Showing papers in "Substance in 2019"

Bereft of Interiority: Motifs of Vegetal Transformation, Escape and Fecundity in Luce Irigaray's Plant Philosophy and Han Kang's The Vegetarian

Abstract: Abstract:Recent consideration of plants as philosophic subjects has challenged the Aristotelian claim that plants constitute the simplest form of life and that they are soulless creatures, 'bereft of interiority.' Instead, philosophers such as Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder have proposed a post-metaphysical conception of the human subject, recognized as continuous with, and contiguous to, the vegetal life. In this article, I focus on Irigaray's ethics of reciprocity and desire through analysis of her 'plant-idioms' of fecundity, touch, roots and breath. Next, I situate Irigaray's philosophic categories alongside a recent work of feminist eco-fiction, Han Kang's The Vegetarian. Against the interpretations of the novel as narrative of self-attrition and psychosis, I read The Vegetarian through the lens of three vegetal figures found in Irigaray's work: (i) a female transformation into a tree; (ii) an escape into the vegetal world as a way of traversing patriarchal roles and expectations; and (iii) fecundity as a figure of desire beyond procreation.

Life/Force: Novelty and New Materialism in Jane Bennett's Vibrant Matter

Abstract: Abstract:New Materialism and Speculative Realism have obtained their avant-garde status by creating a simple division between their work and a past they characterize as constructivism or correlationism. While this satisfies libidinal and market forces that demand novelty, it depends on a chain of dogmatic reversals that remain deconstructible. Jane Bennett's Vibrant Matter operates according to such a set of reversals, opposing itself to the (old) representation of matter as inert and passive by describing matter as free, living, and creative. However, because these affirmations occur as reversals, without a phenomenology or deconstruction of the underlying concepts, a suppression of matter identical to that from the tradition remains in her work. Her dogmatic predications are necessary to uphold the claim of a simple break with the past, but this repression of undecidability renders untenable both matter's novelty and the novelty of any progressivist historical schema, such as that of the \"New\" Materialism.

The Monster Analogy : Why Fictional Characters are Frankenstein's Monsters

Abstract: Abstract:The Unwritten (2009–2015), a Vertigo comics series created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, demonstrates through metafictional storytelling that all fictional characters share important features with Victor Frankenstein's infamous creature: they are simultaneously synthetic and mimetic, human and nonhuman, textual and transtextual, crafted to serve specific functions, yet difficult to control. This article explores how structuralist, cognitivist and emerging transtextual theories of literary characters have attempted to grasp and reconcile these paradoxical qualities. This allegorical cross-reading highlights previously ignored points of connection between different theories, forming a basis for a more holistic, dynamic and transmedial view of characters.

Writing a Different Ending to the "World War" Pitting Humanity Against the Biosphere in Michel Serres and Jacques Derrida's Philosophy

Abstract: Abstract:Although Michel Serres and Jacques Derrida espouse radically different approaches to engaging in philosophical inquiry overall, they both describe our present rapport with the rest of the cosmos as a \"world war\" that must be ended at all costs. Serres and Derrida posit that the story of this perpetual state of warfare against the Web of Life has deep historical, philosophical, and ideological roots. Specifically, they problematize two of the most pervasive and lethal social constructs, the Genesis myth and the bêtemachine theory, which continue to breed complacency and ignorance.

Derrida's Nonpower—From Writing to Zoopower

Abstract: Abstract:Derrida's displacement (after Bentham) of reason in favor of suffering as the key question in thinking about animals and his subsequent remarks on a \"nonpower at the heart of power\" are often taken as foregrounding a compassionate ethics in the face of the vulnerable (animal) other. This paper traces a genealogy of Derrida's occasional remarks on power and passivity to question whether this ethical reading adequately accounts for Derrida's \"concept\" of nonpower. In doing so, it pursues a counter-reading of nonpower, the implications of which are explored in the context of recent work on animals in biopolitics.

Spatial Stream of Consciousness

Abstract: Abstract:This article examines Olivier Rolin's use of stream of consciousness narration in L'invention du monde (1993). It draws upon philosophers Peter Sloterdijk and Paul Virilio to propose that the novel—with its obsessions for information, technology, and space—depicts a crossroads of subjectivity. At that crossroads, natural and computational connotations of \"stream\" collide, fueling the novel's central crisis. The misadventures of Rolin's postmodern, post-industrial, satellite-inspired Phileas Fogg reveal a central conundrum of accelerated globalization: namely, that the informational and technological mastery of our world comes at the price of sacrificing the ability to meaningfully position oneself within it.

