Irina Hron is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her fields of research include European literature around 1900, contemporary literature as well as contemporary aesthetics and literary theory (after Postmodernism). Moreover, she specializes in the field of Skin Studies, studying the interplay of skin, the practice of writing/reading, and literature.
Dermaesthetics: Writing (on) Human Skin
The idea of a profound affinity between human skin, the practice of writing/reading, and literature is the premise for this presentation. The paper will be devoted to exploring the changing epistemological and ontological aspects of human skin, starting with the strict (Cartesian) distinction of an outer and inner world for which the skin only served as a boundary. It will trace the evolving cultural con¬structions of skin imagery, including the newfound appreciation of the surface, as exemplified in the philosophy of Nietzsche, as well as racialized and gendered narratives. Its purpose is to develop an understanding of human skin that goes beyond a purely medical or natural scientific framework and instead ties in with the aesthetic idea in the Kantian sense: According to Kant, art, and literature in particular, engender a kind of dynamic thinking that is neither conceptual (“begrifflich”) nor solely based on experience. “Dermaesthetics”, a term that still needs to be developed, will serve as an umbrella term for different philosophical, medical, literary, and artistic accounts of phenomena such as skin hunger, hematoma writing or thinking with the skin.