Skip to content
1981
Dismantling the Anthropocene: Beyond Binary Categorizations
  • ISSN: 1477-965X
  • E-ISSN: 1758-9533

Abstract

Social distancing has entered our bodies and changed our behaviour. The fight against COVID-19 leaves people with a different feeling of what it means to be together in the flesh. In this article, I will tackle the tension between virtualization of communication, social distancing and the basic human need for bodily contact. Sigmund Freud used the term ‘oceanic feeling’ to express human yearning for becoming one with others and the sense of fluidity of the self. This concept goes beyond basic intercorporeality. It represents experiences in meditation and cultural practices of immersion. Both the maximum intensity of intercorporeal behaviour and the dissolution of the bodily boundaries belong to this experience. The literature in the pandemic covers mainly new rituals and bodily practices of distance but there is not much reflection on what has gone missing and its relation to current and future cultural practices. In this article, I will discuss hedonist embodied rituals like dance, eating and celebrating in public as vital parts of human cultures. Being abolished as contagious sites of infection, their return to the social sphere is, now more than ever, viewed as problematic and potentially subversive in the face of an atmosphere of anxiety. My aim is to argue against cultural tendencies of social control and the emphasis of disembodied virtual forms of togetherness in favour of a posthuman hedonist culture incorporating new technologies and old rituals.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00079_1
2022-07-01
2024-11-10
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aliberti, Sara, and Raiola, Gaetano. ( 2021;), ‘ Effects of line dancing on mental health in seniors after COVID-19 pandemic. ’, Education Sciences, 11:677, pp. 18.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Ali, Inayat. ( 2021;), ‘ Rituals of containment: Many pandemics, body politics, and social dramas during COVID-19 in Pakistan. ’, Frontiers in Sociology, 6:21, pp. 18.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Barad, Karen. ( 2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Durham, NC:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bellomo, Antonello,, Notarangelo, Loreta,, Berardis, Domenico De,, Torales, Julio,, Castaldelli-Maia, João Mauricio, and Ventriglio, Antonio. ( 2021;), ‘ Aspetti psicosociali delle pandemie: Una prospettiva storica. ’, Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria, 2, pp. 1324.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Brandeis, Louis D., and Warren, Samuel D.. ( 1890;), ‘ The right to privacy. ’, Harvard Law Review, 4:5, pp. 193220.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Carbon, Claus-Christian. ( 2021;), ‘ About the acceptance of wearing face masks in times of a pandemic. ’, i-Perception, 12:3, pp. 114.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Devine-Wright, Patrick,, Pinto de Carvalho, Laís,, Masso, Andrés Di,, Lewicka, Maria,, Manzo, Lynne, and Williams, Daniel R.. ( 2020;), ‘ “Re-placed”: Reconsidering relationships with place and lessons from a pandemic. ’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 72, pp. 18, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101514. Accessed 10 December 2021.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Donald, Merlin. ( 2001), A Mind so Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness, New York and London:: W. W. Norton & Company;.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Ferrando, Francesca. ( 2019), Philosophical Posthumanism: Theory in the New Humanities, London and New York:: Bloomsbury Academic;.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Förster, Yvonne. ( 2016;), ‘ Singularities and superintelligence: Transcending the human in contemporary cinema. ’, Trans-Humanities, 9:3, pp. 3350.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Förster, Yvonne. ( 2020a;), ‘ Aesthetics of the past and the future, human life within changing environments. ’, in Z. Somhegyi, and M. Ryynänen. (eds), Aesthetics in Dialogue, Bern:: Peter Lang;, pp. 23750.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Förster, Yvonne. ( 2020b;), ‘ Ecological subjectivity vs. brainhood: Why experience matters. ’, in Y. Förster,, A. Gilland, and M. Mühling. (eds), Perceiving Truth and Value Phenomenological Deliberations on Ethical Perception, Religion, Theology, and Natural Science, Göttingen:: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht;, pp. 6376.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Förster, Yvonne. ( 2022;), ‘ Technologies of religion: From prayer bots to a looming singularity. ’, in N. Loewen, and A. Rostalska. (eds), Philosophy of Religion around the World: Critical Perspectives and Approaches, vol. 1, London:: Bloomsbury;.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Freud, Sigmund. ( [1930] 1961;), ‘ Civilization and its discontents. ’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1927–1931), vol. 21, London:: Hogarth Press;, pp. 64145.