Human Power and Ecological Flourishing: Refiguring Right and Advantage with Spinoza

Abstract: Abstract:This paper argues for an interpretation of Spinoza's concept of human power that is conducive to ecological flourishing. Acknowledging the elements in Spinoza that authorize human exceptionalism, I argue for a countervailing conception of human power as ecologically interdependent. This model accounts for an amoral natural order, while simultaneously offering practical normative guidelines for calibrating human power in accordance with the ecological flourishing in which human existence is embedded. Hence, the normativity of this ethical model derives from the striving that, for Spinoza, is inscribed at the heart of earthly existence.

Microdramas: Crucibles for Theatre and Time by John H. Muse (review)

Abstract: John H. Muse’s Microdramas: Crucibles for Theatre and Time examines the production of short plays across the history of Western theatre practice, from the late-nineteenth century to contemporary performance. Categorizing plays shorter than twenty minutes as microdramas, Muse does not insist on a new term for a theatrical subgenre, but provides an ideal working title for the study of brief theatre: a study which, until now, has been largely overlooked in literary theoretical analyses on theatre. Muse shows us how the study of plays by playwrights who consciously choose brevity as a form, provides a platform for examining the evolution of theatre’s structural practices. Identifying how short plays expose traditional structures evident in longer-form plays on a microcosmic level, Microdramas provides test samples from slices of theatre’s history within which to analyze dramatic form and the experience of theatre viewing. Rather than being relegated as: useful tools for acting students; amusing anecdotes in the history of modernist and avant-garde theatre practice; or as entr’actes interspersed within long-form theatre plays – because character development, plot and dialogue are abridged – microdramas limit the requirements of dramatic convention to its most basic elements, returning the stage to its position as a laboratory, a place of experimentation and observation. Muse challenges assumptions about abrupt or minimal theatrical and artistic experiences by observing how short plays challenge viewers to interact with the theatrical experience in a different manner. Muse’s book enquires into what the experience of witnessing microdramas reveals about theatre and time, providing a comprehensive insight into the intricacies of temporal experience in both theatre and in general. Muse observes how certain playwrights manipulate the experience of time by putting pressure on an audience’s cognitive processes. Muse argues that specific microdramas isolate the distinctive workings of theatre time and lived time, revealing the complexities of both, and exposing the temporal customs to which all theatrical performance is subject.

The Hyperbolic Logic of Constraint in the Poetic Works of Jacques Jouet

Abstract: Abstract:The writings of Jacques Jouet mark a shift in the nature of the Oulipian constraint by adding a pragmatic or existential restriction to strict textual rules. As such, the constraint defines when, where, and to whom he writes as well as which form it adopts. This raises the question of how it compares with earlier forms of the Oulipian constraint, or of the extent to which the writer controls or is controlled by the constraint. The study proceeds by analyzing the changing constraints in Jouet's text Du jour, specifically by highlighting the hyperbolic logic that applies in the areas of productivity, pleasure and relevance.

Clon'd, or a Note on Propagation

Abstract: Abstract:In \"Clon'd\" I ask in what way the problem of the \"clone,\" as it confronts us today, can be separated from modern and ancient questions concerning naming. Beginning with a philological analysis of the word \"clone,\" I then turn to the conceptual parallels between vegetative reproduction and linguistic reproduction. Through a comparison between the clone and the double, I argue, by way of conclusion, that the fear of the clone corresponds to a relatively new notion of genetic identity, which has repercussions far beyond the bio-technological realm.

Levinas and the Problem of Predation: From Fraternity to Kinship

Abstract: Abstract:In this paper, Levinas's concept of fraternity is shown to rely upon an exclusion of beings deemed \"faceless\" and open for appropriation. By limiting ethics to humans, Levinas established nonhumans as that which could be given to the Other without questioning the justification of this appropriation. By looking at the use of kinship in recent ethnography, we find an alternative that posits nonhumans as valuable while maintaining the necessity of appropriation. Instead of solving the problem of appropriation by positing beings outside ethics, the kinship system shows us ways of establishing limits and allowances in a world that includes nonhuman Others.

Preview: The Petriverse of Pierre Jardin

Abstract: Abstract:SubStance@Work, a peer-reviewed imprint of SubStance, Inc., is a series comprised of born-digital works that integrate non-linear structure and multimedia content in innovative theoretical explorations. New works are previewed in the Journal by their authors.