Rosi Braidotti Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This paper examines a variety of cyborg figures in science fiction and art, and investigates how these posthuman subject’s perceptual capacities are altered through their “cyborging,” how this might lead to greater intersubjective... more

This paper examines a variety of cyborg figures in science fiction and art, and investigates how these posthuman subject’s perceptual capacities are altered through their “cyborging,” how this might lead to greater intersubjective understanding and empathy, and advocates an embodied phenomenology for these figures. The cyborg and the posthuman are not necessarily synonymous but share similar political and ethical goals in theory: to radically redefine the human and the humanities, in order to see a way to better intersubjective and interspecies relations.
Ghost in The Shell, Anne McCaffrey, Neil Harbisson.

Thinking posthumanly – from a post-Enlightenment, critical, new materialist perspective – things, including concepts, become more permeable and topological – they leak and stretch. Freed from limiting notions of agency, things behave.... more

Thinking posthumanly – from a post-Enlightenment, critical, new materialist perspective – things, including concepts, become more permeable and topological – they leak and stretch. Freed from limiting notions of agency, things behave. Rivers have established the same legal rights as humans in New Zealand and India, stones have been reported slithering across the desert floor in California, an electrical power grid in the USA has revealed a unique agential dexterity and walls have been spotted walking over mountains in the UK’s Lake District. Thinking with a posthuman partiality, we begin to witness a democracy of objects rather than an anthropocentric dictatorship over inorganic materials. If agency is reworked into an ‘enactment’ as opposed to something that is ‘held’, conceivably humans and other biological organisms are not necessary for agency (or life) to emerge as inorganic material agency erupts from unchoreographed assemblages of spacetimematter(ing). And if cognitive and dermatological boundaries are no longer organ-ised by an Enlightenment prescription, how might pedagogies perform differently and more equitably?
This article draws on the empirical materials from two psychogeographic walks that agitate lithic spaces with a posthuman affection. Part One examples a radical mobile classroom that I undertake regularly with university students where the use of it-narratives exposes the distributed agency of buildings. I explore what a posthuman gaze might do to/for performative pedagogies as my students attempt to interview a building. Part Two offers an example from my previous post-qualitative PhD inquiry which – by manipulating the practices of psychogeography and schizocartography – highlights how a shopping centre assemblage called Liverpool ONE diagnosed itself with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), thus reinforcing the notion of inorganic agential distribution. The pedagogic implications of this posthuman diagnosis are discussed.

La tesi presenta inizialmente il pensiero di Jacques Derrida sull'animalità. Il tema affrontato è la sovranità dell'uomo sul resto dei viventi, in particolare nei riguardi della discriminazione dell'animalità. Nei capitoli a seguire si... more

La tesi presenta inizialmente il pensiero di Jacques Derrida sull'animalità. Il tema affrontato è la sovranità dell'uomo sul resto dei viventi, in particolare nei riguardi della discriminazione dell'animalità. Nei capitoli a seguire si attua un'emancipazione dell'animalità e non dall'animalità come la corrente umanista voleva. Attraverso l'ontogenesi del concetto di "umanità" viene decostruito il costrutto che sorregge la soglia che divide l'uomo dagli animali, laddove essi partecipano all'animalità in maniere differenti. L'emergenza di questa composizione dei temi trattati si erge ad azione esemplare con cui Derrida, prima di morire, ha lasciato delle tracce da seguire durante il ricevimento del premio Adorno.

Political responses to 9/11 have bolstered an approach to ethics that gives priority to the translation of abstract principles into concrete dilemmas, rather than one that sees ethics as a transient encounter. Yet both politics and ethics... more

Political responses to 9/11 have bolstered an approach to ethics that gives priority to the translation of abstract principles into concrete dilemmas, rather than one that sees ethics as a transient encounter. Yet both politics and ethics arise precisely from this encounter and the responsibility that emerges through it. Unlike applied ethics, an ethics of encounter must consider the unpredictability that arises out of political and social situations, each of which require unique interpretations of plural contexts. Traditional discourses of political theory struggle to think ethics and political action in these terms. In order to overcome these limits and think anew the ethics of encounter, this paper turns to an unlikely resource: musical improvisation. It argues that the principles and practices of radical improvisation in music provide new avenues for theorising contingency, alterity and potentiality. Musical improvisation embraces infinite contingency via an interactive dialogue that encompasses both the sonic and the corporeal. In so doing, it provides an idea and an instantiation of an ethics that is grounded in the encounter, and that might challenge hegemonic orders of practical ethics and the politics these produce.

