Suchergebnisse

The Insectile and the Deconstruction of the Non/Human defines, conceptualizes, and evaluates the insectile—pertaining to an entomological fascination—in relation to subject formation. The book is driven by a central dynamic between form and formlessness, further staging an investigation of the phenomenon of fascination using Lacanian psychoanalysis, suggesting that the psychodrama of subject formation plays itself out entomologically. The book's engagement with the insectile—its enactments, cultural dreamwork, fantasy transformations—'in-forming' the so-called human subject undertakes a broader deconstruction of said subject and demonstrates the foundational but occluded role of the insectile in subject formation. It tracks the insectile across the archives of psychoanalysis, seventeenth century still life painting, novels from the nineteenth century to the present day, and post-1970s film. The Insectile and the Deconstruction of the Non/Human will be of interest for scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates in film studies, visual culture, popular culture, cultural and literary studies, comparative literature, and critical theory, offering the insectile as new category for theoretical thought.

Introduction: ignition - Excavation: Colorado - Preservation: Kansas - Evacuation: Cape Canaveral - Transmission: New York - Mobilization: un/endings "Rocket States crosses the disciplines of Cold War Studies, American Literature, American Studies and Cultural Studies. The particular attraction of this study lies in the combination of its range--close textual and visual analysis of the correlations between land and weaponry, set firmly within its political and cultural contexts--with its unique analytical approach. The book offers a synthesis between history, theories of technology, theories of space, popular culture, literary study and military science. It illuminates a variety of literary texts from key writers and thinkers such as Pynchon, Stephen King, Norman Mailer, and Tom Wolfe, while also invoking figures like Nikola Tesla, James Webb, Batman and Ronald Reagan. Organised topographically, according to how missile technology manifests itself differently in particular locations, Rocket States's geographical targets are Colorado, Kansas, Cape Canaveral and New York, variously titled 'Excavation', 'Preservation', 'Evacuation' and 'Transmission'. It advances through these states roughly chronologically, beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s and coming to an end in the first part of the 21st century. Collignon's argument is concerned with identifying the recurring figures and fantasies of the Cold War: the dome or parabola as sheltering techno-form; the fictions of total security adapting to constantly changing targeting strategies; gadget love; closed, freezing worlds. As such, Rocket States analyses by what processes the Cold War is frequently literalised in its weapons installations and how these facilities, in turn, shape dreams of containment, survival, escape and techno-supremacy"--

This article investigates the phonic materiality of sound, specifically of buzzing voices, in H. P. Lovecraft's 1930 short story The Whisperer in the Darkness. The insectile is configured as a trope for the outside and as a formless entity, the latter rendered as an enfleshed voice. I am concerned with the interplay between form and formlessness, particularly as it pertains to sound, and the production of form, that is, how form and, conversely, formlessness are determined as political categories, not ontological givens. I use this approach, a focus on the valorization of form, to argue against recent scholarship, notably Graham Harman's Weird Realism (2012), claiming Lovecraft as a writer offering a deconstruction of man through perspectives other than human, when the latter remains absolutely understood according to what Sylvia Wynter calls the coloniality of Being.

The significance of Dick's science fiction for posthumanist thought is reflected in his influence on cultural theory, notably Katherine Hayles' How We Became Posthuman. Yet it can be argued that Dick does not develop a coherent posthumanist perspective by design, but rather arrives at something like one by default, through repeatedly setting out to find the human and stumbling across the absence at its core. In this sense, the repeated inversions and superimpositions of humans and androids found in many of his narratives seem to suggest that the human was only ever an artificial construct – literally an android – to begin with. The panel will feature three short presentations and a discussion of Dick's continuing significance for contemporary posthumanism and its ethical, ontological, and political stakes. Followed by the book launch of James Burton's The Philosophy of Science Fiction (2015) and The World According to Philip K. Dick (2015), edited by Alexander Dunst and Stefan Schlensag. ; 'Stumbling on the Posthuman', discussion presented at the symposium Becoming Post-Android: Philip K. Dick's Errant Ontology , ICI Berlin, 24 September 2015

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Series Editors' Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction: The Long Cold War -- I Pattern Recognition -- 1 The Future: RAND, Brand and Dangerous to Know -- 2 Simulate, Optimise, Partition: Algorithmic Diagrams of Pattern Recognition from 1953 Onwards -- 3 Impulsive Synchronisation: A Conversation on Military Technologies and Audiovisual Arts -- II The Persistence of the Nuclear -- 4 The Meaning of Monte Bello -- 5 Deep Geological Disposal and Radioactive Time: Beckett, Bowen, Nirex and Onkalo -- 6 Shifting the Nuclear Imaginary: Art and the Flight from Nuclear Modernity -- 7 Alchemical Transformations? Fictions of the Nuclear State after 1989 -- III Ubiquitous Surveillance -- 8 'The Very Form of Perverse Artificial Societies': The Unstable Emergence of the Network Family from its Cold War Nuclear Bunker -- 9 The Signal-Haunted Cold War: Persistence of the SIGINT Ontology -- 10 'Bulk Surveillance', or The Elegant Technicities of Metadata -- IV Pervasive Mediations -- 11 Notes from the Underground: Microwaves, Backbones, Party Lines and the Post Office Tower -- 12 Insect Technics: War Vision Machines -- 13 Overt Research -- 14 Smart Dust and Remote Sensing: The Political Subject in Autonomous Systems -- Index