Suchergebnisse

Genealogy of one of the most ancient and
influential concepts in western thought: Mimesis

Imitation is, perhaps more than ever, constitutive of human originality. Many things have changed since the emergence of an original species called Homo sapiens, but in the digital age humans remain mimetic creatures: from the development of consciousness to education, aesthetics to politics, mirror neurons to brain plasticity, digital simulations to emotional contagion, (new) fascist insurrections to viral contagion, we are unconsciously formed, deformed, and transformed by the all too human tendency to imitate—for both good and ill. Crossing disciplines as diverse as philosophy, aesthetics, and politics, Homo Mimeticus proposes a new theory of one of the most influential concepts in western thought (mimesis) to confront some of the hypermimetic challenges of the present and future.

Written in an accessible yet rigorous style, Homo Mimeticus appeals to both a specialized and general readership. It can be used in courses of modern and contemporary philosophy, aesthetics, political theory, literary criticism/theory, media studies, and new mimetic studies.

Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword, by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Crowd Psychology Redux -- Chapter 2. The Mimetic Community -- Chapter 3. The Power of Myth Reloaded -- Coda. Fascism Now and Then: William Connolly and Nidesh Lawtoo in Conversation -- Notes -- Bibliography.

A ghost roams the modern world: "the ghost of the ego" With this sentence, Friedrich Nietzsche offers a diagnosis of the modern self that finds the royal road to the unconscious in mass imitation. In the footsteps of Nietzsche, modernist authors such as Joseph Conrad, DH Lawrence, Georges Bataille - read in dialogue with human sciences such as anthropology and psychoanalysis, research on hypnosis and mass psychology - question themselves about reflected mimetic phenomena that do not they are under the rational control of consciousness and are, in this sense, in-conscious. From identification to affective contagion, passing through sympathy and laughter, violence and magic, hypnosis and suggestion, the mimetic unconscious reveals how modernist authors make our concept of "I" new because they anticipate recent developments in neuroscience. They also offer us an out-of-date mirror to reflect critically on the becoming of our "I" as well as on the power of authoritarian leaders - past and present - to transform the mass subject into a copy or a "ghost of the ego". - Un fantasma si aggira per il mondo moderno: "il fantasma dell'io." Con questa frase, Friedrich Nietzsche offre una diagnosi dell'io moderno che trova nell'imitazione di massa la via regia all'inconscio. Sulle orme di Nietzsche, autori modernisti come Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, Georges Bataille - letti in dialogo con scienze umane come l'antropologia e la psicanalisi, le ricerche sull'ipnosi e la psicologia di massa - si interrogano su fenomeni mimetici riflessi che non sono sotto il controllo razionale della coscienza e che sono, in questo senso, in-consci. Dall'identificazione al contagio affettivo, passando per la simpatia e il riso, la violenza e la magia, l'ipnosi e la suggestione, l'inconscio mimetico rivela come autori modernisti rendono il nostro concetto di "io" nuovo perché anticipano recenti sviluppi nelle neuroscienze. Ci offrono pure uno specchio inattuale per riflettere criticamente sul divenire del nostro "io" così come sul potere dei leader autoritari - passati e presenti - di trasformare il soggetto di massa in una copia o un "fantasma dell'io".

Extending the new field of mimetic studies to the racist somatechnics of police violence against minorities in the United States, this article focuses on the specific case of the police murder of Rayshard Brooks in 2020 (Atlanta, Georgia) to account for the complex interplay of somatic, technical, and mimetic factors that triggered his murder. I argue that this exemplary case calls for a diagnostic of the patho(-)logical vortex of contagious violence that entangles racist triggers, unconscious bodily actions and reactions, as well as the agentic power of guns qua technical 'actants.' While this hypermimetic spiral of violence escapes conscious control, it generates unconscious pathologies internal to racist violence in general and to the somatechnics of police violence in particular.

A mimetic turn is emerging in posthuman studies. Taking as a starting point a recent re-turn to an immanent, embodied, and relational conception of mimesis constitutive of the ERC-funded project, Homo Mimeticus, this paper proposes three related conceptual foundations to further a "mimetic turn" already at play in sf simulations and now operative in embodied imitations as well. Building on pioneering work on the centrality of an "embodied" and "cognitive nonconscious" (Hayles 1999, 2017) on the one hand, and a "relational" conception of "posthuman subjectivity" (Braidotti 2019) on the other, I argue that mimesis, understood as an unconscious tendency to mimic others (be they human or nonhuman) provides a decisive and still missing link to account for the capacity of (post)humans to become other in the first place. The concepts of "mimetic pathos," the "mimetic unconscious," and "hypermimesis" provide three related conceptual steps toward a mimetic turn in posthuman studies, which as this special issue shows, is already underway.

Abstract
This chapter argues that the human, all too human vulnerability to mimesis (imitation) is a central and so far underdiagnosed element internal to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Supplementing medical accounts of viral contagion, the chapter develops a genealogy of the concept of mimesis – from antiquity to modernity to the present – that is attentive to both its pathological and therapeutic properties. If an awareness of the pathological side of mimetic contagion is constitutive of the origins of philosophy, in Plato's Republic, and crowd psychology called attention to the mirroring dynamic of affective contagion among crowds and publics in the modern period, the Covid-19 pandemic crisis highlights the pathological implications of hypermimetic conspiracies reloaded by new media, while also revealing the human ability to develop therapeutic patho-logies – that is, critical discourses (or logoi), on the contagious dynamic of mimetic pathos. Like a Janus-faced mirror, then, this genealogy of homo mimeticus calls attention to both the contemporary dangers of affective contagion and to the urgency of transformations or metamorphosis to counter future pandemic and environmental threats that loom large in the Anthropocene.

