The Ego and the Skin: Philosophies of Self and Touch (P)
Institution
Humanities
Department
Philosophie
Teaching staff
Dr. Rachel Anna Aumiller
SDG-topic cluster
Empowerment
Comments/contents
This course on the philosophy of touch draws on perspectives in psychoanalysis, feminist philosophy, critical race theory, and queer theory. We will explore the dual character of skin: the organ that allows two bodies to join together in touch and the organ that serves as a barrier between myself and the other. We first experience pleasure through the caress of a caregiver across our skin. However, our skin is also the site of our first sensations of discomfort or pain. In these first experiences of touch, the infant cannot initially distinguish where her skin ends and her caretaker’s begins. Our readings and course discussions will probe the following questions: How do we first come to understand our skin as our own? How does our first relationship to our own skin shape our sense of self? What kinds of experiences take away our sense of our skin as our own? How can we reclaim our skin from the grasp of the other?
Semester
SoSe 19
Center for a Sustainable University
Mittelweg 177
20148 Hamburg
www.nachhaltige.uni-hamburg.de