Synopses & Reviews
In the first half of this original book, Kimerer L. LaMothe offers the only exhaustive analysis of the dance images that appear in every one of Friedrich Nietzsche's major works, revealing the pivotal role this imagery plays in Nietzsche's project of revaluing Christian values. In the second half of the book, LaMothe offers the only in depth account of how the two most celebrated innovators in American modern dance, Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, created dances as well as dance philosophies and practices that critically engage and advance Nietzsche's philosophical project. Taken together, the two halves of this book make a seamless case for why scholars, philosophers, and dancers should consider dance as a medium of religious experience and expression.
Review
"LaMothe's succulent attention to the phenomenology of dance technique draws persuasive power from beyond the writing itself. Nietzsche's Dancers is not only a study in the recreation of religious values; it is an expression of the bodily conditions it explores. And, in this regard, the joyous engagement expressed on every page refers readers to lived practices of kinetic fluency as the basis for affirmation of life." --Journal of the American Academy of Religion "Strangely, Christianity, the religion of the incarnation--the "Word made flesh"--has failed to develop the implications of the intimate relationship between incarnation and dance. In this fascinating and important book, LaMothe addresses Christianity's hostility toward dance, an opposition between dance and religion reinforced by scholarship that consistently ignores one or the other. LaMothe shows that the dancers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham responded to Nietzsche's advocacy for a "dancing religion" by creating dances designed to "catalyze a renaissance of religion, especially Christianity." LaMothe argues passionately for awareness of the "physiological conditions of meaning," and the realization of an incarnation grounded in breathing and movement."--Margaret R. Miles, Emerita Professor of Historical Theology, The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and author of The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought
Synopsis
This book investigates the role Nietzsche's dance images play in his project of "revaluing all values" alongside the religious rhetoric and subject matter evident in the work of Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, who found justification and guidance in Nietzsche's texts for developing dance as a medium of religious expression.
Synopsis
Nietzsche uses images of dance throughout his work to represent the process and the fruits of his "revaluation of all values." American modern dancers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham were inspired by his work as they created their respective visions for what dance can and should be. This book examines the relationships among these three figures, arguing that the techniques of dance practice, choreography, and performances developed by Duncan and Graham critically advance Nietzsche's revaluation of Christian values.
Synopsis
The Flight from Desire revises our understanding of love in literary texts from the high and late Middle Ages. Starting from the traditions of Augustine and Ovid, it traces the interplay of medieval theories about love with the unruly and uncontainable workings of desire. Individual chapters offer fresh readings of the letters of Abelard and Heloise, the Lais of Marie de France, the Roman de la Rose, Dante's Vita nuova, and the Troilus story told by Boccaccio and Chaucer. In these works, desire powerfully affects ideas of selfhood and social identity, the terms of moral judgment, and even the role of authorship.
About the Author
KIMERER LAMOTHE is a philosopher, dancer, and scholar of religion who taught modern Western philosophy and theology for six years at Brown and then Harvard Universities.
Table of Contents
Preface *
Part I: Friedrich Nietzsche * First Steps * Free Spirits * Loving Life *
Part II: Isadora Duncan * A Dionysian Artist * Incarnating Faith *
Part III: Martha Graham * An Affirmation of Life * Athletes of God * Words to Dance