Politics of Touch Sense, Movement, Sovereignty Erin Manning Table of Contents		$22.50 Paper ISBN: 0-8166-4845-X ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4845-0 $67.50 Cloth ISBN: 0-8166-4844-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4844-3
Detects the political event that occurs whenever two people touch. Political philosophy has long been bound by traditional thinking about the body and the senses. Through an engagement with the state-centered vocabulary of this discipline, Politics of Touch explores the ways in which sensing bodies continually run up against existing political structures. In this groundbreaking work, Erin Manning reconsiders how new politics can arise that challenge the national body politic. In Politics of Touch, Manning develops a new way to conceive the role of the senses, and of touch in particular. Exploring concepts of violence, gender, sexuality, security, democracy, and identity, she traces the ways in which touch informs and reforms the body. Specifically considering tango-a tactile, rhythmic, and improvisational dance- she foregrounds movement as the sensing body's intervention into the political. With a fresh vision and an original theoretical basis, Manning shows the ontogenetic potential of the body, and in doing so, redefines our understanding of the sense of touch in philosophical and political terms. Erin Manning is assistant professor of fine arts at Concordia University and the author of Ephemeral Territories. 240 pages | 8 halftones | 5 7⁄8 x 9 | 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction: Atypical Expressions and Political Inventions Bodies On the Move – Political Re-Compositions 1. Negotiating Influence: Touch and Tango Gestural Politics – Touching the Impenetrable – Te toucher, toi – Eventually Tender – Worlding Touch 2. Happy Together: Moving Toward Multiplicity Tango Movements – Tango Friendships – A Last Tango 3. Erring Toward Experience: Violence and Touch Means Without an End – Violence – Erring – Divine Violence – Return to the Garden 4. Engenderings: Gender, Politics, Individuation Touch – Gender – Symbiosis – Interlude – Individuation – Politics 5. Making Sense of the Incommensurable: Experiencing Democracy Expressions of the Political – Thick to Think – Shifting Skinscapes – Democracy – Making Sense of Politics 6. Sensing Beyond Security: What a Body Can Do Do Not Touch – Tactically Untouchable – Structurally Insecure – Of Pacts and Political Becomings – Posthuman Prosthetics – A Touch of Insecurity Notes Bibliography Index