This article revisits the case of Woody Allen's mockumentaryZelig(1983) viaFriedrich Nietzsche's diagnostic of mimicry inThe Gay Science. It argues that thecase of the"human chameleon"remains contemporary for both philosophicaland political reasons. On the philosophical side, I argue that the case ofZelig challenges an autonomous conception of the subject based on rational self-sufficiency (orHomo Sapiens) by proposing a relational conception of the subjectopen to mimetic influences (orhomo mimeticus) that will have to await thediscovery of mirror neurons in the 1990s in order to find an empiricalconfirmation. On the political side, I say thatZeligforegrounds the power ofauthoritarian leaders in the 1930s to cast a spell on both imitative crowds andpublics in terms that provide a mimetic supplement to Hannah Arendt'saccount of the"banality of evil". The philosophical purchase ofZelig's cinematicdramatization of a mimetic subject is that it reveals how the"inability tothink"(Hannah Arendt) characteristic of the case of Eichmann rests on unnoticedaffective principles constitutive of the all-too-human penchant for"mimicry"(Nietzsche) the film dramatises. Thus reframed, the human chameleon reflects(on) the dangers of mimetic dispossessions that reached massive proportions inthe past century and continue to cast a shadow on the present century. ; Este artículo revisa el caso del falso documental de Woody Allen, Zelig (1983), a través del diagnóstico de Friedrich Nietzsche sobre el mimetismo en La Ciencia Gay. Sostiene que el caso del "camaleón humano" sigue siendo contemporáneo por razones tanto filosóficas como políticas. Desde el punto de vista filosófico, sostengo que el caso de Zelig pone en tela de juicio una concepción autónoma del sujeto basada en la autosuficiencia racional (oHomo Sapiens) al proponer una concepción relacional del sujeto abierta a las influencias miméticas (ohomo mimeticus) que tendrá que esperar al descubrimiento de las neuronas espejo en la década de 1990 para encontrar una confirmación empírica. Desde el punto de vista político, digo que Zelig pone en primer plano el poder de los líderes autoritarios de los años 30 para hechizar tanto a las multitudes imitativas como a los públicos, en términos que proporcionan un suplemento mimético al relato de Hannah Arendt sobre la "banalidad del mal". El valor filosófico de la dramatización cinematográfica de Zelig de un sujeto mimético es que revela cómo la "incapacidad de pensar" (Hannah Arendt) característica del caso de Eichmann se basa en principios afectivos inadvertidos que constituyen la inclinación demasiado humana por el "mimetismo" (Nietzsche) que la película dramatiza. Así, el camaleón humano refleja los peligros de los despojos miméticos que alcanzaron proporciones masivas en el siglo pasado y siguen ensombreciendo el presente. ; post-print ; 24 p.

This essay reframes Hannah Arendt's evaluation of the "banality of evil" in light of Eichmann's mimetic psychology, which Arendt intuited but did not fully articulate. Rather than considering the banality of evil as symptomatic of Eichmann's "inability to think," the essay foregrounds the affective, contagious, and, in this sense, mimetic tendencies at play in Eichmann's personality (from Latin, persona, theatrical mask). This move is instrumental to articulate a middle path between Arendt's theoretical diagnostic of Eichmann as "terrifyingly normal" and Bettina Stangneth's recent historical account of Eichmann as a "fanatical National Socialist." My wager is that the ancient problematic of mimēsis (from Greek, mimos, mime) casts a new and original light on the psychic foundations of a type of evil that is as relevant to understand the psychology of fascism in the past century as its rising shadow in the present century.

Genealogy of one of the most ancient and influential concepts in western thought: MimesisImitation is, perhaps more than ever, constitutive of human originality. Many things have changed since the emergence of an original species called Homo sapiens, but in the digital age humans remain mimetic creatures: from the development of consciousness to education, aesthetics to politics, mirror neurons to brain plasticity, digital simulations to emotional contagion, (new) fascist insurrections to viral contagion, we are unconsciously formed, deformed, and transformed by the all too human tendency to imitate-for both good and ill. Crossing disciplines as diverse as philosophy, aesthetics, and politics, Homo Mimeticus proposes a new theory of one of the most influential concepts in western thought (mimesis) to confront some of the hypermimetic challenges of the present and future.Written in an accessible yet rigorous style, Homo Mimeticus appeals to both a specialized and general readership. It can be used in courses of modern and contemporary philosophy, aesthetics, political theory, literary criticism/theory, media studies, and new mimetic studies.Ebook available in Open Access.This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

In this dialogue Katherine Hayles and Nidesh Lawtoo join forces to cast light on the central role of embodied mimesis in the emergence of the posthuman subject. From Platonic abstraction to Turing's imitation game, hypermimetic conspiracy theories to contagious processes of affective contagion that go viral online before infecting subjects online to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and microbiomimesis, the ancient concept of mimesis turns out to be, for better and worse, consciously and above all, unconsciously, inscribed in the human and nonhuman contagious processes that give birth to posthuman subjectivity.