“It Happens, But I’m Not There”: On the Phenomenology of Childbirth

Phenomenologically grounded research on pregnancy is a thriving area of activity in feminist studies and related disciplines. But what has been largely omitted in this area of research is the experience of childbirth itself. This paper proposes a phenomenological analysis of childbirth inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty. The paper proceeds from the conviction that the concept of anonymity can play a critical role in explicating the affective structure of childbirth. This is evident in at least two respects. First, the concept of anonymity gives structural specificity to the different levels of bodily existence at work in childbirth. Second, the concept of anonymity can play a powerful explanatory role in accounting for the sense of strangeness accompanying childbirth. To flesh these ideas out, I focus on two attributes of birth, sourced from first-person narratives of childbirth. The first aspect concerns the sense of leaving one’s body behind during childbirth while the second aspect concerns the sense of strangeness accompanying the first encounter with the baby upon successful delivery. I take both of these aspects of childbirth seriously, treating them as being instructive not only of the uniqueness of childbirth but also revealing something important about bodily life more generally. Accordingly, the paper unfolds in three stages. First, I will critically explore the concept of anonymity in Merleau-Ponty; second, I will apply this concept to childbirth; finally, I will provide an outline of how childbirth sheds light on the broader nature of bodily life.

Uncovering today’s rationalistic attunement

In this paper, we explore a rationalistic orientation in Western society. We suggest that this orientation is one of the predominant ways in which Western society tends to frame, understand and deal with a majority of problems and questions – namely in terms of mathematical analysis, calculation and quantification, relying on logic, numbers, and statistics. Our main goal in this paper is to uncover the affective structure of this rationalistic orientation. In doing so, we illustrate how this orientation structures the way not only individuals but society as a whole frames and solves problems. We firstly point towards some exemplary instances of the rationalistic orientation, specifically regarding science, society, and lifeworld practice. Crucially, we argue that the rationalistic orientation is not merely based on a set of beliefs we could easily correct; but rather, that it is an affective condition tacitly shaping our engagement with the world in an encompassing way. Relating to the work of Martin Heidegger, we argue that what we have called an orientation in the beginning is in fact a rationalistic attunement. This attunement fundamentally shapes the pre-reflective level of how individuals approach the world. We elaborate this claim by showing how the rationalistic attunement concretely manifests in tangible socio-material affect dynamics. In the end, we motivate a critical stance towards this attunement, providing the ability to reflect upon and question instances where this way of framing and solving problems is counterproductive.

Photography between Affective Turn and Affective Structure

The affective turn in photography theory takes as its point of departure Roland Barthes’s move from semiology to affective phenomenology in Camera Lucida. This article, however, considers the way affective phenomenology is itself grounded in the semiological structure of photography. It looks at how, before Camera Lucida was even written, Thierry de Duve had already discussed the affective implications of Barthes’s understanding of photography’s indexical nature. The article then proceeds to rethink the structural affectivity of photography beyond Barthes’s and de Duve’s emphasis on a direct relation between indexicality and loss. Reconsidering photography through Jacques Rancière’s conception of the aesthetic regime of art, the article rather puts emphasis on the indeterminacy of photography, which results from the way the camera captures and isolates a spatio-temporal fragment. Shifting the focus from indexicality to indeterminacy sheds a different light on the loss implied by the structure of photography, parallel to how Freud understood the difference between mourning and melancholy.

Affective structure, measurement invariance, and reliability across different experience sampling protocols

While measures of affect are often included in studies using experience sampling methodology (ESM), the affective structure at the between- and within-person level has not been thoroughly investigated. Additionally, it is currently unclear to what extent this structure is influenced by variations in sampling protocols. Our first aim was to investigate the structure of affect at the between- and within-person level when measured with 8 or 18 affect items. Second, we investigated the invariance of this structure across different sampling frequencies and questionnaire lengths. Further, the reliability of positive and negative affect (PA and NA, respectively) was calculated. Participants (N = 163) were randomly assigned to receive either a 30 or 60 item questionnaire three, six, or nine times per day over 14 days. Momentary affect was assessed with 8 or 18 items. At both levels, a two-factor structure with correlated PA and NA showed the best fit compared to an orthogonal and a unidimensional model. However, the CFAs and additional EFAs indicated that items shared additional variance that could be accounted for by freeing residual correlations or adding more nuanced affect factors to achieve acceptable fit. A structure accounting for these additional relationships was invariant across different sampling protocols at the within-person level and resulted in high reliability. We observed differences between levels in the strength of the loadings, the correlation between PA and NA, and the number of factors suggested in EFAs. Taken together, these structural differences indicate a more discrete affective structure within than between persons

The Phenomenology of Worldlessness

The chapter follows Jacques Derrida’s development from one end of his career to its conclusion and argues that the whole project of deconstruction must be understood in relation to the concept of worldlessness. The first part of the chapter is concerned with Derrida’s critique of Edmund Husserl. Derrida argues that the phenomenological concept of worldlessness is based on the auto-affective structure of the transcendental ego and, therefore, it remains captive of a metaphysics of presence. The second part of the chapter focuses on Derrida’s readings of Heidegger and tries to show that, for Derrida, Dasein’s supposed worldliness is dependent on an ontology of worldlessness. The closing section of the chapter provides a reading of Derrida’s final seminars and tries to show that, in the end, in spite of the discovery of the centrality of worldlessness, Derrida nevertheless chooses the world over worldlessness as the foundation of any deconstructive ethics.

The de Menils’s Reality

Chapter 2 continues with the theme of conversion and shifts to a discussion of Dominique de Menil’s aesthetico-religious development. The first section of the chapter focuses on de Menil’s conversion to Catholicism in the early 1930s and her immersion in the renouveau catholique. Mrs. de Menil’s adoption of ideals of the renouveau was mediated through the friendship and spiritual direction of Fr. Marie-Alain Couturier. He was a leader of L’Art Sacré, a group seeking to enroll the best modernist artist in the service of the church. Working from a discussion of his collection of essays Art et Catholicisme, the chapter argues that Couturier identifies a formal affective structure of intuitive revelation that is capable of translating aesthetic experience into religious experience through abstraction. The reproduction of this formal structure lies at the heart of de Menil’s patronage aesthetics.