Abstract

In the simplest terms, the purpose of this dissertation, entitled The Body Complex in Contemporary Science, Literature, and Culture is to examine the relationships between popular quantum mechanics, Chaos Theory , and contemporary Feminist/Gender theory. As the title is intended to suggest, this examination is narrowed to the "event" of the body as it appears within the discourses of several different disciplines. The primary question is, "what is the body and how do we define it?" And more, how do we conceive of "a body" at all, from the cosmic to the molecular. How do these very different ideas of body reinforce and/or challenge our own concept of self and the experience of our bodies? And, how is this sense of embodiment represented in popular science, literature, and culture? Finally, the conclusion explores the possibility of liberating practices--complex actions--which may help to reveal the structures of power and alter in some useful ways our own sense of embodiment. This project relies most heavily upon the work of Michel Foucault and other gender critics such as Donna J. Harraway and Judith Butler. However, in support of these arguments a geneology of criticism is established which includes the Renaissance view of the body, a discussion of Karl Marx and materialism, Sigmund Freud and the body as the origin of mind, Lacan's linguistic approach to self-perception, and the theories of the French school of Feminism