States of the Body
For this Rendez-vous of imagination on the « states of the body, » Michel Maffesoli has invited Bernard Andrieu, who has authored several books on the human body, Georges Vigarello, a specialist of the history of bodily practices and representations of the body, and Olivier Sirost, the author of Le corps extrême dans les sociétés occidentales.
The discussion will take as a starting point the assessment that has been made of the pronounced presence of a form of hedonism in everyday life – a presence both irrepressible and powerful that subtends and supports any social life. Marginalized and reduced to a subordinate role during « modernity, » hedonism seems to be pivotal again today. It might even constitute a factor of unity in our current social life.