scholarly journals Redefining the Self: The Human Centipede and Physical Spectatorship

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Laura Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Gastrointestinal Tract ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Textual Construction ◽  
Film Spectatorship ◽  
Physical Responses

As I watch the infamous scene in Tom Six's 2009 release, when Katsuro, the front segment of the centipede, defecates into the mouth of the second, my body rocks back and forth in a futile attempt at self-soothing. I hear the distant whine of a voice uttering, 'I don't want, I don't want to', before I realise it is my own. Finally, in a mixture of horror and relish, my back arches, my shoulders hunch forward and my chest heaves as I retch once, twice, three times. The Human Centipede belongs to a large and varied group of films released in recent years that have become notorious for eliciting intensely physical responses, from anxiety and nausea, to the fear of, desire to or even act of vomiting. In this paper, I build on current research into the embodied spectator by creating a detailed analysis of how physicality is constructed and manipulated by representations of faeces in this scene. Engaging with Richard Rushton's theories of spectatorship, Vivian Sobchack's studies of phenomenology and film, and Elizabeth Wilson's work on neuroscience, I explore the concept of physical spectatorship - the idea that embodied responses to film are textual constructions that return the viewer to a sense of their own corporeality. The notion of physical spectatorship challenges the dichotomy of film as object/viewer as subject, as well as the language we use to theorise the film-viewer relationship. By acknowledging the disgust this film generates, I question the extent to which notions of the viewer are strained against the concept of spectator as textual construction. Finally, I aim to theorise that which often escapes analysis in relation to film spectatorship: those body parts that make up the gastrointestinal tract, or the gut, that are brought into play in films designed to revolt.

Promoting a Resistant Stance Toward Objectification

2019 ◽  
pp. 149-160
Author(s):  
Tracy L. Tylka ◽  
Rachel M. Calogero
Keyword(s):  
Personal Control ◽  
The Self ◽  
Sexual Objectification ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Self Objectification

Objectification, or the fragmentation of others or oneself into body parts or sexual functions for scrutiny or gratification, is a destructive force that usurps positive embodiment. Yet, many people defend objectification. This chapter presents a two-prong approach to promote a resistant stance toward objectification, with examples. First, at a cultural level, objectification needs to be delegitimized by defusing or redirecting the threat (threat is sexual objectification), framing sexual objectification as already happening and offering ways to challenge it (e.g., #MeToo), helping people and businesses perceive that their outcomes are not dependent on objectification being sustained, and encouraging people to feel that they do not need to rely on objectification to feel personal control. Second, at an individual level, self-objectification (gazing at the self as an objectifier would) needs to be prevented by helping girls and women develop a schema to contextualize (rather than internalize) objectification and cultivate an embodied identity.

scholarly journals WRITING THE SELF IN RURAL MALI: DOMESTIC ARCHIVES AND GENRES OF PERSONAL WRITING

Africa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Self ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Personal Writing ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Shared Practice ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Local Discourses

ABSTRACTIn a comparative perspective, literacy has been closely associated with techniques of the self and with the emergence of modern subjectivities. But what happens when literacy is developed without genres such as diary keeping being widespread? Scrutinizing grassroots practices, this article demonstrates that even people who are not confronted with established forms of self-writing engage with literacy in ways that bear an imprint of their lives and subjectivities. Drawing on an ethnographic study in one village in southern Mali, it sets a socio-historical background where writing practices arise primarily as responses to the pressure of rural management. Yet the local discourses on the value of writing are suffused with notions of privacy. The article focuses on the unstable but shared practice of keeping a notebook for farming as well personal notations. Through a detailed analysis of two notebooks, it advocates for a set of distinctions between the individual, the private and the self that helps disentangle the issue of writing and self. This leads to a contrasted view of the local engagements with literacy. The question of the crystallization of notebook keeping as a genre remains open.

Masculine Bodies, Selfies, and the (Re)configurations of Intimacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Begonya Enguix ◽  
Erick Gómez-Narváez
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Structured Interviews

This article is part of a research about the use of selfies in two different apps, Grindr and Instagram. We are interested in exploring how selfies relate to masculine bodies and produce different negotiations of intimacy. Selfies are personal, bodily centered, and highly visible. Understanding their production can contribute to the discussion on the digital exposure of intimacy and on the (self) management of masculine bodies. We consider selfies as discursive media that merge the visual and the discursive. Through their practice, users actively negotiate their masculine bodies and their intimacies and question and/or affirm hegemonies. Based on visual analysis and qualitative data obtained from observation and structured interviews, our results point out to the active production of selfies in relation to the different apps and to different styles of bodies that (in)visibilize different body parts and/or emotional traits. Selfies (re)present hegemonic, resistant, and emergent bodies with different understandings of intimacy.

scholarly journals Exploring the Interaction Between Handedness and Body Parts Ownership by Means of the Implicit Association Test

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damiano Crivelli ◽  
Valeria Peviani ◽  
Gerardo Salvato ◽  
Gabriella Bottini
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Association Test ◽  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Body Part ◽  
Association Test ◽  
The Self ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Implicit Association ◽  
Healthy Individuals ◽  
Animal Body ◽  
The Right