Most contemporary scholarly work on posthumanism and transhumanism rests on the idea that both perspectives are part of an ontological continuum. This article, however, acknowledges and explores the differences between them. In order to... more

Most contemporary scholarly work on posthumanism and transhumanism rests on the idea that both perspectives are part of an ontological continuum. This article, however, acknowledges and explores the differences between them. In order to prove that evident theoretical –and, therefore, practical– differences exist between both positions, a genealogy of their development from the 1980s is proposed. The definition of the two different ontologies associated to each of the discussed positions is followed by an analysis of the consequences that this theoretical separation would have for research. This paper also lays out a revision of their epistemologies and their ethical and practical implications. To conclude, we offer a contextualized justification of why the two discussed positions are actually antithetic, and how considering them as such would be useful for future research in the field.

The ideas embedded in Enlightenment concepts of subjectivity, understood as a coherent and rational identity, have established a universal perspective for a long time. Today, this outlook is being questioned by the experience of... more

The ideas embedded in Enlightenment concepts of subjectivity, understood as a coherent and rational identity, have established a universal perspective for a long time. Today, this outlook is being questioned by the experience of difference. The voices of minorities demanding acceptance and representation, both in social practice and in theory, have become more audible. But while theory allows for radical mental conclusions, the social and existential practices require positive theoretical solutions. A postmodern deconstructed subject does not constitute a sufficient basis for social activity or political identification. Therefore, a significant challenge for the feminist theory today is to find a form for the social subjectivity and, at the same time, avoid an oppressive and reductive category. Rosi Braidotti employed the Deleuzian figure of a nomad, and proposed a concept of a subject being resistant to postmodern fragmentation. She made a distinction between identity and subjectivity: identity is rooted in the unconscious, while subjectivity is conscious and
a source of political resistance. The resistance is not due to stronger foundations, in comparison to the Cartesian subject, but results from mobility and openness to the Other. Attempting to construct a clearly positive conception of a subject, Braidotti proposes ‘a nomadic political project’. The question is: is it possible to put this idea into a social reality or
do we have just another sophisticated theoretical concept?

Our introduction to this special issue on “Thinking with Theory in Teacher Education” dedicates considerable space to broadly discussing the current U.S. political context to emphasize why, at this precise moment in history,... more

Our introduction to this special issue on “Thinking with Theory in Teacher Education” dedicates considerable space to broadly discussing the current U.S. political context to emphasize why, at this precise moment in history, we—educators, teacher educators, and educational researchers—are in dire need of different ways to understand the world and our connections and interactions with/in it. We argue for the need to use these emergent understandings to become and live differently—as well as to shape systems of schooling and educate differently. To frame this issue, we first summarize the U.S. federal government's transition to extreme right wing and ultra-conservative political ideologies. We present an argument that " good and common sense " —that is, rational ways of knowing—is woefully inadequate to build the needed justice movement to resist the implications of a far-right nationalist agenda for public education. We emphasize the need to shift from rational humanist ways of thinking to posthuman, materialist theories of difference that can help members of the education community to engage in new modes of thought and action to counter the growing movement of neofascism in some political circles in the U.S. and, ultimately, pursue the interests of equity and social justice. As St. Pierre (2001) points out, " Living and theorizing produce each other; they structure each other. Not only do people produce theories, but theories produce people " (p. 142). In thinking with different theories (as illustrated throughout this volume), we can produce ourselves differently—and in turn, produce different ways of living, of teaching, and of learning to resist the encroaching influence of ultra-conservatism in U.S. public education policy and practice.

Z zainteresowaniem przeczytałam w „Widoku” recenzję Andrzeja Marca "Nekros. ONtologia martwego (męskiego) ciała". Wzbudziła je nie tyle jej wartość merytoryczna, ile światopoglądowy charakter. Recenzent, zarzucając mi postawę zachowawczą... more

Z zainteresowaniem przeczytałam w „Widoku” recenzję Andrzeja Marca "Nekros. ONtologia martwego (męskiego) ciała". Wzbudziła je nie tyle jej wartość merytoryczna, ile światopoglądowy charakter. Recenzent, zarzucając mi postawę zachowawczą i konserwatywną, krytykuje brak deklaracji ideologicznych i odrzucenie idei feministycznych. Zdaniem Marca stanowi to główny problem książki i ujawnia się zarówno w specyficznym użyciu języka, jak i w podejściu badawczym, a w konsekwencji wpływa także na treść publikacji.

