•  1144
    Food and Everyday Life (edited book)
    with Thomas Conroy
    Lexington Books. 2014.
    Acknowledgments. The seed of this book began with a session on “food and everyday life” which took place at the 2010 Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy con- ference in Montreal, Canada. I thus wish to acknowledge and ...
  •  1108
    Many Healths: Nietzsche and Phenomenologies of Illness
    Frontiers of Philosophy in China 3 (11): 338-357. 2016.
    This paper considers phenomenological descriptions of health in Gadamer, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Svenaeus. In these phenomenologies of health, health is understood as a tacit, background state that permits not only normal functioning but also philosophical reflection. Nietzsche’s model of health as a state of intensity that is intimately connected to illness and suffering is then offered as a rejoinder. Nietzsche’s model includes a more complex view of suffering and pain as integrally tied…Read more
  •  611
    Child’s Play: Anatomically Correct Dolls and Embodiment
    Human Studies 30 (3): 255-267. 2007.
    Anatomically detailed dolls have been used to elicit testimony from children in sex abuse cases. However, studies have shown they often provide false accounts in young, preschool-age children. Typically this problem is seen as a cognitive one: with age, children can correctly map their bodies onto a doll due to greater intellectual ability to represent themselves. I argue, along with the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that although certainly cognitive developments aid in representing one’s ow…Read more
  •  357
    Unfit Women: Freedom and Constraint in the Pursuit of Health
    Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts 4 (13): 58-77. 2013.
    Feminist phenomenology has contributed significantly to understanding the negative impact of the objectification of women’s bodies. The celebration of thin bodies as beautiful and the demonization of fat bodies as unattractive is a common component of that discussion. However, when one turns toward the correlation of fat and poor health, a feminist phenomenological approach is less obvious. In this paper, previous phenomenological work on the objectification of women is paralleled to the contemp…Read more
  •  322
    This chapter discusses how phenomenologies of pregnancy challenge traditional philosophical accounts of a subject that is seen as autonomous, rational, genderless, unified, and independent from other subjects. Pregnancy defies simple incorporation into such universal accounts since the pregnant woman and her unborn child are incapable of being subsumed into traditional theories of the subject. Phenomenological descriptions of the experience of pregnancy lead one to question if philosophy needs t…Read more
  •  79
    Until the 1970s, models of early infancy tended to depict the young child as internally preoccupied and incapable of processing visual-tactile data from the external world. Meltzoff and Moore's groundbreaking studies of neonatal imitation disprove this characterization of early life: They suggest that the infant is cognizant of its external environment and is able to control its own body. Taking up these experiments, theorists argue that neonatal imitation provides an empirical justification for…Read more
  •  72
    This paper investigates the claims made by both Freudian psychoanalysic thought and Husserlian phenomenology about the unconscious. First, it is shown how Husserl incorporates a complex notion of the unconscious in his analysis of passive synthesis. With his notion of an unintentional reservoir of past retentions, Husserl articulates an unconscious zone that must be activated from consciousness in order to come to life. Second, it is explained how Husserl still does not account for the Freudian …Read more
  •  57
    The Logic of the Observed
    Symposium 5 (1): 83-94. 2001.
    The first line of Merleau-Ponty 's 1951-52 lecture "The Question of Method in Child Psychology" readt, "In child psychology (as in psychopathology, the psychology of primitives, and the psychology ofwomen), the situation ofthe object of study is so different from that ofthe observer that it cannot be grasped on its own terms." Is there any hope for a feminist reading of Merleau-Ponty's psychology with such a statement, or are women relegated in Merleau-Ponty's corpus alongside the childlike, the…Read more
  •  47
    Philosophy as Self-Transformation: Shusterman's Somaesthetics and Dependent Bodies
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 28 (4): 489-504. 2014.
