AUTHOR COPY Short Essay Posthuman physics Liza Blake Department of English, New York University, New York. Abstract The question of embodiment is at once the question that makes posthuman theory so exciting, and the area in which posthuman discourse sometimes stumbles over its own false alternatives. In order to consider the body of the posthuman, and the modes of corporeality available to posthumanity, we need to develop a more expansive body theory that can encompass nonhuman as well as human bodies. The place to start is with early modern physics, which is the study of what we would consider today both physics and physiology. This article dwells on the figure of the Echo in John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi and Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, arguing that reading the scene through the lens of early modern physics illustrates an alternative mode of corporeality for the posthuman. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2010) 1, 39–45. doi:10.1057/pmed.2010.13 DELIO: Hark: the dead stones seem to have pity on you And give you good counsel. ANTONIO: Echo, I will not talk with thee, For thou art a dead thing. ECHO: Thou art a dead thing. (John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi) The Echo scene of Webster’s Duchess of Malfi begins, as the 1623 Quarto’s stage direction notes, with the entrance of three characters: ‘Antonio, Delio, [and] Eccho, (from the Dutchesse Graue.)’ (Webster, 1623, sig. K). As Antonio talks to the grave of his murdered wife, a voice ominously repeats his phrases, r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2040-5960 postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies Vol. 1, 1/2, 39–45 www.palgrave-journals.com/pmed/