The study analyses the changing construction of femininities and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon, a central deity in Aleister Crowley’s (1875–1947) esoteric religion Thelema. Femininity has occupied a... more

The study analyses the changing construction of femininities and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon, a central deity in Aleister Crowley’s (1875–1947) esoteric religion Thelema. Femininity has occupied a problematic position in feminist theory, frequently associated with lack, artifice, and restriction. However, this study assumes that femininities are multiple, neither exclusively heterosexual nor limited to women, and can be constructed in ways that challenge the existing gender system. Based on historical and contemporary written sources, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork in the Anglo-American esoteric milieu, the study utilises Mimi Schippers’ model of multiple femininities to analyse the Babalon discourse from the fin-de-siècle until today, against the background of shifting perceptions of femininity and feminine sexuality. Inspired by Luce Irigaray’s theorisation of sexual difference, Rosi Braidotti’s concept of feminist figurations, and Catherine Waldby’s notion of erotic destruction, a central question is whether Babalon can function as a figuration enabling new ways of articulating and inhabiting femininities. Reworking the negative feminine stereotype of the femme fatale, Crowley connected Babalon to an initiatory imperative of ego-annihilation, epitomising both feminine, erotic otherness and a feminised receptive modality required of all seekers. Crowley also linked Babalon with liberated female sexuality. Babalon has subsequently been interpreted by other esotericists, including John W. Parsons (1914–1952), who constructed the goddess as a feminist revolutionary; and Kenneth Grant (1924–2011), who equated Babalon with the sex magical priestess and notions of non-dual void preceding manifest creation, linking femininity to the dissolution of stable meaning. Growing awareness of feminism and LGBTQ issues in Anglo-American esotericism from the 1990s on has coincided with the increased visibility of female esotericists as ideology producers within the Babalon discourse. The contemporary Babalon discourse emphasises the feminine, desiring subject as sacred, and connected to the simultaneous threat and promise of the undoing of bounded subjectivity. The study shows how a previously derogatory feminine stereotype is reworked over time in ways that both reproduce and challenge hegemonic notions of femininity, arguing that Babalon functions as a situated and contingent figuration supporting the articulation of alternative ways of doing femininity and feminine sexuality.

Introduction Uncompromising and undaunted, Regina José Galindo fights for her and others’ freedom through art. She exposes her fragile, female body, its psychophysical condition, to threat and humiliation so as to shake up the... more

Introduction
Uncompromising and undaunted, Regina José Galindo fights for her and others’ freedom through art. She exposes her fragile, female body, its psychophysical condition, to threat and humiliation so as to shake up the contemporary society indifferent to violence.
The naked body of the artist – the common denominator of most of her works – contrasted with the aggression of the events she arranges, symbolizes the striking fragility of a living organism. It points to the enormous and mysterious potential of a body as a site of psychic strength or overwhelming trauma.
This analysis is a results of a fascination with the seemingly distant and strange Guatemalan artist. Getting acquainted with her output and having analyzed the forms of enslavement that she touches upon, one has to perceive her art in global terms, as a universal and live representation of human condition. The performances discussed herein have been divided into groups in accordance with the leading themes of the artist’s output. Correspondingly, the dissertation is composed of four chapters.
The first one – An Artist of Guatemala – has been devoted to situations which are indirectly connected with Guatemala – Regina Galindo’s motherland and current place of residence. The second provides arguments for her being a Total Artist. The third – An Artist-Poet – points to the artist’s other (apart from body art) passion – poetry, tracing the similarities between the two disciplines. The last chapter, divided into four subsections, unravels along the associations with the word “corpse”. The first of the subsections – Symptoms of Death, Symptoms of Life – describes actions connected with dying. With them, the artist makes the audience confront the view of a corpse. The Object subsection discusses human body as reduced to a sum of organic components. Volunteers covers the works that would not have been possible without the help of “assistants”. It shows the easiness with which the just-goaded participants successfully take on the roles of oppressors. Care and Memory includes examples of translating intense self-care onto caring for others.
Art that is aimed for a general public has to be radical and exaggerated. This is why the artist uses the image of death when she tries to speak of affirmation of life. When she wants to mock the discourse of biopower, she undergoes hymenoplasty and reclaims her won body. In order to speak of how we all are indecisive, enslaved, and complicated, she makes her traumas public and evokes sympathy.
Since Regina Galindo’s output has not been analyzed in Polish language so far, this dissertation is of particular academic and cognitive value. The detailed accounts of events in the successive pieces have been recreated with the use of supplementing video material, interviews with the artist, and critical texts in foreign languages.

