TY - JOUR

T1 - Gentle biologies

T2 - Reconceptualising bodily metamorphosis and healthcare between Catherine Malabou and Anne Dufourmantelle

AU - Dalton, Benjamin

PY - 2024/11/30

Y1 - 2024/11/30

N2 - This article brings Catherine Malabou’s philosophy of the plasticity of biological life into dialogue with Anne Dufourmantelle’s concept of gentleness, theorizing gentle biologies at the intersections of both thinkers. It explores how, for both Malabou and Dufourmantelle, gentleness is not an innately occurring power or characteristic predetermined within biological life, but rather a force that must be plastically shaped, honed, practised. Further, if Dufourmantelle argues in Power of Gentleness (2018 [2013]) that gentleness can constitute a formidable resource for both transformation and resistance, this gentleness will be seen to resonate with conceptualizations of plasticity across Malabou’s oeuvre as a similarly revolutionary potentiality. The article finishes by turning to engage with interdisciplinary work on gentleness in healthcare, arguing that such contexts constitute sites in which new modes of care towards Malabou’s and Dufourmantelle’s gentle biologies can be imagined.

AB - This article brings Catherine Malabou’s philosophy of the plasticity of biological life into dialogue with Anne Dufourmantelle’s concept of gentleness, theorizing gentle biologies at the intersections of both thinkers. It explores how, for both Malabou and Dufourmantelle, gentleness is not an innately occurring power or characteristic predetermined within biological life, but rather a force that must be plastically shaped, honed, practised. Further, if Dufourmantelle argues in Power of Gentleness (2018 [2013]) that gentleness can constitute a formidable resource for both transformation and resistance, this gentleness will be seen to resonate with conceptualizations of plasticity across Malabou’s oeuvre as a similarly revolutionary potentiality. The article finishes by turning to engage with interdisciplinary work on gentleness in healthcare, arguing that such contexts constitute sites in which new modes of care towards Malabou’s and Dufourmantelle’s gentle biologies can be imagined.

KW - Catherine Malabou

KW - Anne Dufourmantelle

KW - plasticity

KW - gentleness

KW - anarchism

KW - philosophy

KW - philosophy of biology

KW - medical humanities

KW - health humanities

U2 - 10.3366/para.2024.0473

DO - 10.3366/para.2024.0473

M3 - Journal article

VL - 47

SP - 324

EP - 340

JO - Paragraph

JF - Paragraph

SN - 0264-8334

IS - 3

ER -