Abstract

This chapter argues that given affect and emotion’s importance both to the operation of unconscious habit and to a non-reductive, psychologically complex account of human physiology, feminist philosophy and critical philosophy of race need an account of affect and emotion as thoroughly somatic, not something “mental” or extra-biological, layered on top of the body. They also need an account of human physiology that appreciates how emotion and affect are interpersonal, social, and can be transactionally transmitted between people. Developing that account, Chapter 1 takes the hips and pelvis as a case study, using an example of tight pelvic and hamstring muscles to argue for the transactional physiology of affect and emotion. Setting the stage for subsequent chapters, “The Hips” draws on William James to develop an account of the affective body as the psychosomatic substrate from which biologically unconscious habits develop.