Jak myśleć o życiu i śmierci, o utracie i nadziei w postapokaliptycznym i posttraumatycznym świecie? Jak nie tracąc z oczu globalnych i planetarnych wyzwań „naszego dzisiaj”, móc myśleć także o materialnych, konkretnych, usytuowanych,... more

Jak myśleć o życiu i śmierci, o utracie i nadziei w postapokaliptycznym i posttraumatycznym świecie? Jak nie tracąc z oczu globalnych i planetarnych wyzwań „naszego dzisiaj”, móc myśleć także o materialnych, konkretnych, usytuowanych, wręcz intymnych szczegółach i związkach, w które wchodzi życie w swoich jednostkowych przejawach i formach? Jak tworzyć odpowiedzialne relacje ze światem, jak o nim opowiadać i myśleć? Jak myśleć o człowieku inaczej niż przez pryzmat autonomiczności, samowystarczalności, atomizacji czy jednostkowości? Jak pomyśleć człowieka jako „bycie ze świata”, uchwycić ruch antropo-de-centralizacji, immanentnej relacyjności, sieci współzależności? Na te pytania autorka próbuje odpowiadać współ-myśląc z tekstami współczesnych myślicielek posthumanizmu przede wszystkim Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti, Vinciane Despret, Natalie Jeremijenko, Erin Manning i Michaela Mardera.
Narracje naukowe, filozoficzne czy interwencje artystyczne opowiadają nam o świecie i mogą to czynić na różne sposoby. Eseje z tego zbioru są próbą wypracowania teorii, konceptualizacji, wizji, utopii czy opowieści o świecie, które rozpoznając specyfikę „naszego dzisiaj”, eksperymentują z myśleniem o „naszym jutrze” (czasem podważając sam linearny obraz czasu) i zmierzają ku praktykom zmiany codziennego etosu.

Risk encroachment into Corporate Governance (CG) remains a continuous process that required an efficient and long-term solution. Using enterprise risk management (ERM) as a moderating variable on the relationship between board structures... more

Risk encroachment into Corporate Governance (CG) remains a continuous process that required an efficient and long-term solution. Using enterprise risk management (ERM) as a moderating variable on the relationship between board structures and corporate performance is remains an area unexploited in CG research. This relationship can effectively measure by the extent of ERM interactions between board structures and corporate performance. Despite various studies on CG mechanisms, firm performance, ERM implementation level, and gender diversity, the empirical results appeared inconclusive and the findings are inconsistent. None of the studies have addressed the role play by ERM as a moderator between director ownership, the board size, board independence, the total number of women on the board, number of Muslim directors on the board, and firm performance. It is demonstrated that the ERM has the potential to moderate between the different board structures and corporate performance, and this moderation has never been reported in the literature. It is expected that this ERM moderation may considerably improve corporate performance by determining the strength or weakness of the relationship between board structures and firm performance. Thus, this paper, with regards to available literature, conceptualized that 'ERM' moderates the relationship between Board Size, Board Independence, Director Ownership, Total Women in the Board, Muslim directors on the Board, and corporate performance.

This article seeks to offer a critical assessment of the conception of ethics underlying the growing constellation of 'new materialist' social theories. It argues that such theories offer little if any purchase in understanding the... more

This article seeks to offer a critical assessment of the conception of ethics underlying the growing constellation of 'new materialist' social theories. It argues that such theories offer little if any purchase in understanding the contemporary transformations of relations between mind and body or human and non-human natures. Taking as exemplary the work of Jane Bennett, Rosi Braidotti, and Karen Barad, this article asserts that a continuity between ethics and ontology is central to recent theories of 'materiality'. These theories assert the primacy of matter by calling upon a spiritual or ascetic self-transformation so that one might be 'attuned to' or 'register' materiality and, conversely, portray critique as hubristic, conceited, or resentful, blinded by its anthropocentrism. It is argued that framing the grounds for ontological speculation in these ethical terms licences the omission of analysis of social forces mediating thought's access to the world and so grants the theorist leave to sidestep any questions over the conditions of thought. In particular, the essay points to ongoing processes of the so-called primitive accumulation as constituting the relationship between mind and body, human and non-human natures.

