Embodied Transcendence and Phenomenological Field: Subjectivities in Caryl Churchill’s Fen Through Irigaray and Merleau-Ponty

Ebrahimi, Nastaran; Bordbari, Zahra; Sharif, Negar

Volume 2, Issue 2 (July 2025) JCALS 2025, 2(2): 135-153 | Back to browse issues page

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Ebrahimi N, Bordbari Z, Sharif N. Embodied Transcendence and Phenomenological Field: Subjectivities in Caryl Churchill’s Fen Through Irigaray and Merleau-Ponty. JCALS 2025; 2 (2) : 6
URL: http://cals.gonbad.ac.ir/article-1-62-en.html

Embodied Transcendence and Phenomenological Field: Subjectivities in Caryl Churchill’s Fen Through Irigaray and Merleau-Ponty

Nastaran Ebrahimi

, Zahra Bordbari

, Negar Sharif

Department of English Language, Faculty of Foreign Languages, CT.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: (35 Views)

This article examines the interrogation of cross-gendered subjectivities in Caryl Churchill’s dramaturgy through the theoretical approaches of Luce Irigaray’s feminist philosophy and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment. This article argues that Churchill’s stage is not merely a platform for representing these ideas but becomes the very phenomenological field in which they are experimentally lived and perceived by the audience. The bodily presence of performance itself, the material-of-body-of-performance—actor's body, common space, audience's perceptual trust—is the proximal site of this phenomenological investigation. Meanwhile, Merleau-Ponty's notion of the phenomenological field makes intelligible the dynamic, inter-bodily horizon within and in relation to which gendered identities are progressively constructed through embodied perception and intersubjective encounter. Churchill’s theatrical strategies of cross-gender casting and fluid performativity enact these paradigms by destabilizing fixed gender binaries and fostering a corporeal and symbolic space for alternative subject formations. The study contributes to feminist and phenomenological debates by demonstrating how Churchill’s dramaturgy operates as a praxis of sensible transcendence and embodied field engagement, opening ethical and ontological possibilities beyond normative gender frameworks.

Article number: 6

Keywords: Field, Flesh, Gestalt, Noema, Noesis, Perceptual Faith, Sensible Transcendence

Full-Text [PDF 416 kb] (38 Downloads)

Type of Study: Research | Subject: General
Received: 2025/06/15 | Accepted: 2025/06/30 | Published: 2025/07/1