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Hamilton Arts & Letters
Why write about your own bodies?
KLP:
When I decided to apply for graduate schools in English literature, my statement of purpose began, “’Body of work,’ ‘corpus,’ ‘body of a text’: these phrases are commonplace, but what about the quite literal relationship of the body to text?” My interest in this question came from reading such major thinkers as Derrida, Barthes, and Breton, but also from reading and listening to such works as Cyborg Opera (Christian Bök), blert (Jordan Scott) and Fidget (Kenneth Goldsmith). The core dichotomy I wanted to explore was that—at least according to my statement and my 22-year old mind—“language is limited and structured by our bodies” and “our bodies are limited and structured by language.” Though this was the primary question that drove me to continue my study of literature, in many ways my pursuit of this question ended up being itself limited by my body. Soon after beginning graduate school, and after undergoing a series of aggressive treatments, my ability to recall detail, to read critically, and to write sharply declined. My neuro-pathways were damaged, my heart weakened, my metabolism slowed, my hormones repressed; my bodily relationship to literature had literally changed. I became, it seemed, a manifestation of my own research question: my body limited and structured by language at the same time my language became limited and structured by my body. I became my own object of study. So I suppose one way to answer your question is to say: I write about my own body to continue creatively researching the relationship of body to text.
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[Distillate © HA&L + Derek Beaulieu I Katie L. Price {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]
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