Some fundamental aspects of the lived body only become evident when it breaks down through illness, weakness or pain. From a phenomenological point of view, various breakdowns are worth analyzing for their own sake, and discussing them also opens up overlooked dimensions of our bodily constitution. This book brings together different approaches that shed light on the phenomenology of the lived body—its normality and abnormality, health and sickness, its activity as well as its passivity. The contributors integrate phenomenological insights with discussions about bodily brokenness in philosophy, theology, medical science and literary theory. Phenomenology of the Broken Body demonstrates how the broken body sheds fresh light on the nuances of embodied experience in ordinary life and ultimately questions phenomenology’s preunderstanding of the body.

Following the core principle of phenomenology as a return 'to the things themselves,' Body Matters attends to the phenomena of bodily afflictions and examines them from three different standpoints: from society in general that interprets them as 'sicknesses,' from the medical professions that interpret them as 'diseases,' and from the patients themselves who interpret them as 'illnesses.' By drawing on a crucial distinction in German phenomenology between two senses of the body_the quantifiable, material body (Ksrper) and the lived-body(Leib)_the authors explore the ways in which sickness, disease, and illness are socially and historically experienced and constructed. To make their case, they draw on examples from a multiplicity of disciplines and cultures as well as a number of cases from Euro-American history. The intent is to unsettle taken-for-granted assumptions that readers may have about body troubles. These are assumptions widely held as well by medical and allied health professionals, in addition to many sociologists and philosophers of health and illness. To this end, Body Matters does not simply deconstruct prejudices of mainstream biomedicine; it also constructively envisions more humane and artful forms of therapy.

A fascinating collection of essays exploring a fresh contemporary approach to the person and doctrine of Jesus Christ How should Christians think about the person of Jesus Christ today? In this volume, Sarah Coakley argues that this question has to be ‘broken open’ in new and unexpected ways: by an awareness of the deep spiritual demands of the christological task and its strikingly ‘apophatic’ dimensions; by a probing of the paradoxical ways in which Judaism and Christianity are drawn together in Christ, even by those issues which seem to ‘break’ them most decisively apart; and by an exploration of the mode of Christ’s presence in the eucharist, with its intensification,‘ breaking’ and re-gathering of human desires. In this sequel to her celebrated earlier volume of essays, Powers and Submissions, Coakley returns to its unifying theme of divine power and contemplative submission, and weaves a new web of christological outcomes which remain replete with controversial implications for gender, spirituality and ethics. The Broken Body will be of interest to those working in the fields of systematic theology, philosophy of religion, early Christian studies, Jewish/Christian relations, and feminist and gender theory. ‘Fusing biblical and patristic theology, analytic philosophy, and spiritual tradition, Sarah Coakley has produced a fascinating, inspiring, and compelling account of Christ’s identity, and its importance for questions of life.’ Professor Mark Wynn, University of Oxford ‘Coakley argues that good Christology arises only from intellectual and spiritual postures learnt by encountering Christ openly. This volume subtly and powerfully facilitates such encounter, with God and, in him, with our neighbours, especially the Jewish people.’ Professor Judith Wolfe, University of St. Andrews ‘Everything we have come to expect from Sarah Coakley is here in this extraordinary collection: wonderful clarity; startling and fruitful comparisons, within and beyond the theological canon; a brisk defiance of feminist conventions that in turn sharpens and deepens feminist analysis; a resistance to cheap theological certainties; and an abiding faithfulness, anchored in Christ, borne aloft by the Spirit. Christology is here shown to embrace abjection and jouissance, to advocate sacrifice that is itself the end of patriarchal violence, and to demand a eucharistic sharing that is incomplete without solidarity to the outcast and the poor, themselves the face of the living Christ. In these essays Coakley exemplifies the semiotic richness of priest and scholar, a breaking open of theological reserves that will transgress, startle, renew, instruct. This is sacrifice, re-made.’ Professor Katherine Sonderegger, Virginia Theological Seminary How should Christians think about the person of Jesus Christ today? In this volume, Sarah Coakley argues that this question has to be ‘broken open’ in new and unexpected ways: by an awareness of the deep spiritual demands of the christological task and its strikingly ‘apophatic’ dimensions; by a probing of the paradoxical ways in which Judaism and Christianity are drawn together in Christ, even by those issues which seem to ‘break’ them most decisively apart; and by an exploration of the mode of Christ’s presence in the eucharist, with its intensification,‘ breaking’ and re-gathering of human desires. In this sequel to her celebrated earlier volume of essays, Powers and Submissions, Coakley returns to its unifying theme of divine power and contemplative submission, and weaves a new web of christological outcomes which remain replete with controversial implications for gender, spirituality and ethics. The Broken Body will be of interest to those working in the fields of systematic theology, philosophy of religion, early Christian studies, Jewish/Christian relations, and feminist and gender theory.

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies provides an intimate examination of the everyday lives, suffering, and resistance of Mexican migrants in our contemporary food system. Seth Holmes, an anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, shows how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and health care. Holmes was invited to trek with his companions clandestinely through the desert into Arizona and was jailed with them before they were deported. He lived with Indigenous families in the mountains of Oaxaca and in farm labor camps in the United States, planted and harvested corn, picked strawberries, and accompanied sick workers to clinics and hospitals. This “embodied anthropology” deepens our theoretical understanding of the ways in which social inequities come to be perceived as normal and natural in society and in health care. In a substantive new epilogue, Holmes and Indigenous Oaxacan scholar Jorge Ramirez-Lopez provide a current examination of the challenges facing farmworkers and the lives and resistance of the protagonists featured in the book.

wide criticism both from Western and Eastern scholars.

Buddhist philosophy of Anicca (impermanence), Dukkha (suffering), and

A keen athlete in his late forties, philosophy professor Kevin Aho hadn’t given much thought to his own mortality, until he suffered a sudden heart attack that left him fighting for his life. Confronted with death for the first time, he realized that the things he thought gave his life meaning, such as his independence or his ability to plan his own future, were in tatters. Aho turned to those thinkers who have reflected deeply on the meaning of life and the anxiety of living when every heartbeat might be your last: the existentialists. Armed with insights from the likes of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and de Beauvoir, he found new meaning and comfort in a view of life that strives for authenticity and accepts aging and death as part of what makes life worthwhile. Existentialism asks us to face the frailty of our existence and to live with a sense of urgency and gratitude toward its manifold beauties. It is only then that we can be released from patterns of self-deception and begin to appreciate what truly matters in our fleeting, precious lives.