African Somaesthetics: Cultures, Feminisms, Politics

Catherine F. Botha (Ph.D., Philosophy, Radboud University Nijmegen) is professor of Philosophy at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She uses her expertise in the phenomenological tradition and its precursors in the continental tradition (most especially the work of Nietzsche and Heidegger) as a lens through which to approach the focus of her research - the philosophy of art, with a special focus on the philosophy of dance. She has published numerous articles and chapters in the philosophy of dance, with her most recent publication “The Dancing Body and the Transmission of Collective Memory in South Africa” appearing in the Routledge Companion to Dance Studies in 2020.

• List of FiguresNotes on ContributorsAfrican Somaesthetics as ProvocationCatherine F BothaPART 1Untouchable Bodies1 The Untouchable BodyGerard M. Samuel2 The Other as Unbeautiful: Analytic Somaesthetics, Disgust and the Albinotic Body in African TraditionsElvis ImafidonPART 2Black Bodies3 Black Bodies, “Black Panther”Paul C. Taylor, Sarah DiMaggio, Holly Longair, and Takunda Matose4 Re-Imagining Race through Daai za Lady & ButohJackï Job5 Necro-being and the Black Body: an Interview with Leonard HarrisLeonard Harris and Catherine BothaPART 3Dancing Bodies6 Sensing the Stage: Decolonial Readings of African Contemporary DanceRainy Demerson7 Self-knowledge through Dance: Considering the Female Break Dancer in South AfricaDevon Bailey8 Learning to Speak in My Mother Tongue: Ruminating on Contemporary Decolonising Dance Practices for Myself and My African ContinentLliane LootsPART 4Changing Bodies9 Walking and Stumbling: the Aesthetic as Agitator for ActivismSara Matchett10 Skinstory---Migratory Experiences and the Transformational Power of Performative Means of ExpressionMonika Lilleike11 Disinfect This! Scato-Aesthetic Indictments of South Africa’s Cultural, Social, and Spatial DivisionsMatthias PauwelsName IndexSubject Index