Contours of the Flesh: The Semiotics of Pain

by Darlene M. Juschka

Overview

In the Eurowest pain is discursively framed as something that elides discourse and therefore is outside language. In this framing, pain, as outside language, is given asocial and ahistorical status understood to be beyond human construction. Indeed, played out in systems of belief and practice, pain acts as a medium for reciprocal relations with the metaphysical other since it too is understood as originating and sharing a part in the 'authentic' or 'real' from which the metaphysical, and therefore truth, is understood to emerge. Understood as part of this domain, pain is linked to truth and therefore understood to be a means to truth; hence the use of torture to secure the truth. With this kind of discursive framing, this book works to make apparent the rhetorical play of pain demonstrating its social and political imperatives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845539610
Publisher:	Equinox Publishing
Publication date:	04/01/2021
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.42(d)

About the Author

Darlene M. Juschka is an associate professor in the Department of Gender, Religious and Critical Studies at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan Canada.

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1: Pain, the Body and Signification Chapter 2: Mythic Caesura, Pain and the Boundary between the Non-human and Human Animal Chapter 3 Pain and the Significant of Ancient Spartan Masculinities -A Case Study Chapter 4 Penetrating the Body of the Masculine Other: White Masculinity, War, and Ritualized Torture Chapter 5 The Cut of Pain: Circumcision and Identity: A Genealogical Play Afterwords