Abstract
Hunger strikes rearrange the geographies of embodiment: transfiguring the fragility and destruction of life ‘within’ the experiential, phenomenologically discrete subject into a performance of life philosophies projected ‘beyond’ a politico-moral agent. This conversion expresses a multiplicity of contrasting discourses: rhetorics of domination and empowerment, symbols of the body colonized and ransomed, the body reified and defiled; and amplifies them into a spectacle for public scrutiny, a spectacle insistent in its imagery and immediacy. What is the message of this dark passion play? How does corporeal rhetoric challenge the discursive practices of power? How does the wastage of starvation conjure a sweeping indictment of authority, a plea for revision of community ethics and the foundations of morality? Inspired by these questions, this paper will consider some of the dramaturgical qualities and paradoxical representations in the manifestation and moralism of hunger striking.
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References
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Landzelius, K.M. (1999). Hunger Strikes: The Dramaturgy of Starvation Politics. In: Aerts, D., Broekaert, J., Weyns, W. (eds) A World In Transition: Humankind and Nature. Einstein Meets Magritte: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Science, Nature, Art, Human Action and Society, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0856-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0856-3_5
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