Sister, You’ve Been on My Mind: Perceptual, Affective, and Expressive Practices of Lived Flesh Público

Abstract

“Sister, You’ve Been on My Mind: Perceptual, Affective, and Expressive Practices of Lived Flesh” is an interdisciplinary project that pairs Black Feminist and Womanist Thought with Critical Phenomenology and Merleau-Ponty’s thought.

 

This project intervenes in Merleau-Ponty’s construct of the human subject. Merleau-Ponty’s account assumes that humanity and subjectivity is commensurate with being homo sapiens. This understanding that all homo sapiens are the human subjects excludes american Black folk who—in the silence of his texts on racial, gendered, sexed, and class differences—emerge as homo sapiens but not human subjects. Where the human subject is never an object for another and can never be perceived by the subject as though outside of itself, the american Black person lives an ongoing historical engagement with objectification, abjection, and double-vision.

 

I explore and critique Merleau-Ponty’s account of the human subject via readings of Black Feminist and Womanist texts notably Anna Julia Cooper, Hartman, Morrison, Lorde, Musser, Sharpe, and Spillers. Through these readings I sound out a geography for the lived flesh of american Black people, propose an “ear-forward” sensorial organ/ization, and offer Blues as an example of the expressive, affective practices, and ethical frameworks that lived flesh creates that distinguish it from the acquisitive and limiting way of being in the world of the (white) human subject.

 

This work is guided by my interests in the ways that marginalized peoples—especially american Blackwomxn—do more than just endure injustice and oppression, but develop practices of thriving. This is not an interest in those practices as solely oppositional or resistance. This is an interest in the way these practices have and create meaning and relations in themselves and cannot be totalized by the oppressive contexts in which they emerge. This is an interest in these ways of being-in-the-world, as ways-of-being otherwise.

Table of Contents

 

INTRODUCTION                                                                                                                        1

I: Brief note on terms.                                                                                                                      2

II: Where I Wade In                                                                                                                         8

III: Where You Wade In                                                                                                                 12

CHAPTER 1: WE FLESH: MUSSER, SPILLERS AND BEYOND THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL BODY       15

I: The Lived Body of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Method                                                 17

II: The Lived Body of Flesh                                                                                                           22

III: Other Bodies: Feminist and Critical Phenomenologists Problematize Flesh                             27

IV: You can Keep Your Humanity to Yourself, Thank You Very Much. We Good.                      36

V: We, Specifically, Flesh: Spillers and Insurgent Flesh                                                                   44

CHAPTER 2: EYE CAN: SIGHT AND HUMAN SUBJECTIVITY                                     74

I: The Body Proper                                                                                                                         75

II: Eye Can                                                                                                                                     79

III: Eye Cannot                                                                                                                              92

IV: The Little Phrase                                                                                                                      96

V: Eye and Mind                                                                                                                           106

VI: The Sonic Subject?                                                                                                                  111

VII: The Bluest Eye                                                                                                                      118

CHAPTER 3: LISTENING FLESH: PITCH COMPLEXES AND THE SOCIAL OTHERWISE  130

I: Eye’d Rather Not                                                                                                                      132

II: Eye Hesitate to Say                                                                                                                  137

III: Pitch Complexes                                                                                                                     139

IV: Social Otherwise                                                                                                                     150

V: Mostly Ears                                                                                                                              157

INTERSTITIAL: SMILING LESSONS: TOWARD AN ACCOUNT OF AFROSKEPTICISM       165

CHAPTER 4: SHAMELESSLY BLUE                                                                                    181

I: Little Girl Blue                                                                                                                           185

II: Sun’s Gonna Shine in my Backdoor Someday                                                                          193

III: Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil: Positive Accounts of Shame                                                198

IV: Go Way Devil, Leave Me Alone: The Negatives of the Positive Accounts of Shame              204

IV: I Love Myself When I am Laughing...                                                                                     209

VI: Til You Do Right By Me: Toward Shamelessness                                                                   215

VII: Prove It On Me                                                                                                                     227

OUTRO: SONGS TOWARD HOME                                                                                      230

I: Co-Work                                                                                                                                   231

II: Home-Work                                                                                                                             234

III: Sounds of Homing                                                                                                                 236

IV: Coda                                                                                                                                       237

BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                                                                                      240

MEDIA CITED                                                                                                                         250

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Philosophy
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	African American Studies Musical Performances Philosophy
Palavra-chave	Blues Black Lives Black Feminist Thought Merleau-Ponty
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	George Yancy, Emory University Dilek Huseyinzadegan, Emory University
Committee Members	Cynthia Willett, Emory University Valerie Babb, Emory University Janine Jones, UNC Greensboro Alia Al-Saji, McGill University

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