Course : Trends in American Literature

Merleau-Ponty emphasizes that my body is both an object for others and my lived reality, and that I exist neither only as a thing nor only as consciousness (Merleau Ponty 2006). This is highlighted with the concept of the lived body: the lived body is a mind-body unity, acting and experiencing in a specific situation. It is our lived relationship, as embodied beings, to a world immersed in meaning that we constantly interpret and make meaningful to ourselves through interaction with others. As B