Rachel Bespaloff: On Embodied Time

• In Event: Women Philosophers I

Abstract

My paper explores Ukrainian-French philosopher Rachel Bespaloff's conception of embodied time. First, I situate her thought in the milieu of interwar Paris, with a focus on Jewish existentialism (Shestov) and avant-garde dance (eurythmics). I then explore the interrelation between body, movement, and temporality in Bespaloff's writings. I conclude by placing her notion of embodied time in a dialogue with Gilles Deleuze's theory of expression as a mode of sensuous cognition.

Author

• Isabel Jacobs, Queen Mary, U of London (UK)