    Part of Nietzsche’s blistering attack against Western morality is the argument that it stems from a lack of self-control that the weak have. Since the moralist cannot control and direct his own sexuality, he creates a “universal” set of moral values to be imposed externally on everyone. Despite the enchanting diversity of life, moralists prefer drab worlds of absolutes to help bolster their weak-willed selves: “Let us finally consider how naïve it is altogether to say: ‘Man ought to be such and …Read more
  •  39
    Early work in child psychology -- Phenomenology, gestalt theory, and psychoanalysis -- Syncretic sociability and the birth of the self -- Contemporary research in psychology and phenomenology -- Exploration and learning -- Culture, development, and gender -- Conclusion: an incomparable childhood.
  •  31
    Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949-1952 (edited book)
    Northwestern University Press. 2010.
    Maurice Merleau-Ponty is one of the few major phenomenologists to engage extensively with empirical research in the sciences, and the only one to examine child psychology with rigor and in such depth. His writings have recently become increasingly influential, as the findings of psychology and cognitive science inform and are informed by phenomenological inquiry. Merleau-Ponty’s Sorbonne lectures of 1949 to 1952 are a broad investigation into child psychology, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, phenomeno…Read more
  •  29
    This paper discusses Merleau-Ponty’s use of idea of ambivalence and its role in psychological conflicts. Merleau-Ponty affirms ambivalent conflicts as lived and social rather than biologically determined, as one might have in some developmental accounts, or hidden, as in some psychoanalytic accounts. With this concept, the paper takes up feminist considerations of the conflicts experienced by mothers in breastfeeding. It argues that the Merleau-Pontian and feminist approach to considering breast…Read more
  •  28
    The Affirmative Culture of Healthy Self-Care: A Feminist Critique of the Good Health Imperative
    International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 13 (1): 27-44. 2020.
    Feminists have worked extensively to explore how our contemporary capitalist and neoliberal world creates docile subjects. One feature of this docility is the focus on fostering subjects that not only are good consumers and workers but also subjects that make good choices—that is, choices that do not disrupt capitalist postcolonial distributions of wealth, power, and control. One example of this trend is the focus in public health discourses in the last several decades of seeing unhealthy bodies…Read more
  •  15
    The Logic of the Observed (review)
    Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 5 (1): 83-94. 2001.
    The first line of Merleau-Ponty’s 1951-52 lecture “The Question of Method in Child Psychology” reads, “In child psychology (as in psychopathology, the psychology of primitives, and the psychology of women), the situation of the object of study is so different from that of the observer that it cannot be grasped on its own terms.” [F, 465] Is there any hope for a feminist reading of Merleau-Ponty’s psychology with such a statement, or are women relegated in Merleau-Ponty’s corpus alongside the chi…Read more
  •  12
    Outside the Present
    Chiasmi International 19 285-295. 2017.
    In Felisberto Hernández’s story “The Stray Horse,” the young narrator imagines that the piano teacher’s sitting room furniture has relationships, intentions, and desires. The developmental psychologist Paul Bloom attributes this imagination of objects as living as part of normal development in childhood. He argues that such a tendency, while scientifically incorrect, was an evolutionary advantage in the long, brutal prehistory of mankind. Whatever the merits of Bloom’s evolutionary story, it fai…Read more
  •  11
    Unfit Women
    Janus Head 13 (1): 58-77. 2013.
    Feminist phenomenology has contributed significantly to understanding the negative impact of the objectification of women’s bodies. The celebration of thin bodies as beautiful and the demonization of fat bodies as unattractive is a common component of that discussion. However, when one turns toward the correlation of fat and poor health, a feminist phenomenological approach is less obvious. In this paper, previous phenomenological work on the objectification of women is paralleled to the contemp…Read more
  •  10
    The Separation of "Health" from the Healthcare Sciences
    International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 15 (1): 164-166. 2022.
    In the United States, "freedom" became the catchphrase of those who argue against authoritative experts and institutions pushing for restrictions, masking requirements, social distancing, and vaccine mandates. Anti-vax parents argue for the family's freedom to do as they see fit in raising their children. Masks, whether for children or adults, are often equated with "muzzles" trying to limit the freedom of others to express themselves. The consequence of such views of freedom came at the cost of…Read more
  •  9