ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the question of creative artistic expression as one means of examining our body work. This work permits us to think about the work on our bodies as akin to a personal art, rather than obeying a universally moral imperative. Richard Shusterman coined the term “somaesthetics” to provide a name around which to organize a diverse and interdisciplinary style of thought and practice. Sickness as perceived suffering, as the unthematic body forcing itself upon the individual requiring her to respond, is in not an objection to health. Kathi Weeks thinks that the affirmation of the eternal return acknowledges the past in order to move forward without resentment or circularity. Foucault’s use of limit-experiences, such as taking drugs and sadomasochism, can be seen as ways in which he pursued a body without a mind.
