Includes bibliographical references and index.

Dedication -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction. Exposing the Corporeal Roots of Historical Materialism and Moving Toward a Corporeal Semiotics -- Part One -- Reconstructing Historical Materialism 'Up from the Body': -- The Corporeal Foundations of a Materialist Conception of History -- and the Guiding Threads of a Historical-Materialist Wissenschaft -- Introduction to Part One -- Chapter I. An Aufhebung of Philosophy and the Genesis of a Materialist Conception of History: Objectification and Marx's Corporeal Turn -- Chapter II. From the First Corporeal Fact of Human Being to the Moments of History: Corporeality, Modes of Objectification, and Ways of Worldmaking -- Chapter III. The Dimensions and Methodological Leitfaden of a Historical-Materialist Wissenschaft -- Part Two -- Mapping Human Corporeal Organisation -- Introduction to Part Two. Toward a Historical-materialist Cartography of Human Corporeal Organisation -- Chapter IV. The Body is Not a Tabula Rasa: Clearing a Path toward a 'Hidden Bodily Problematic' -- Chapter V. Toward a Corporeal Cartography: Methodological Preliminaries -- Chapter VI. Toward a Historical-Materialist Cartography of Human Corporeal Organisation (in Outline): On the Corporeal Constitution of Patterns of Human Experience, Behaviour, and Realities -- Chapter VII. On the Corporeal Constitutions of Cognition and Subjecthood -- Conclusion to Part Two -- Part Three: Toward a Corporeal Semiotics -- Introduction to Part Three -- Chapter VIII. The 'Linguistic Turn' and its Discontents: A Critique of Disembodied Semiotics -- Chapter IX. The 'Cultural Turn' and its Discontents: A Critique of Disembodied Cultural Studies -- Chapter X. Artefacts as Corporeal Signs; Toward a Corporeal Semiotics -- Conclusion to Part Three: Corporeal Semiotics as Measure of Social Wealth and Socio-cultural Form: On Artefactual Beneficence and Mendacity -- Part Four -- Corporeal Categories and the Critique of Sociocultural Form: Capital and its Culture of Quantity -- Introduction to Part Four -- Chapter XI. Methodological Reflections on Forms of Social Objectivity and Subjectivity: Class, Class Consciousness, and the Critique of Capitalist Cultural Form -- Chapter XII. A 'Great Transformation': A Genealogy of Capital's Culture of Quantity -- Chapter XIII. The Commodity Form, Quantification, and the Standpoint of Capital: An Archaeology of Capital's Culture of Quantity -- Chapter XIV. The Capitalist Labour-Process and the Body in Pain: The Corporeal Depths of Marx's Concept of Immiseration -- Conclusion to Part Four: The Mendacity of the Vast Capitalist Artefact -- Anticipatory Notes in Conclusion: A Time to Pause, A Time to Reflect, A Time to Wish, A Time to Hope: Toward A Corporeally-Grounded Vision of Human Freedom and Dignity -- Appendices -- Appendices to Introduction -- Appendices to Chapter I -- Appendices to Chapter II -- Appendices to Chapter III -- Appendices to Chapter IV -- Appendices to Chapter VI -- Appendix to Chapter VII -- Appendices to Chapter VIII -- Appendices to Chapter IX.

In a seemingly offhand, often overlooked comment, Karl Marx deemed 'human corporeal organisation' the 'first fact of human history'. Following Marx's corporeal turn and pursuing the radical implications of his corporeal insight, this book undertakes a reconstruction of the corporeal foundations of historical materialism. Part I exposes the corporeal roots of Marx's materialist conception of history and historical-materialist Wissenschaft. Part II attempts a historical-materialist mapping of human corporeal organisation. Suggesting how to approach human histories up from their corporeal foundations, Part III elaborates historical-materialism as 'corporeal semiotics'. Part IV, a case study of Marx's critique of capitalist socio-economic and cultural forms, reveals the corporeal foundations of that critique and the corporeal depth of his vision of human freedom and dignity.

Description based on print version record.