ABSTRACT New materialist feminists have long agonised over the constituents of biological ‘life’ or ‘living’ material, by proposing and pursuing questions of ontology: ‘What is matter? What is life? How do they link together [?]’ ([Grosz, Elizabeth. 2004. The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution and the Untimely. Crows Nest, N.S.W: Allen & Unwin], 17). But in favouring such ontological inquiry, the new materialists have neglected consideration of the very constructedness of this ‘life’ category. To add historical perspective to this debate, this article demonstrates that ‘life’ and ‘matter’ and the way they ‘link together’ are necessarily historical questions, too. These are concepts which are known and experienced differently through time, and I suggest that ‘life’ can only be known once its historicity and contingency is unpacked. To advance this argument, I conduct a close reading of the experimental records of a leading nineteenth-century French physiologist, Charles Brown-Séquard [1817–1894], for insights into how ‘life’ has been (and can be) negotiated, characterised and employed in an experimental setting. Through Brown-Séquard, I describe ‘life’ as an experimental heuristic as much as a phenomenon or reaction of the body, and I argue that to access the phenomena of ‘life’ in the body (if this is possible), one must first engage with the epistemological framework in which it resides.

中文翻译：

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19 世纪生理学中的“生命”实验：Brown-Séquard 表征血液的方法

摘要 新唯物主义女权主义者长期以来一直为生物“生命”或“活”材料的成分而苦恼，提出并追求本体论问题：“什么是物质？生活是什么？它们如何联系在一起 [?]'（[格罗兹，伊丽莎白。2004 年。时间的缺口：政治、进化和不合时宜。新南威尔士州乌鸦巢：艾伦和昂温]，17）。但是在支持这种本体论探究的同时，新唯物主义者忽略了对这个“生命”范畴的构建性的考虑。为了给这场辩论增加历史视角，本文表明“生命”和“物质”以及它们“联系在一起”的方式也必然是历史问题。这些概念随着时间的推移会以不同的方式被了解和体验，我认为“生命”只有在其历史性和偶然性被解开后才能被了解。为了推进这一论点，我仔细阅读了 19 世纪法国著名生理学家 Charles Brown-Séquard [1817-1894] 的实验记录，以深入了解“生命”是如何（并且可以）协商、表征的并在实验环境中使用。通过 Brown-Séquard，我将“生命”描述为一种与身体现象或反应一样多的实验启发，并且我认为要访问身体中的“生命”现象（如果可能的话），必须首先参与它所在的认识论框架。