ABSTRACT
Heroic accounts have captured the human imagination throughout history. In postmodern times the academic community has witnessed a resurgence in the intellectual and empirical pursuit of the concept of heroism-the advent of the multiple disciplinary field of heroism science signals the end of the monopoly of myth, fiction and popular culture on the study of heroism, offering a multi-perspective lens for the active and rigorous observation of this enduring phenomenon. Research efforts to date, however, have largely focused on its psychosocial aspects, without addressing the interaction with and relationship to the body in sufficient depth. This chapter aims to contribute to growing heroism research by considering the sidelined role of the body, and embodiment more broadly in the heroic process and experience. First, I will contextualize this agenda in broader significant intellectual shifts. Second, the joint
reading of contemporary and traditional phenomenological embodiment schools of thought, in particular Merleau-Ponty’s (1962, 1964) address of contemporary heroism and his legacy, together with Allison and Goethals’ (2014) heroic leadership dynamic, is used to form an “embodiment of heroism thesis”—heroism is defined as a distinct state of embodied consciousness accessible to all human agents in everyday lived experience. The idea of heroism as embodied skill acquisition is used as an example. This thesis rests on the notion of the body as compatible with, but distinct from traditional biological conceptualizations. In the third section, the application of Johnson’s (2008) outline of the five facets of a body to heroism results in two transdisciplinary conceptual frameworks: the heroic body (as biological organism; the ecological; the social; the cultural; and the phenomenological), and the hero organism. In the fourth and final section, I map the epistemological and methodological contours of the “dynamical hero organism self-system.” This is a preliminary investigation of organisms against cutting-edge theories that demonstrate peak states, agency and embodiment-physical intelligence and flow-resulting in the definition of the heart of heroism as biopsychosocial resilience and transformation. As Allison and Goethals (2014) surmise, we are all wired for heroism-to uncover this we must develop an intimate understanding of the processes, functions and consequences of the “heroic embodied mind.”
