Body—Wound—Writing

This essay explores the relationship between the body and representation by focusing on the skin as a writing surface and on the relation between writing and wounding. After providing an overview of postmodern bodylmages, it delineates modes of the creation (and dexreation) of the phantasm on the ba...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Amerikastudien 1999-01, Vol.44 (3), p.393-411
Main Author: Berressem, Hanjo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Death
Ego
Literature
Mathematical surfaces
Memory
Postmodern literature
Symbolic order
Tattooing
Writing
Written narratives
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Summary:This essay explores the relationship between the body and representation by focusing on the skin as a writing surface and on the relation between writing and wounding. After providing an overview of postmodern bodylmages, it delineates modes of the creation (and dexreation) of the phantasm on the background of Gilles Deleuze's concept of 'the logic of sense' and Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection. Drawing on these theoretical investigations, it then looks at Kathy Acker's novel Empire of the Senseless, focusing in particular on its strategies of rexonfiguring the narrative phantasm and on the motif of the tattoo as a writing practice that revolves around the interplay of body, wound, and writing.
ISSN:0340-2827