Embodied Selves

This interdisciplinary collection explores the role the body plays in constituting our sense of self, signalling the interplay between material embodiment, social meaning, and material and social conditions. Collectively the papers draw attention to aspects of embodiment which are not always centre stage in other debates, particularly issues of bodily vulnerability. They make clear, in considering the relation of bodies and selves, that more is at stake than social identity categories; but that what is at stake is, nonetheless, an inter-subjective making of the self. Utilizing theoretical and biographical material, key strands of contemporary thought are brought into conversation: the new materialism, poststructuralism and, importantly, phenomenology. The consequences for an embodied ethics and a corporeal political theory are considered. There is a substantial and accessible introduction placing the papers in the context of contemporary debates. Collectively, the volume marks a major development in philosophical and critical accounts of embodiment.

STELLA GONZALEZ-ARNAL is a lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the University of Hull, UK.


GILL JAGGER is a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Hull, UK. Her publications include Judith Butler: Sexual Politics, Social Change and the Power of the Performative and the co-edited Changing Family Values. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Hull, UK.


KATHLEEN LENNON is the Ferens Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hull, UK. Her publications include the co-authored Theorising Gender and The World the Flesh and the Subject. She is the director of the Centre for Research into Embodied Subjectivity at the University of Hull, UK.