Rozprawa stanowi próbę ukazania w jaki sposób splątane konceptualizacje i praktyki ciała przenikają się w procesie samoorganizacji materii. Tak sformułowane rozważania zostały usytuowane w obrębie dwóch współczesnych nurtów... more

Rozprawa stanowi próbę ukazania w jaki sposób splątane konceptualizacje i praktyki ciała przenikają się w procesie samoorganizacji materii. Tak sformułowane rozważania zostały usytuowane w obrębie dwóch współczesnych nurtów filozoficznych: posthumanizmu i nowego materializmu. Przedstawicieli i przedstawicielki tych formacji myślowych łączy potrzeba przemyślenia sposobów stawania się materii, uchwytnych w dynamice przeistaczających się ciał. Tego rodzaju ukierunkowanie rozważań umożliwia rozumienie cielesności w kategoriach procesów, relacji, zależności, a także wspólnotowości. Nieodłącznym wątkiem tak sformułowanych filozoficznych dociekań są analizy poświęcone powiązaniom ludzkich i nie-ludzkich przejawów sprawczości. W takim ujęciu myślenie i ruch, zachodzące w układach powiązanych ciał, stanowią nierozerwalne przejawy aktywności materii. W związku z tym filozoficzne spekulacje zostały połączone z analizą praktyk ciała wywodzących się z tańca, performance, sztuk wizualnych itp., aby umożliwić lepsze zrozumienie ich wzajemnego przenikania się w procesie samoorganizacji materii, a tym samym w przekształceniach współdziałających ciał. Słowa kluczowe: konceptualizacje ciała, praktyki ciała, ciało, materia, cielesność, posthumanizm, nowy materializm

Though most neomaterialists share a commitment to the Copernican decentring of humans from the world stage, there is disagreement on the purposes of such an endeavour. The polemic stems from a fundamental discrepancy about what the return... more

Though most neomaterialists share a commitment to the Copernican decentring of humans from the world stage, there is disagreement on the purposes of such an endeavour. The polemic stems from a fundamental discrepancy about what the return to materiality entails: is matter the principle of the non-thinking as such, or is it always already imbued with some sort of subjectivity? Is the new materialism's goal to come to terms with the non-living origin of life? Or is it rather to recognize that seemingly dead materials are always in some sense incipiently alive? For convenience , we can think of two neomaterialist perspectives: the rationalist or elim-inative neomaterialism, and the vitalist or panpsychist neomaterialism. I explore some of the conceptual problems faced by both camps and, drawing from the recently developed theory of consciousness as integrated information (Tononi), as well as its quantum physical construal by Max Tegmark, I suggest some provisional ways to address those issues.

It has been said that in this technologically inundated era, we are all cyborgs. Such a radical redefinition of the human being is but one manifested example of how the category ‘human’ and its multifaceted sub-categories have undergone a... more

It has been said that in this technologically inundated era, we are all cyborgs. Such a radical redefinition of the human being is but one manifested example of how the category ‘human’ and its multifaceted sub-categories have undergone a long process of re-conceptualisation under postmodernism. This paper explores how the concept of ‘the posthuman’ allows for human kind to expand its abilities, its perception and its understanding of our world, as seen through the work of various artists articulating these ideas.

Today, more than any other historical period, the movement of products, people, and capital in combination with cyberspace transforms radically our perception of space and time, therefore the relationship with ourselves and our bodies. In... more

Today, more than any other historical period, the movement of products, people,
and capital in combination with cyberspace transforms radically our perception of
space and time, therefore the relationship with ourselves and our bodies. In these
conditions of constant mobility, we are called upon to adapt to new data, to become
subject of change (becoming subjects), neo-nomadic. In this research I would like to
give voice to the embodied experiences of people living far from their place of origin
and experiencing transformations in their sense of identity (ethnicity, gender, race,
class). The lived experience is the starting point for understanding a number of issues
surrounding the formation of new identities. The relationship of identity and place, the
emergence of relationships of social power and control in space, as well as the
possibilities of agency are central to the research questions. Drawing mainly on the
theoretical arsenal of Rosi Braidotti's and Grilles Deleuze's and Felix Guattari's
"nomadic theory" I attempt to create a field of dialogue, where research methods of
qualitative social research meet contemporary artistic practices to produce new forms
of knowledge, empowerment and social change.
Keywords: nomadism, mobility, identity, cartographies, politics of location.

