Enfleshment refers to the aliveness of our bodies, specifically our capacity to touch and be touched by other lives and objects in the world. This intimate and fundamental mutuality invites us to explore how to be alive in a living world. This course explores the philosophical, creative, and political implications of enfleshment, including how it revises established understandings of individuality and autonomy and complicates distinctions between animate and inanimate things, human and more-than-human life, and biological and algorithmic or cyborg existence. Our guides in this work include the philosophers Merleau Ponty and Bernhard Stiegler, the womanist theologians Eboni Marshall Thurman and Kelly Brown Douglas, and disability-rights activists and theorists, Sanaura Taylor and Arseli Dokumaci. Our most important resources, however, are our embodied memories and shared experiences, which include collaborative observational outings, multiple creative and mindfulness activities, and celebratory community gatherings.

“Enfleshment” refers to the active aliveness of our body. While our enfleshment delineates self from non-self, it makes ideas, memories, and power concrete, and opens us to transformative encounters with the world. In this course we will explore the philosophical, creative, and political potential of enfleshment. We will pay particular attention to the dissolving of well-worn distinctions between animate and inanimate things, humans and other animals, sentient and algorithmic machines or cyborgs, and bodies and consciousness. Among our companions in this work are the philosopher, Bernhard Stiegler, and the womanist theologian, Eboni Marshall Thurman. We will also study cross-species art-based explorations, such as Thomas Thwaites’ GoatMan project, Charles Foster’s life as fox, badger, and other urban scroungers, and Sunaura Taylor’s dialogue between animal and disability liberation. This upper-level course is restricted to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.