What is a body?

On the first day of class, we were asked a seemingly simple question: what is a body? In my notebook I wrote, “A body is a vessel, made of physical matter (flesh, bone, blood) that carries you from place to place.” How scholarly? I thought. I fashioned myself a modern day Merleau-Ponty. I was a master of the body and it was only August. Then I read the first paragraph from our first assignment in, “Why the Body?” and “The Body in the Visual Field,” by Dani Cavallaro. It went as so: “In recent years, the body has been radically rethought by both science and philosophy. We can no longer view the body as a natural object. The body is actually a cultural representation constructed through various media, especially language. Societies produce ideals of the proper body in order to define their identities. Yet time and again, the body’s boundaries turn out to be uncertain.” (Cavallaro) Oh rats! I thought. What a fool I had been. Sure, my body was a vessel made of flesh, bone, and blood, but had it really only carried me to write that “surface-deep” response to a question I found so easy? I thought of bodies only as a physical thing, but I disregarded the way in which we construct different physical bodies based on race, gender, disabilities. I also failed to think about the way in which we view bodies: face to face, through photos, and film. After this realization, I had two options. 1) I could burn my notebook scribbled with un-thoughtful prose. 2) I could continue on down the rabbit hole of corporal uncertainty. Red pill, blue pill, red pill blue pill? My mom reminded me this course was a requirement for graduation, so I took the blue pill. And down I went.

If anything, this class has reminded me to take a closer look into things we view as “everyday, normal, mundane, etc.” Actually, I would argue that this critique was the most provocative thing about the course. Sure we viewed shocking pictures, discoveries, and theories, however the most shocking discussions surrounded things we take for granted, like gendered bathrooms, sidewalks, and bodies. I had to view bodies (my body) in a different way than before.

The texts I found most intriguing were the Threadbared blogs by Mimi Thi Nguyen and Minh-ha T. Pham. The blogs were theory driven, and yet culturally relatable. I found myself connecting to these texts in particular, because I was doing a similar exercise each week on this site. The visual cultural production I was drawn to the most was, “Children of Men.” Besides loving post-apocalyptic narratives, the class discussion surround the movie was awesome. I loved connecting it to the text with the child as “hope” and I loved hearing my classmates discuss the technical film aspects in relation to theory.

Each week I was surprisingly intrigued by the topics. I was surprised, because usually I get bored with at least one weekly topic. However, if I had to add a topic to a course on “bodies,” I would probably choose one on "zombie bodies." Call me biased (because I love the new AMC show, “The Walking Dead,” and again I have an affinity for post-apocalyptic narratives) however the discourse around the “zombie body” can bring up discussions surrounding cultural reactions to devalued bodies, bodies that are both living/dead, etc. But guess what? Since this course allowed us to draw on our own cultural productions, I ended up making my own “zombie body” discussion in a past blog. That’s what I think I liked most about this class, the way in which we were encouraged to bring in outside productions of our choosing. It made the (at times difficult to understand) theory come to life—pardon my zombie rhetoric.

I was not only pleased to read my classmate’s brilliant connections on this blog, but I feel honored I was able to listen to my classmate’s brilliant connections during class. Even though many of the topics were political, loaded, and controversial, the “small class” made discussions comfortable and informative. This was the smallest class I have ever been in and it honestly made me wonder why I chose a large public school rather than a small liberal arts institution. There’s something extraordinary to be said about a learning environment where a small number of students can communicate amongst each other and their professor, while being able to listen- and more importantly, feeling that they have been listened to. Quite frankly, this excites me about learning and makes me happy that I took the blue pill. And yet, at the end I again find the most troubling and pleasurable thing about this class (or any class that provokes critical thought) is that I leave feeling that I know less. Alas, I must fall further into the bottomless pit that is theory.

Hey everybody, thanks.