In den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten ist in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften eine bemerkenswerte Neuorientierung und Akzentverschiebung zu beobachten: Materialitäten werden zunehmend thematisiert und neu konzeptualisiert. Gemeinsam ist... more

In den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten ist in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften eine bemerkenswerte Neuorientierung und Akzentverschiebung zu beobachten: Materialitäten werden zunehmend thematisiert und neu konzeptualisiert. Gemeinsam ist den sogenannten Neuen Materialismen die Überzeugung, dass der »linguistic turn« oder primär semiotisch verfahrende Ansätze unzureichend sind, um das komplexe und dynamische Zusammenspiel von Bedeutungsprozessen und materiellen Gefügen zu erfassen. Der Einführungsband bietet erstmals einen Überblick über zentrale Debattenstränge dieser Forschungsperspektive. Er stellt wichtige Vertreter_innen wie Jane Bennett, Karen Barad, Rosi Braidotti und Donna Haraway vor und zeigt das Innovationspotenzial dieses Forschungsgebiets ebenso auf wie analytische Inkonsistenzen und konzeptuelle Leerstellen.

The book addresses a present-day crisis, evidenced in both praxis and theory - the question of individual agency in a postmodern world. Invoking individuality, self-becoming, desire and well-being, Creating Oneself offers a rethinking of... more

The book addresses a present-day crisis, evidenced in both praxis and theory - the question of individual agency in a postmodern world. Invoking individuality, self-becoming, desire and well-being, Creating Oneself offers a rethinking of individuals’ capacity to influence their reality by way of their own actions.
The book describes the shortcomings of associating agency with resistance to social norms and institutions, arguing that agency, as a way of life involves an affirmative dynamic of self-creation. Drawing mainly on the works of Irigaray, Butler, Foucault and Deleuze, this book provides an account of agency as a mode of social and personal transformation that endeavor to materialize a horizon of a better future.s

Książka stanowi oryginalną propozycję filozoficznego spojrzenia na epokę antropocenu oraz kryzysu klimatycznego. Nawiązuje do takich współczesnych nurtów filozoficznych, jak nowy materializm (Karen Barad, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway),... more

Książka stanowi oryginalną propozycję filozoficznego spojrzenia na epokę antropocenu oraz kryzysu klimatycznego. Nawiązuje do takich współczesnych nurtów filozoficznych, jak nowy materializm (Karen Barad, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway), realizm spekulatywny (Graham Harman) oraz ontologia zwrócona ku przedmiotom (Timothy Morton, Levi Bryant).

The ontology of animality, starting from Derrida's writings, determines the reconsideration of the human being and his ontological condition within an environment (Umwelt) in which the anthropocentric point of view has hitherto been... more

The ontology of animality, starting from Derrida's writings, determines the reconsideration of the human being and his ontological condition within an environment (Umwelt) in which the anthropocentric point of view has hitherto been predominant. The post-human represents the urgency for ethics willing to reflect on a world inhabited both by hybridizing life forms breaking the boundaries, and a common and immanent substratum yearning for its own limit: the animality partaken by all of us. The boundaries will be deconstructed starting from the ontology, through the epistemology, in order to define post-human ethics.

This article centres around three ways in which ‘new materialism’ or ‘neo-materialism,’ terms coined by DeLanda and Braidotti in the second half of the 1990s, can be called ‘transversal.’ New materialism is a cultural theory that does not... more

This article centres around three ways in which ‘new materialism’ or ‘neo-materialism,’ terms coined by DeLanda and Braidotti in the second half of the 1990s, can be called ‘transversal.’ New materialism is a cultural theory that does not privilege the side of culture, but focuses on what Haraway would call ‘naturecultures.’ It explores a monist perspective of the human being, disposed of the dualisms that have dominated the humanities until today, by giving special attention to matter as it has been so much neglected by dualist thought. New materialism, a cultural theory inspired by the thoughts of Deleuze, that spurs a renewed interest in philosophers such as Spinoza and Leibniz, shows how cultured humans are always already in nature, and how nature is necessarily cultured, how the mind is always already material, and how matter is necessarily something of the mind. New materialism opposes the transcendental and humanist (dualist) traditions that are haunting a cultural theory, standing on the brink of both the modern and the post-postmodern era. The transcendental and humanist traditions, which are manifold yet consistently predicated on dualist structures, continue to stir debates, which have a stifling effect on the field (think of the feminist polemic concerning the failed materialism in the work of Butler, and of the Saussurian/ Lacanian linguistic heritage in media and cultural studies). New materialism allows for the conceptualisation of the travelling of the fluxes of matter and mind, body and soul, nature and culture, and opens up active theory formation. The three transversalities concern disciplinarity, paradigms, and the spatiotemporality of theory.

