Lenart Škof & Petri Berndtson 
Atmospheres of Breathing 

As a physiological or biological matter, breath is mostly considered to be mechanical and thoughtless. By expanding on the insights of many religions and therapeutic practices, which emphasize the cultivation of breath, the contributors argue that breath should be understood as fundamentally and comprehensively intertwined with human life and experience. Various dimensions of the respiratory world are referred to as ‘atmospheres’ that encircle and connect human existence, coexistence, and the world.



Drawing from a number of traditions of breathing, including from Indian and East Asian religion and philosophy, the book considers breath in relation to ontological, hermeneutical, phenomenological, ethical, and aesthetic concerns in philosophy. The wide-ranging topics include poetry, theater, environmental issues and health, feminism, and media studies.

Зміст

Acknowledgments



Introduction


Lenart Škof and Petri Berndtson




Part I. Philosophical Atmospheres of Breathing



1.
Logos and
Psyche: A Hermeneutics of Breathing


David Michael Kleinberg-Levin



2. The Possibility of a New Respiratory Ontology


Petri Berndtson



3. Breath as a Way of Self-Affection: On New Topologies of Transcendence and Self-Transcendence


Lenart Škof



4. Aesthetics of Breathing: Some Reflections


Rolf Elberfeld




Part II. Philosophical Traditions of Breathing



5. The Breathing of the Air: Pre-Socratic Echoes in Levinas


Silvia Benso



6. Mindfulness of Breathing in Early Buddhism


Tamara Ditrich



7. Inspiration and Expiration: Yoga Practice through Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of the Body


James Morley



8. The Concept of
Qi in Chinese Philosophy: A Vital Force of Cosmic and Human Breath


Jana S. Rošker



9. Phenomenology of the Wind and the Possibility of Preventive Medicine: A Discussion of
Ki (Wind)

Following Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1713)


Tadashi Ogawa




Part III. Voices and Media of Breathing



10. “Thoughts, that Breathe”


Kevin Hart



11. Theater of Breath: An Artaud-Derrida Existential Conflict


Jones Irwin



12. The Media of Breathing


John Durham Peters




Part IV. Breathful and Breathless Worlds



13. The Politics of Breathing: Knowledge on Air and Respiration


Marijn Nieuwenhuis



14. Breath as the Hinge of Dis-ease and Healing


Drew Leder



15. Invisible Suffering: The Experience of Breathlessness


Havi Carel



16. Feminist Politics of Breathing


Magdalena Górska




Postface



17. The Commonwealth of Breath


David Abram



Contributors

Index

Про автора

Lenart Škof is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Institute for Philosophical Studies at the Science and Research Center of Koper, Slovenia, and the coeditor (with Emily A. Holmes) of
Breathing with Luce Irigaray.
Petri Berndtson is a doctoral candidate of philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.