Amorous Ex/Incursions: Love in Writings of Badiou, Weil, Fromm, and Barthes

My dissertation explores the enabling contributions of love to the practice of ethico-political and cultural critique. Engaging with the work of Alain Badiou, Simone Weil, Erich Fromm, and Roland Barthes, I examine love in terms of the following modalities: waiting, giving, and looking. I place the aforementioned thinkers in dialogue with selected literary and cinematic texts to explicate and interrogate the meaningful possibilities of their discourse on love. In my chapter on Alain Badiou, I discuss his ontology, which I draw upon heavily to set the theoretical parameters of my study. I also discuss the logic of love that he develops in his philosophy. Speaking to the problem of pre-Evental agency that critics of his work identify, I suggest that waiting as attention, as theorized by Simone Weil, might be the closest form of agency that a pre-Evental (amorous) being can experience. In my discussion of Erich Fromm, I reevaluate his “art of loving” within the constellation of late capitalism. Reading his work through a Lacanian lens, I explore the utility of his prescriptions by examining Chuck Palahniuk’s controversial novel Fight Club. In my chapter on Roland Barthes, I theorize the possibility of cinematic looking that does not depend on the antagonism inherent in the binaries masculine/ feminine and (Gazing) spectator/ (to-be-looked-at) image. Towards this objective, I propose the “amorous look,” a mode of viewing occasioned by cinematic punctual encounters, that I contend is beyond the domain of desire and perversion. I deploy the “amorous look” as I reflect on Aureus Solito’s film Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Olivares (The Blossoming of Maximo Olivares) and its representations of love and waiting.

Umbrales en las experiencias del lenguaje (Entre la significancia en Barthes y la arqueología en Foucault)

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto dar cuenta de algunas modificaciones en la experienciadel pensamiento y el lenguaje con su impacto en las consideraciones en torno a la subjetividad. La problemática que orienta nuestra búsqueda puede articularse, en parte, con la pregunta: ¿Cómo es posible y en qué condiciones dar cuenta de un nuevo pensar? En efecto, ciertas tradiciones del pensamiento filosófico de la segunda mitad del siglo XX han indagado en torno al pasaje o umbral que va del pensamiento moderno de lo Mismo al pensamiento de lo Otro. En el primer caso , la búsqueda de lo otro( en la naturaleza , en el arte , en la experiencia humana, en el lenguaje , etc.) solo ha sido un rodeo verosímil para subsumirlo a las condiciones de la conciencia , del sujeto o de la historia, cuyo resultado es un mundo domesticado , empobrecido , reducido. En el segundo caso, las limitaciones del discurso moderno y la crisis del sujeto han conducido a numerosos pensadores a indagar en torno a las estructuras del lenguaje y del discurso con el objeto de circunscribir los umbrales desde los cuales dar cuenta de aberturas de la experiencia con la consecuente proliferación de lo múltiple y la diversidad. En estos caminos del pensar podemos encontrar a Nietzsche, Heidegger, Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan y Barthes, entre otros. En los siguiente apartados nos detendremos especialmente en dos de ellos: Barthes y Foucault. Presentaremos algunas de sus perspectivas en sus trabajos de la década de 1960, especialmente en el contexto de las tensiones políticas y sociales del mayo francés. Entre otras discusiones de la época, las consideraciones en torno al cambio y la transformación manifestaron allí una crisis que condujo a repensar las categorías y estructuras desde las cuales los discursos las articulaban. Para dar cuenta de ello, proponemos un abordaje de ciertas relaciones entre los análisis estructurales de relatos que realiza Barthes, con su interés manifiesto por la significancia (es decir, por la mantención de la brecha móvil del proceso de significación) y el método arqueológico desarrollado por Foucault en sus obras referidas a los discursos y al lenguaje. Si bien en ambos casos prima una concepción abierta de la experiencia del lenguaje y el sentido, buscamos evidenciar sus modos singulares de situarse en los umbrales de un nuevo modo de pensar en filosofía. Comencemos, entonces, por Roland Barthes

Umbrales en las experiencias del lenguaje (Entre la significancia en Barthes y la arqueología en Foucault)

