Avatar Bodies
A Tantra For Posthumanism
An ethically-based approach to human relations for the media age
248 Pages, 6 x 9 in
- Paperback
- 9780816641475
- Published: February 25, 2004
- Series: Electronic Mediations
Details
Avatar Bodies
A Tantra For Posthumanism
Series: Electronic Mediations
ISBN: 9780816641475
Publication date: February 25th, 2004
248 Pages
9 x 5
An ethically-based approach to human relations for the media age
Otherness, alterity, the alien—over the course of the past fifty years many of us have based our hopes for more ethical relationships on concepts of difference. Combining philosophy, literary criticism, fiction, autobiography, and real and imagined correspondence, Ann Weinstone proposes that only when we stop ordering the other to be other—whether technological, animal, or simply inanimate—will we truly become posthuman.
Posthumanism has thus far focused nearly exclusively on human–technology relations. Avatar Bodies develops a posthumanist vocabulary for human-to-human relationships that turns our capacities for devotion, personality, and pleasure. Drawing on both the philosophies and practices of Indian Tantra, Weinstone argues for the impossibility of absolute otherness; we are all avatar bodies, consisting of undecidably shared gestures, skills, memories, sensations, beliefs, and affects.
Weinstone calls her book a “tantra”—by which she means a set of instructions for practices aimed at sensitizing the reader to the inherent permeability of self to other, self to world. This tantra for posthumanism elaborates devotional gestures that will expose us to more unfettered contacts and the transformative touch.
Ann Weinstone is assistant professor of literature and new media at Northwestern University and the winner of the 1994 Chelsea Award for Fiction.
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Pleasure 1
Every Relation but One:Part I 3
(Post)Humanism 8
Suspension 23
Deconstruction and Posthumanism? 25
Nonphilosophy 17
Tidal Kneeplay 21
Deleuze and Derrida:You Are Other 23
To Have 25
To Belong 28
Fiora Raggi Kneeplay 31
Tantra for Posthumanism 33
Speaking ofAssimilation 37
Avatar Bodies 40
First City Kneeplay 43
Insect Threads 50
Case 52
Insects and Buddhists 55
The Insect Self 59
The Insect Yogi 62
Knowing,Caring 64
Second City Kneeplay 68
Sorcerer Series I:The Island Sorcerer (An Introduction) 71
Some Celibate Erotics 74
Vı raAction 77
The Wasp and the Orchid 79
Sorcerer Series II:The Yogi Sorcerer 83
Sex Scene 86
Becoming Woman,Becoming Yogini 89
English Tantra or the Imperceptible Man 91
Vı
¯raBha¯vaKneeplay 95
Sorcerer Series III:Rheya 96
Sorcerer Series IV:The Miracle of the Rogue 101
Heroes ofDifference 104
Third City Kneeplay:The Wasp and the Orchid Cross a Letter 108
Emanation/Expression 111
Three Bodies 115
Three Bodies:Exposition in Preparation for the Avatar Body 116
Avatar and Expression 118
The Difference Difference 121
Avatar Bodies,an Invitation 124
Itaraand Avata¯ra 126
Tantric Bodies 128
Fourth City Kneeplay 130
Eating,Well... 132
Eating Animals 134
Vegetarians,Brahmins 137
Tantra’s Third Way 139
The Responsibility of the (Postdeconstructive) Subject 142
Love and Justice 144
Experience 146
Intuition,Perhaps 149
A Tantra for Posthumanism 153
Bha¯va 153
I Am Speaking of Devotion (Bhakti) 154
Discipleship (Dı
¯ks
˙a¯) 158
Iteration (Japa) 159
Transindividualism (Nya¯sa) 161
Enjoyment,Intoxication (Bhoga) 163
Gesture (Mudra¯) 169
Fifth City Kneeplay:Solaris in Your Eyes 171
Epistlirium 173
Every Relation but One:Part II 175
Hard to Say 177
The Postal Age 181
(Post) Heroism 184
Post Heroism 187
Post Post 190
The Sacrificial Structure of the Post 193
Fire 197
Water 200
Flesh 202
Who? 204
E-Mail Mudra 206
Chance 210
Postscript 215
Works Cited 219