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Gallagher, Shaun. ( 2005), How the Body Shapes the Mind, Oxford:: Oxford University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Gibson, James J.. ( [1979] 1986), The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Boston:: Houghton Mifflin;.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Hansen, Mark B. N.. ( 2012;), ‘ Engineering preindividual potentiality: Technics, transindividuation, and 21st-century media. ’, Substance, 41:3&4, pp. 3259.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Haraway, Donna. ( 2015;), ‘ Anthropocene, capitalocene, plantationocene, chthulucene: Making kin. ’, Environmental Humanities, 6:1, pp. 15965.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Hayles, Katherine N.. ( 2012), How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis, Chicago:: University of Chicago Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Heidegger, Martin. ( 1977;), ‘ The question concerning technology. ’, in W. Lovitt. (ed. and trans.), The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, New York and London:: Garland Publishing Inc.;, pp. 335.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Husserl, Edmund. ( [1936] 1970), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, Evanston, IL:: Northwestern University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Ingold, Timothy. ( 2014;), ‘ The creativity of undergoing. ’, Pragmatics and Cognition, 22:1, pp. 12439.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Kourosh, Arianne Shadi,, Rice, Shauna M., and Graber, Emmy. ( 2020;), ‘ A pandemic of dysmorphia: “Zooming” into the perception of our appearance. ’, Facial Plastic Surgery & Aesthetic Medicine, 22:6, pp. 40102.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Liu, Jiacheng. ( 2020;), ‘ From social drama to political performance: China’s multi-front combat with the COVID-19 epidemic. ’, Critical Asian Studies, 52:4, pp. 47393.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Liu, Xiaofeng, and Bennett, Mia M.. ( 2020;), ‘ Viral borders: COVID-19’s effects on securitization, surveillance, and identity in Mainland China and Hong Kong. ’, Dialogues in Human Geography, 10:2, pp. 15863.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Loh, Janina. ( 2018), Trans- und Posthumanismus zu Einführung, Hamburg:: Junius;.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Low, Setha, and Smart, Allen. ( 2020;), ‘ Thoughts about public space during COVID-19 pandemic. ’, City and Society, 32:1, pp. 15, https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ciso.12260. Accessed 10 December 2021.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. ( [1966] 2014), Phenomenology of Perception (trans. D. A. Landes), Abingdon and New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Notebaert, Wim, and Braem, Senne. ( 2015;), ‘ Parsing the effects of reward on cognitive control. ’, in T. S. Braver. (ed.), Motivation and Cognitive Control, New York:: Routledge;, pp. 11734.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Pitts-Taylor, Victoria. ( 2016), The Brain’s Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics, Durham, NC and London:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Raz, Amir, and Lifshitz, Michael. (eds) ( 2016), Hypnosis and Meditation: Towards an Integrative Science of Conscious Planes, Oxford:: Oxford University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Rosa, Hartmut. ( 2013), Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, New York:: Columbia University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Rosa, Hartmut. ( 2019), Resonance: A Sociology of our Relationship to the World, Cambridge:: Polity Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Simmel, Georg. ( 1904;), ‘ Fashion. ’, International Quarterly, 10, pp. 13055.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Serhan, Derar. ( 2020;), ‘ Transitioning from face-to-face to remote learning: Students’ attitudes and perceptions of using Zoom during COVID-19 pandemic. ’, International Journal of Technology in Education and Science, 4:4, pp. 33542.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Varela, Francisco,, Thompson, Evan, and Rosch, Eleanor. ( 1993), The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, Cambridge, MA:: MIT Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Vogli, Roberto De, and Falco, Rossella De. ( 2021;), ‘ Disuguaglianze socioeconomiche e pandemia di Covid-19. ’, Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria, CXLV:2, pp. 2535.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Förster, Yvonne. ( 2022;), ‘ In favour of a hedonist post-pandemic culture: Embodying new technologies and old rituals. ’, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 20:1&2, pp. 2738, https://doi.org/10.1386/tear_00079_1
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00079_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error