Fashioning a new materialist agenda, this essay calls for sensitivity to subtly moving matters present in the processes of making and encountering art. Otherwise, it claims, we will end up with seriously restricted understandings of art’s... more

Fashioning a new materialist agenda, this essay calls for sensitivity to subtly moving matters present in the processes of making and encountering art. Otherwise, it claims, we will end up with seriously restricted understandings of art’s capabilities. Indeed, we might even miss art’s most inventive and moving offering: how it can change our thinking-feeling. In this essay, I
suggest methods of relating to art in more bodily and material terms, and propose concepts that help to point out the materiality of encountering and making art. To make sense of how a new materialist approach might work in the case of contemporary art, I will offer three propositions that revolve around ontology, ethics and politics. These propositions arise from participation with art and are probed and provoked by a close relation to art.

This dissertation uses the theories of posthumanism, cyborg feminism, Deleuzian concepts of the body and the monstrous. Through these ideas, I argue for a reconceptualisation of women’s bodies alongside technology. This... more

This dissertation uses the theories of posthumanism, cyborg feminism, Deleuzian concepts of the body and the monstrous. Through these ideas, I argue for a reconceptualisation of women’s bodies alongside technology. This reconceptualisation and reconfiguration opposes the boundaries and dualisms imposed on women’s bodies. I do this by mapping out the rational humanism associated with the Enlightenment. I argue for new lines of flight to be explored, while examining the potentially transgressive forms of bodily transformation and metamorphosis. This exploration includes the analysis of two opposing yet complementary case-studies: the avant-garde French performance artist ORLAN, and the cosmetic surgery reality television (CSRTV) show Botched. I explore their overlapping discourses of self-transformation and their respective disregard for the sacrosanctity of the ‘natural’ body and flesh. Where they differ, is in their modes of obtaining self-transformation, and the politics that underlie their intentions

Il termine ‘postumanesimo’ è stato usato per la prima volta nel senso critico che è entrato poi nel linguaggio comune da Ihab Hassan nel 1977. Nei suoi quasi quattro decenni di vita la teoria del postumano ha subito non poche evoluzioni,... more

Il termine ‘postumanesimo’ è stato usato per la prima volta nel senso critico che è entrato poi nel linguaggio comune da Ihab Hassan nel 1977. Nei suoi quasi quattro decenni di vita la teoria del postumano ha subito non poche evoluzioni, trasformazioni e raffinamenti, non da ultimo perché questo concetto non designa un campo teorico omogeneo e compatto, ma è piuttosto un ‘discorso’ nel senso foucauldiano del termine, una molteplicità di filoni diversi, eterogenei e frammentati, tenuti insieme da un’idea portante: la convinzione che il vecchio umanesimo sia ormai finito. Questo numero de «Lo Sguardo» si propone di fare una sorta di bilancio degli ultimi quattro decenni per analizzare i limiti e confini del concetto di postumano. Il filo conduttore del numero è quindi la domanda: che cosa è ancora vivo e attuale, oggi, nella questione del postumano? Quali sono i filoni e le tendenze che si sono progressivamente esauriti, e quali invece sono passati in primo piano? Come si sono evolute le domande, e soprattutto le risposte, alla questione del postumano?
La questione della tecnologia, e cioè dell’ibridazione tra umano e macchina, è ancora per molti il tratto più ‘appariscente’ del postumano, sia per la cultura popolare, sia per il senso comune all’interno dell’accademia; e tuttavia il trionfalismo di certo postumanesimo – e soprattutto delle sue derive transumaniste – ha alienato non pochi studiosi, a partire proprio da una delle ‘madri’ della teoria postumana, Donna Haraway. Resta il fatto che i livelli di intimità e intrusione della tecnologia nell’umano sono, semmai, enormemente cresciuti dai tempi del Manifesto Cyborg, come anche le resistenze a essi, e questo continua a sollevare inesauribili questioni ontologiche, etiche ed estetiche.
Una questione che ha invece assunto sempre più centralità è quella dell’‘animale’, tanto da imprimere una vera e propria ‘svolta’ – il cosiddetto animal turn – all’interno delle scienze umane. L’interdisciplinarità (o multidisciplinarità) che caratterizzava la ricerca sul postumano in senso spiccatamente tecnologico, orientandola primariamente verso le scienze hard (in particolare la cibernetica), si è aperta quindi anche a discipline come la biologia evoluzionistica e l’etologia, dove il post del postumano viene dunque a segnalare anche il superamento (o il progressivo sgretolarsi) della dicotomia umano/animale.

