asymmetry in the relation between men and women in The Second Sex: in his writings is revealed sexuality’s potential to subvert patriarchal norms and mystifications, and perhaps, in the end, even gender itself.
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- Foultier, Anna Petronella
(author)
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The Phenomenology of the Body Schema and Contemporary Dance Practice : The Example of “Gaga”
- 2022
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In: Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology. - : Routledge. - 2053-9320 .- 2053-9339. ; 8:1, s. 1-20
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In recent years, the notion of the body schema has been widely discussed, in particular in fields connecting philosophy, cognitive science, and dance studies, as it seems to have bearing across disciplines in a fruitful way. A main source in this literature is Shaun Gallagher’s distinction between the body schema—the “pre-noetic” conditions of bodily performance—and the body image—the body as intentional object—, another is Merleau-Ponty’s writings on the living body, that Gallagher often draws upon. In this paper, I will first discuss Gallagher’s presumed clarification of body schema–body image, and discuss a recent critique by Saint Aubert (2013), who evaluates it against the backdrop of Merleau-Ponty’s thoughts on this issue. While I believe that Saint Aubert’s criticism overshoots the mark, it is useful for a clarification of Gallagher’s analysis and points to a problematic feature, namely the alleged inscrutability of the body schema to phenomenological reflection. This is particularly interesting in relation to contemporary dance and performance practice, where working with—and against—habitual structures is a core element. Certain contemporary training techniques are explicitly aimed at raising awareness of those bodily aspects that condition movement and expression—that Gallagher sees as pertaining to the body schema—and that in ordinary activities often remain hidden. In order to clarify the role that reflection on our own body and its habitual patterns plays in contemporary dance practice, I will examine the movement language and improvisation practice “Gaga,” where this aspect is arguably fundamental.
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