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An ethically-based approach to human relations for the media age Otherness, alterity, the alien-over the course of the past fifty years many of us have based our hopes for more ethical relationships on concepts of difference. Combining philosophy, literary criticism, fiction, autobiography, and real and imagined correspondence, Ann Weinstone proposes that only when we stop ordering the other to be other-whether technological, animal, or simply inanimate-will we truly become posthuman.Posthumanism has thus far focused nearly exclusively on human–technology relations. Avatar Bodies develops a posthumanist vocabulary for human-to-human relationships that turns our capacities for devotion, personality, and pleasure. Drawing on both the philosophies and practices of Indian Tantra, Weinstone argues for the impossibility of absolute otherness; we are all avatar bodies, consisting of undecidably shared gestures, skills, memories, sensations, beliefs, and affects.Weinstone calls her book a “tantra”-by which she means a set of instructions for practices aimed at sensitizing the reader to the inherent permeability of self to other, self to world. This tantra for posthumanism elaborates devotional gestures that will expose us to more unfettered contacts and the transformative touch.
Ann Weinstone is assistant professor of literature and new media at Northwestern University and the winner of the 1994 Chelsea Award for Fiction.
ContentsAcknowledgments xiPleasure 1Every Relation but One:Part I 3(Post)Humanism 8Suspension 23Deconstruction and Posthumanism? 25Nonphilosophy 17Tidal Kneeplay 21Deleuze and Derrida:You Are Other 23To Have 25To Belong 28Fiora Raggi Kneeplay 31Tantra for Posthumanism 33Speaking ofAssimilation 37Avatar Bodies 40First City Kneeplay 43Insect Threads 50Case 52Insects and Buddhists 55The Insect Self 59The Insect Yogi 62Knowing,Caring 64Second City Kneeplay 68Sorcerer Series I:The Island Sorcerer (An Introduction) 71Some Celibate Erotics 74Vı raAction 77The Wasp and the Orchid 79Sorcerer Series II:The Yogi Sorcerer 83Sex Scene 86Becoming Woman,Becoming Yogini 89English Tantra or the Imperceptible Man 91Vı¯raBha¯vaKneeplay 95Sorcerer Series III:Rheya 96Sorcerer Series IV:The Miracle of the Rogue 101Heroes ofDifference 104Third City Kneeplay:The Wasp and the Orchid Cross a Letter 108Emanation/Expression 111Three Bodies 115Three Bodies:Exposition in Preparation for the Avatar Body 116Avatar and Expression 118The Difference Difference 121Avatar Bodies,an Invitation 124Itaraand Avata¯ra 126Tantric Bodies 128Fourth City Kneeplay 130Eating,Well... 132Eating Animals 134Vegetarians,Brahmins 137Tantra’s Third Way 139The Responsibility of the (Postdeconstructive) Subject 142Love and Justice 144Experience 146Intuition,Perhaps 149A Tantra for Posthumanism 153Bha¯va 153I Am Speaking of Devotion (Bhakti) 154Discipleship (Dı¯ks˙a¯) 158Iteration (Japa) 159Transindividualism (Nya¯sa) 161Enjoyment,Intoxication (Bhoga) 163Gesture (Mudra¯) 169Fifth City Kneeplay:Solaris in Your Eyes 171Epistlirium 173Every Relation but One:Part II 175Hard to Say 177The Postal Age 181(Post) Heroism 184Post Heroism 187Post Post 190The Sacrificial Structure of the Post 193Fire 197Water 200Flesh 202Who? 204E-Mail Mudra 206Chance 210Postscript 215Works Cited 219