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto dar cuenta de algunas modificaciones en la experienciadel pensamiento y el lenguaje con su impacto en las consideraciones en torno a la subjetividad. La problemática que orienta nuestra búsqueda puede articularse, en parte, con la pregunta: ¿Cómo es posible y en qué condiciones dar cuenta de un nuevo pensar? En efecto, ciertas tradiciones del pensamiento filosófico de la segunda mitad del siglo XX han indagado en torno al pasaje o umbral que va del pensamiento moderno de lo Mismo al pensamiento de lo Otro. En el primer caso , la búsqueda de lo otro( en la naturaleza , en el arte , en la experiencia humana, en el lenguaje , etc.) solo ha sido un rodeo verosímil para subsumirlo a las condiciones de la conciencia , del sujeto o de la historia, cuyo resultado es un mundo domesticado , empobrecido , reducido. En el segundo caso, las limitaciones del discurso moderno y la crisis del sujeto han conducido a numerosos pensadores a indagar en torno a las estructuras del lenguaje y del discurso con el objeto de circunscribir los umbrales desde los cuales dar cuenta de aberturas de la experiencia con la consecuente proliferación de lo múltiple y la diversidad. En estos caminos del pensar podemos encontrar a Nietzsche, Heidegger, Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan y Barthes, entre otros. En los siguiente apartados nos detendremos especialmente en dos de ellos: Barthes y Foucault. Presentaremos algunas de sus perspectivas en sus trabajos de la década de 1960, especialmente en el contexto de las tensiones políticas y sociales del mayo francés. Entre otras discusiones de la época, las consideraciones en torno al cambio y la transformación manifestaron allí una crisis que condujo a repensar las categorías y estructuras desde las cuales los discursos las articulaban. Para dar cuenta de ello, proponemos un abordaje de ciertas relaciones entre los análisis estructurales de relatos que realiza Barthes, con su interés manifiesto por la significancia (es decir, por la mantención de la brecha móvil del proceso de significación) y el método arqueológico desarrollado por Foucault en sus obras referidas a los discursos y al lenguaje. Si bien en ambos casos prima una concepción abierta de la experiencia del lenguaje y el sentido, buscamos evidenciar sus modos singulares de situarse en los umbrales de un nuevo modo de pensar en filosofía. Comencemos, entonces, por Roland Barthes

Umbrales en las experiencias del lenguaje (Entre la significancia en Barthes y la arqueología en Foucault)

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto dar cuenta de algunas modificaciones en la experienciadel pensamiento y el lenguaje con su impacto en las consideraciones en torno a la subjetividad. La problemática que orienta nuestra búsqueda puede articularse, en parte, con la pregunta: ¿Cómo es posible y en qué condiciones dar cuenta de un nuevo pensar? En efecto, ciertas tradiciones del pensamiento filosófico de la segunda mitad del siglo XX han indagado en torno al pasaje o umbral que va del pensamiento moderno de lo Mismo al pensamiento de lo Otro. En el primer caso , la búsqueda de lo otro( en la naturaleza , en el arte , en la experiencia humana, en el lenguaje , etc.) solo ha sido un rodeo verosímil para subsumirlo a las condiciones de la conciencia , del sujeto o de la historia, cuyo resultado es un mundo domesticado , empobrecido , reducido. En el segundo caso, las limitaciones del discurso moderno y la crisis del sujeto han conducido a numerosos pensadores a indagar en torno a las estructuras del lenguaje y del discurso con el objeto de circunscribir los umbrales desde los cuales dar cuenta de aberturas de la experiencia con la consecuente proliferación de lo múltiple y la diversidad. En estos caminos del pensar podemos encontrar a Nietzsche, Heidegger, Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan y Barthes, entre otros. En los siguiente apartados nos detendremos especialmente en dos de ellos: Barthes y Foucault. Presentaremos algunas de sus perspectivas en sus trabajos de la década de 1960, especialmente en el contexto de las tensiones políticas y sociales del mayo francés. Entre otras discusiones de la época, las consideraciones en torno al cambio y la transformación manifestaron allí una crisis que condujo a repensar las categorías y estructuras desde las cuales los discursos las articulaban. Para dar cuenta de ello, proponemos un abordaje de ciertas relaciones entre los análisis estructurales de relatos que realiza Barthes, con su interés manifiesto por la significancia (es decir, por la mantención de la brecha móvil del proceso de significación) y el método arqueológico desarrollado por Foucault en sus obras referidas a los discursos y al lenguaje. Si bien en ambos casos prima una concepción abierta de la experiencia del lenguaje y el sentido, buscamos evidenciar sus modos singulares de situarse en los umbrales de un nuevo modo de pensar en filosofía. Comencemos, entonces, por Roland Barthes