The experience of owning a body is built upon the integration of exteroceptive, interoceptive, and proprioceptive signals. Recently, it has been suggested that motor signals could be particularly important in producing the feeling of body part ownership. One thus may hypothesize that the strength of this feeling may not be spatially uniform; rather, it could vary as a function of the degree by which different body parts are involved in motor behavior. Given that our dominant hand plays a leading role in our motor behavior, we hypothesized that it could be more strongly associated with one’s self compared to its non-dominant counterpart. To explore whether this possible asymmetry manifests as a stronger implicit association of the right hand (vs left hand) with the self, we administered the Implicit Association Test to a group of 70 healthy individuals. To control whether this asymmetric association is human-body specific, we further tested whether a similar asymmetry characterizes the association between a right (vs left) animal body part with the concept of self, in an independent sample of subjects (N = 70, 140 subjects total). Our results revealed a linear relationship between the magnitude of the implicit association between the right hand with the self and the subject’s handedness. In detail, the strength of this association increased as a function of hand preference. Critically, the handedness score did not predict the association of the right-animal body part with the self. These findings suggest that, in healthy individuals, the dominant and non-dominant hands are differently perceived at an implicit level as belonging to the self. We argue that such asymmetry may stem from the different roles that the two hands play in our adaptive motor behavior.

Interoceptive signals, brain dynamics, and subjectivity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Babo-Rebelo ◽  
Catherine Tallon-Baudry
Keyword(s):  
Gastrointestinal Tract ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Reference Frame ◽  
The Self ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Bodily Awareness ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Bodily State ◽  
Neural Monitoring

The self has long been hypothesized to be rooted in the neural monitoring of bodily signals. We propose here to focus on visceral inputs, which present some key characteristics. Inputs from the heart or the gastrointestinal tract are continuously produced, and can reach multiple cortical targets. In addition, cardiac inputs elicit a neural response at each heartbeat that can be recorded non-invasively in humans, even in the absence of measurable changes in bodily state. We review the recent experimental evidence that neural responses to heartbeats are related to the self, in situations where the self is explicit or reflective (bodily awareness, thinking about oneself) but also when the self is implicit (the self as the agent, the self experiencing a visual input). These results are compatible with our proposal that the integration of visceral signals generates a subject-centered reference frame underlying different facets of the self.

The importance of inner and outer body parts attitudes in the self-concept of late adolescents

Sex Roles ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Lerner ◽  
Barbara E. Brackney
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Late Adolescents

El influjo de Séneca en el estilo de escritura de Montaigne

Revue Romane ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Álvaro Luque Amo
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
Textual Construction ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Abstract This work presents a comparison between the writing styles of Lucius Annaeus Seneca and Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne is influenced by the writing style of the Moral Epistles, which will be a fundamental source for the development of his Essays. From Seneca, Montaigne carries out a poetics based on the honesty; this is related with a textual construction of the subject. Following Foucault, the development of the subject by this narrative style is analyzed. This explains the origin of a contemporary genre such as the Literature of the Self. In this line, one ends up analyzing the influence of senecan style, through Montaigne, in some of the most relevant authors of the autobiographical genres.

The erogenous mirror: Intersubjective and multisensory maps of sexual arousal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manos Tsakiris ◽  
Lara Maister ◽  
Aikaterini Fotopoulou ◽  
Oliver Turnbull
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Sexual Partners ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Internet Sample

Erogenous zones of the body are sexually arousing when touched. Previous investigations of erogenous zones were restricted to the effects of touch on one’s own body. However, sexual interactions do not just involve being touched, but also involve touching a partner and mutually looking at each other’s bodies. We take a novel interpersonal approach to characterize the self-reported intensity and distribution of erogenous zones in two modalities: touch and vision. A large internet sample of 613 participants (407 women) completed a questionnaire, where they rated intensity of sexual arousal relate to different body parts, both on one’s own body and on an imagined partner’s body in response to being touched but also being looked at. We report the presence of a multimodal erogenous mirror between sexual partners, as we observed clear correspondences in topographic distributions of self-reported arousal between individuals’ own bodies and their preferences for a partner’s body, as well as between those elicited by imagined touch and vision. The erogenous body is therefore organized and represented in an interpersonal and multisensory way.

THE SELF-CONCEPT FORMATION

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-124
Author(s):  
SIRINA ARAKELYAN
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Concept Formation ◽  
Significant Others ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Prenatal Period ◽  
Psychological Literature ◽  
Biological Features

In the article the author generally analyses different authors’ opinions concerning the Selfconcept formation. In psychological literature many aspects and factors are mentioned and pointed out (prenatal period events, welcome or unwelcome child, mother’s and significant others’ attitude, biological features etc.). In the article a detailed analysis of the most important factors, which can influence the formation and the development of different components of Self-concept is presented.

THE INDIVIDUAL'S SELF–CONCEPT FORMATION

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-126
Author(s):  
SIRINA ARAKELYAN
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Concept Formation ◽  
Significant Others ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Prenatal Period ◽  
Psychological Literature ◽  
Biological Features

The author generally analyses different authors’ opinions concerning the Self-concept formation. In psychological literature many aspects and factors are mentioned and pointed out (prenatal period events, welcome or unwelcome child, mother’s and significant others’ attitude, biological features etc.). In the article a detailed analysis of the most important factors, which can influence the formation and the development of different components of Self-concept is presented.

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