The Body in Crisis

A major theoretical work by Brazilian dance scholar Christine Greiner explores the political relevance of bodily arts in the age of neoliberal globalization

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The Body in Crisis introduces the English-speaking world to the work of leading Latin American dance scholar and philosopher of the body, Christine Greiner. The book offers an innovative set of tools with which to examine the role of moving bodies and bodily actions in relation to worldwide concerns, including identity politics, alterity, migration, and belonging. The book places the concept of bodymedium in dialogue with the work of Giorgio Agamben to investigate notions of alterity, and shows how an understanding of the body-environment continuum can shed light on things left unnamed and at the margins.

Greiner’s analyses draw from a broad range of theory concerned with the epistemology of the body, including cognitive science, political philosophy, evolutionary biology, and performance studies to illuminate radical experiences that question the limits of the body. Her analysis of the role that bodies play in negotiations of power relations offers an original and unprecedented contribution to the field of dance studies and expands its scope to recognize theoretical models of inquiry developed in the Global South.