Understanding Merleau-Ponty, Understanding Modernism: (Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism)

Understanding Merleau-Ponty, Understanding Modernism brings into dialogue Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology with modernist art, literature, music, film and neurophysiological discoveries, opening up the complexities of the philosopher’s phenomenology of perception to a broader audience across the arts. An important resource for anyone interested in the links between modernism and philosophy, Understanding Merleau-Ponty, Understanding Modernism offers close readings of Merleau-Ponty’s key texts, explores modernist works in light of his thought, and provides an extended glossary of Merleau-Ponty’s central terms and concepts.

Table of Contents:
Notes on Contributors Series Preface Paul Ardoin, S. E. Gontarski, and Laci Mattison List of Abbreviations Introduction: "The Surface of a Depth" Ariane Mildenberg (University of Kent, UK) Part I. Conceptualizing Merleau-Ponty 1. Merleau-Ponty’s Cogito Thomas Baldwin (University of York, UK) 2. On “The Philosopher and His Shadow” Kevin Hart (University of Virginia, USA) 3. A Reading of "In Praise of Philosophy": How Bergson Conceived Our Relation to the Truth Michael R. Kelly (University of San Diego, USA) 4. “Hooks” and “Anchors”: Cézanne, the Lived Perspective and Modernist Doubt Ariane Mildenberg (University of Kent, UK) 5. The Artist's Gestures of Fascination in “Eye and Mind” Glen Mazis (Penn State Harrisburg, USA) 6. “I Must be Surprised, Disoriented”: Merleau-Ponty on Language as Disruptive Movement Florentien Verhage (Washington and Lee University, USA) 7. Neither/Nor: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology in “The Intertwining/The Chiasm” Jack Reynolds (La Trobe University, Australia) & Jon Roffe (University of Melbourne, Australia) Part II. Merleau-Ponty, Aesthetics, and the Lived Body 8. Phenomenology and the Imagination of Modernism Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei (Fordham University, USA) 9. The “Systems of Equivalences” in Matisse and Klee: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology of Modern Painting in “Eye and Mind” Rajiv Kaushik (Brock University, Canada) 10. Merleau-Ponty on Simultaneity and Succession: The Turn to Music through Proust and Claudel Jessica Wiskus (Duquesne University, USA) 11. Merleau-Ponty and Film: Documenting the Imagination Sarah Cooper (King’s College, University of London, UK) 12. Motricité, Physiology, and Modernity in Phenomenology of Perception Mark Paterson (University of Pittsburgh, USA) 13. D. H. Lawrence, Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenology of Illness Ulrika Maude (University of Bristol, UK) 14. “Mirrors of Reciprocal Flesh”: James Joyce and Maurice Merleau-Ponty Cleo Hanaway-Oakley (Oxford University, UK) 15. Environmental Modernisms: Representing the Flesh of the World in Modernist Literature Kelly Sultzbach (University of Wisconsin, USA) 16. Uncertain Humanisms: Energies of Environment in Bowen, Beckett and Merleau-Ponty Amanda Dennis (Columbia University, USA) 17. Rhythmic Looking: Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetry of Perception Jason M. Baskin (University of Exeter, UK) 18. Poetico-Phenomenological Intertwinings: The Elaboration of a Practice of Thought in Valéry and Merleau-Ponty Carole Bourne-Taylor (Brasenose College, Oxford, UK) 19. A Big Serious Portrait of My Time: Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Temporality and the Modernist Long Poem Matthew Carbery (University of Kent, UK) Part III. Glossary 20. Body-subject Ann V. Murphy (University of New Mexico, USA) 21. Flesh Ann V. Murphy (University of New Mexico, USA) 22. Écart Rajiv Kaushik (Brock University, Canada) 23. Wild (Brute) Being David Warren Grunner (Fordham University, USA) 24. Chiasm/Intertwining David Warren Grunner (Fordham University, USA) 25. Body Schema Jonathan Hale (University of Nottingham, UK) 26. Perceptual Faith James Bodington (University of New Mexico, USA) 27. Lived Experience Florentien Verhage (Washington and Lee University, USA) 28. Inter-world/l’intermonde Patricia Locke (St. John's College, USA) 29. Ineinander Jessica Wiskus (Duquesne University, USA) 30. Depth Glen Mazis (Penn State Harrisburg, USA) 31. Motor Intentionality Mark Paterson (University of Pittsburgh, USA) 32. Speaking Speech and Spoken Speech Hayden Kee (Fordham University, USA) Index

About the Author :
Ariane Mildenberg is Senior Lecturer in Modernism at the University of Kent, UK. She is the author of Modernism and Phenomenology: Literature, Philosophy, Art (2017) and co-editor of Phenomenology, Modernism and Beyond (2010).

Review :
The encounter between Merleau-Ponty and modernism is given added acuity moreover by the fairly recent phenomenological turn in critical theory and the return to Merleau-Ponty’s work across a number of fields and tendencies, including queer phenomenology, medical humanities, animal studies, environmental studies, and new materialism. The many contributors to Mildenberg’s carefully curated and substantial volume (with nineteen individually authored chapters in all) offer provocative and significant contributions to these ongoing conversations. ... In addition to the many substantial and precise perspectives to be found in the first two parts of the volume, the third part offers a distinctively adventurous series of brief glossary entries, each of them nevertheless essays in their own right. ... a significant and substantial resource for scholars working on Merleau-Ponty and phenomenology, but beyond this it has much to offer to the ongoing re-assessment of modernism and its legacies. Ariane Mildenberg has compiled an important volume on a topic that is too little explored: Merleau-Ponty's contribution to and dialogue with artistic and literary modernism. The authors involved are experts in their respective areas and their offerings reflects this. The result is an important addition both to studies in Merleau-Ponty thought and modernism. This rich and deeply informative collection reveals for the first time Maurice Merleau-Ponty's place at the heart of Modernist explorations of the multifaceted, dynamically intertwining nature of reality. The seven opening chapters explore pivotal texts in which he describes how the arts reach into and open upon what he called the invisible armature or lining and depth of the visible world. From this conceptual grounding twelve central chapters engage Modernist painting, literature, music, and film in dialogue with his thought. They offer a remarkable array of fresh perspectives moving from Matisse and Klee and Cézanne, to writers such as Proust, Valéry, Woolf, Joyce, and Beckett, to film and music, and the kind of neurophysiology to which his thinking was always attentive. The final section is an extremely valuable Glossary of concepts such as Flesh, Écart, Wild (Brute) Being, Perceptual Faith, and Chiasm/Intertwining that are central to Merleau-Ponty's work but difficult to grasp without introduction.