Attempts to think anew about philosophical questions from the perspective of breath and breathing.
As a physiological or biological matter, breath is mostly considered to be mechanical and thoughtless. By expanding on the insights of many religions and therapeutic practices, which emphasize the cultivation of breath, the contributors argue that breath should be understood as fundamentally and comprehensively intertwined with human life and experience. Various dimensions of the respiratory world are referred to as ‘atmospheres’ that encircle and connect human existence, coexistence, and the world.
Drawing from a number of traditions of breathing, including from Indian and East Asian religion and philosophy, the book considers breath in relation to ontological, hermeneutical, phenomenological, ethical, and aesthetic concerns in philosophy. The wide-ranging topics include poetry, theater, environmental issues and health, feminism, and media studies.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Lenart Škof and Petri Berndtson
Part I. Philosophical Atmospheres of Breathing
1. Logos and Psyche: A Hermeneutics of Breathing
David Michael Kleinberg-Levin
2. The Possibility of a New Respiratory Ontology
Petri Berndtson
3. Breath as a Way of Self-Affection: On New Topologies of Transcendence and Self-Transcendence
Lenart Škof
4. Aesthetics of Breathing: Some Reflections
Rolf Elberfeld
Part II. Philosophical Traditions of Breathing
5. The Breathing of the Air: Pre-Socratic Echoes in Levinas
Silvia Benso
6. Mindfulness of Breathing in Early Buddhism
Tamara Ditrich
7. Inspiration and Expiration: Yoga Practice through Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of the Body
James Morley
8. The Concept of Qi in Chinese Philosophy: A Vital Force of Cosmic and Human Breath
Jana S. Rošker
9. Phenomenology of the Wind and the Possibility of Preventive Medicine: A Discussion of Ki (Wind)
Following Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1713)
Tadashi Ogawa
Part III. Voices and Media of Breathing
10. ‘Thoughts, that Breathe’
Kevin Hart
11. Theater of Breath: An Artaud-Derrida Existential Conflict
Jones Irwin
12. The Media of Breathing
John Durham Peters
Part IV. Breathful and Breathless Worlds
13. The Politics of Breathing: Knowledge on Air and Respiration
Marijn Nieuwenhuis
14. Breath as the Hinge of Dis-ease and Healing
Drew Leder
15. Invisible Suffering: The Experience of Breathlessness
Havi Carel
16. Feminist Politics of Breathing
Magdalena Górska
Postface
17. The Commonwealth of Breath
David Abram
Contributors
Index
About the author
Lenart Škof is Head of the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies at the Science and Research Centre Koper and Dean of Alma Mater Europaea University—Faculty ISH, both in Slovenia. His previous books include Antigone’s Sisters: On the Matrix of Love and Atmospheres of Breathing (coedited with Petri Berndtson), both published by SUNY Press.
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