Performing Embodiment
Choreographies of Affect, Language, and Social Norms
Published on 28. April 2026
Book
Hardback
265 pages
978-3-96558-115-9 (ISBN)
Description
Combining the notions of performativity and embodiment, this book situates the body in the realm of processes, movement, and poiesis, seeking to generate alternative configurations to mind-body dualism. Focused on language, literature, dance, affect, gender, sport, and disability, the contributions to this volume emphasize doing over being: the body does and is done; it is engaged in a movement of co-constitution with the world. It is in doing that bodies produce knowledge and shared or contested social meaning. Such a relational process is best described through the notion of choreographies - patterns of movement which capture the embodied dynamic of passivity and activity, design and improvisation, inner and outer states, and which fittingly describe the modalities through which social norms discipline bodies, or are challenged by them.
Reviews / Votes
Performing Embodiment belongs to a growing tradition of philosophical inquiry that foregrounds embodiment as a heuristic strategy, affirming the epistemic value of first-person experience. Under the guidance of editors Alberica Bazzoni and Federica Buongiorno, seven women thinkers compellingly argue that literature, dance, and sports are not merely expressive forms but active performances of thought. At the heart of their exploration is the living body - both biological and cultural - which, when critically examined, reveals and challenges the very social and intellectual conventions that shape it. This collection of essays ultimately offers a transformative perspective on labour, understood as inherently cognitive and affective because it is fundamentally embodied. - Chiara Cappelletto, Full Professor of Aesthetics at the Department of Philosophy at the University of MilanMore details
Persons
Editor
Alberica Bazzoni is an Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature at the University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy. She is the author of Il presente vivo. Temporalità del divenire e del trauma in Lispector, Ortese e Philip (2025) and Writing for Freedom: Body, Identity, and Power in Goliarda Sapienza's Narrative (2018), and co-editor of 'The Politics of Translation', Comparative Critical Studies (2023); Gender and Authority (2020); and Goliarda Sapienza in Context (2016). Her current research explores textual performativity and feminist and decolonial literary imaginaries of trauma and resistance.
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Federica Buongiorno is an Assistant Professor in Theoretical Philosophy and Phenomenology of Technology at the University of Florence, Italy. Her research interests include Husserlian and post-Husserlian phenomenology, the philosophy of technology (with a special focus on AI, algorithmic thinking and the digital culture), psychoanalysis, and cyberfeminism. She is the co-founder and co-editor in chief of the philosophical book series Umweg (Inschibboleth editions) and the editor-in-chief of the international journal of philosophy Azimuth. Her latest book is titled Iperindividualità. L'individuazione nel presente tecnologico (Meltemi 2025).
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Content
Introduction: Performing Embodiment / ALBERICA BAZZONI, FEDERICA BUONGIORNO
Language as Embodied Practice: Notes on Performative Processes of Subjectification with Reference to Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, and Judith Butler / LUCILLA GUIDI
Performing the Living Present: Clarice Lispector's Água Viva / ALBERICA BAZZONI
Performing and Embodying Authorship: Case Studies from Italian Women's Autobiographical Writings / URSULA FANNING
Affective Choreographies / SUSAN KOZEL
'Full Drop into the Body': A Conversation and Public Discussion / MARGRÉT SARA GUÐJÓNSDÓTTIR, SUSAN KOZEL
Dancing Tango: The Realm of Appearances / DOROTHEA OLKOWSKI
Embodying and Transforming Female Masculinity through Combat Sports / ELISA VIRGILI
Choreographies of Knowledge: Mis/fitting in Academia / CHIARA MONTALTI