J'ai réfléchi aux mécanismes de résistance élaborés dans l’écriture de Monique Wittig à partir de Virgile, non. L’écrivaine transpose le mythe dantesque de la traversée de l’enfer au temps contemporain en plaçant l’action dans la ville... more

J'ai réfléchi aux mécanismes de résistance élaborés dans l’écriture de Monique Wittig à partir de Virgile, non. L’écrivaine transpose le mythe dantesque de la traversée de l’enfer au temps contemporain en plaçant l’action dans la ville américaine de San Francisco. Inspiré par l’idée de renversements, son processus se concentre à éclairer les multiples dominations auxquelles les femmes sont soumises dans les cercles de l’enfer et dans le monde contemporain. Comment la mise en scène de la lutte armée chez M. Wittig sert-elle sa langue militante ? Elle argumente pour le fait que la figure de la "militante" soit une identité sociale - à travers l’écriture, la fiction et l’imagination. Cette position est en lien avec le texte performatif puisque c’est par l’interpellation du lecteur, l’apostrophe, que cela se produit, me ramenant à conclure sur l’idée de l’écriture comme une arme. Cette écriture se caractérise par l’éclatement du réel social.

RESEARCH MA THESIS: The main research question this thesis investigates is: "how is the notion of the Anthropocene challenged, refined and reimagined in contemporary feminist theory and fiction and in what ways does an approach via... more

RESEARCH MA THESIS: The main research question this thesis investigates is: "how is the notion of the Anthropocene challenged, refined and reimagined in contemporary feminist theory and fiction and in what ways does an approach via narratives negate a binary and teleological reading of the Anthropocene?" A multiple and threaded approach of theory and fiction is explored in this thesis. How the story is told is always at least as important as what that story consists of. So, the questions this thesis is asking and after are: "what kinds of narratives, what kinds of metaphors in narratives are being deployed to talk about the Anthropocene?". In order to come to an understanding of what it might mean to live in the Anthropocene attention is drawn to storytelling and the notion of narrative. It is clear that Earth is in constant change. The idea of the Anthropocene frames this change into a narrative of human responsibility and consequences for the human inhabitants of Earth. Only through particular narratives and metaphors does a changing Earth become socially and culturally meaningful. The work of feminist theorists and fiction writers that is analysed (i.e. the work of Braidotti, Haraway, Zylinska, Colebrook, Atwood and Winterson) reflects this practice of knowledge production. In both the theoretical and literary approaches to the Anthropocene that are considered here, a meaningful engagement with a changing planet is key. Whether through coming up with alternatives, pushing the boundaries of what the Anthropocene has come to stand for, or engaging with it through a particular lens, contemporary feminist theory and fiction have taken the challenges the Anthropocene represents and faced them head on.

This book is the first monograph on the theme of “new materialism,” an emerging trend in 21st century thought that has already left its mark in such fields as philosophy, cultural theory, feminism, science studies, and the arts. The first... more

This book is the first monograph on the theme of “new materialism,” an emerging trend in 21st century thought that has already left its mark in such fields as philosophy, cultural theory, feminism, science studies, and the arts. The first part of the book contains elaborate interviews with some of the most prominent new materialist scholars of today: Rosi Braidotti, Manuel DeLanda, Karen Barad, and Quentin Meillassoux. The second part situates the new materialist tradition in contemporary thought by singling out its transversal methodology, its position on sexual differing, and by developing the ethical and political consequences of new materialism.

Feminist theorists have long been concerned with, in Peta Hinton and Pat Treusch’s (2015) words, “revealing and negotiating inequalities conceived along the break-line of a binary logic that has characterized and sedimented Western... more

Feminist theorists have long been concerned with, in Peta Hinton and Pat Treusch’s (2015) words, “revealing and negotiating inequalities conceived along the break-line of a binary logic that has characterized and sedimented Western traditions of thought” (p. 1). Feminist posthuman thinkers continue this work exploring how historical exceptionalism given to human “man” has helped foster vastly unequal hierarchies and social stratifications that privilege some human and nonhuman bodies, knowledges, and modes of being over others. As Jasmine Ulmer (2017) writes, posthumanism has urged “renewed attention to materiality, vitalism, ecologies, flora, fauna, climate, elements, things, and interconnections [and] has created openings across academic fields regarding who and what has the capacity to know” (p. 1). The word “renewed” is key, since as Ulmer and many others point out, posthumanism does not inaugurate such attention, but rather follows a rich and varied legacy of indigenous knowledges that have long positioned the human as part of, rather than sovereign over, a vibrant ecology of active matter and systems. This entry introduces feminist posthumanism, paying specific attention to key thinkers, including philosopher Rosi Braidotti, and further explores emerging methodologies for engaging in research that accounts for the posthumanist turn in feminist thought and action.