Empathy in Another Mode: Transomatization, Bodily Background, Breathing

Abstract: There are multiple ways of using the body to empathically experience verbal and visual art. One is through embodied simulation. Another mode is proposed in this essay: transomatization. It occurs through a willing misidentification, or “reinterpretation,” of a bodily process, like bodily warmth or breathing, as if it were an element of a literary or visual artwork. The body fills in for the element. Somatically disposed individuals are most likely to form transomatizations. Two types, breathing and bodily background, are defined and demonstrated in works by Virginia Woolf, Italo Calvino, Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, and Adolph Menzel. The essay highlights temporally extended transomatizations.