Keeping House : a novel and novel companion

The creative work of this study is a novel-length work of literary fiction called Keeping House (published as Grace's Table, by University of Queensland Press, April 2014). Grace has not had twelve people at her table for a long time. Hers isn't the kind of family who share regular Sunday meals. As Grace prepares the feast, she reflects on her life, her marriage and her friendships. When the three generations of her family come together, simmering tensions from the past threaten to boil over. The one thing that no one can talk about is the one thing that no one can forget. Grace's Table is a moving and often funny novel using food as a language to explore the power of memory and the family rituals that define us. The exegetical component of this study does not adhere to traditional research pedagogies. Instead, it follows the model of what the literature describes as fictocriticism. It is the intention that the exegesis be read as a hybrid genre; one that combines creative practice and theory and blurs the boundaries between philosophy and fiction. In offering itself as an alternative to the exegetical canon it provides a model for the multiplicity of knowledge production suited to the discipline of practice-led research. The exegesis mirrors structural elements of the creative work by inviting twelve guests into the domestic space of the novel to share a meal. The guests, chosen for their diverse thinking, enable examination of the various agents of power involved in the delivery of food. Their ideas cross genders, ages and time periods; their motivations and opinions often collide. Some are more concerned with the spatial politics of where food is consumed, others with its actual preparation and consumption. Each, however, provides a series of creative reflective conversations throughout the meal which help to answer the research question: How can disempowered women take authority within their domestic space? Michel de Certeau must defend his "operational tactics" or "art of the weak" 1 as a means by which women can subvert the colonisation of their domestic space against Michel Foucault's ideas about the functions of a "disciplinary apparatus". 2 Erving Goffman argues that the success of de Certeau's "tactics" depends upon his theories of "performance" and "masquerade" 3; a claim de Certeau refutes. Doreen Massey and the author combine forces in arguing for space, time and politics to be seen as interconnected, non-static and often contested. The author calls for identity, or sense of self, to be considered a further dimension which impacts on the function of spatial models. Yu-Fi Tuan speaks of the intimacy of kitchens; Gaston Bachelard the power of daydreams; and Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin gives the reader a taste of the nourishing arts. Roland Barthes forces the author to reconsider her function as a writer and her understanding of the reader's relationship with a text. Fictional characters from two texts have a place at the table – Marian from The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood 4 and Lilian from Lilian's Story by Kate Grenville. 5 Each explores how they successfully subverted expectations of their gender. The author interprets and applies elements of the conversations to support Grace's tactics in the novel as well as those related to her own creative research practice. Grace serves her guests, reflecting on what is said and how it relates to her story. Over coffee, the two come together to examine what each has learned.

Producing readings : freedom versus normativity?

The subject known as English has been framed in terms of a number of models which can be broadly defined through the literature as cultural heritage (associated with Matthew Arnold and F.R. Leavis), personal growth (associated with John Dixon and James Britton) and cultural studies (associated with Raymond Williams and Roland Barthes). Traditionally these models have been assumed to reflect different theories of English, each one being hailed as a radical break with the previous model. Taking the reading lesson as an example, the paper attempts to trouble the idea that the models of English are radically different, first by identifying an unhelpful dialectic that historically informs discussions of literature teaching and English and second, by exploring a circularity that characterises arguments used to justify the radical nature of cultural studies English.

The Hollywood effect : a comparative study of costume in Australia and the Proposition

This paper compares costuming practices in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (2008) and John Hillcoat’s The Proposition (2005) and argues that high production values, such as in the blockbuster Australia, are not neutral mechanisms of production, but powerful prescriptive elements which do not result in a successful representation of cultural specificity. Australia is a typical blockbuster, it employs a large number of extras, it features compelling landscape shots, has been shot across four different locations and sets, and, importantly, is an international production with the 20th Century Fox. The film’s costumes were designed by Catherine Martin, who received an Oscar nomination in 2009. While global exposure of fashion in film and through celebrities’ endorsements has consolidated a historical synergy between the fashion industry and Hollywood, the Australian film and fashion industries have had a very limited exchange. Baz Luhrmann’s film is Australia’s first instance of promo-costuming and use of tie-in labels (Ferragamo, R.M.Williams, Prada, Paspaley). Catherine Martin thoroughly researched 1930s women’s wear, indigenous and stockmen’s clothing, and set up to make all costumes with a large team of costumiers and seamstresses, striving for authenticity. The Proposition won its costume designer Margot Wilson an AFI in 2005 for best costume, but compared to Australia the story, location and costumes are far harsher. Filmed around Winton in far west Queensland, the director John Hillcoat and Director of Photography Benoit Delhomme were insistent about realism, and emphasising the harshness of the Australian landscape. The realism of the costumes was derived from the fabrics and manufacturing, as well as the way they were shot, with the actors often wearing two or three layers of heavy wool during days of shooting in 50 degree heat, and the details of making and breaking down. The implication is that both films are culturally specific as they both deal with an Australian story. However, Australia is clearly produced according to a Hollywood blockbuster model, and closely matches Hollywood’s narrative and aesthetic characteristics, while The Proposition is a more modest film that eschews these conventions of beauty and glossed history. Despite its western genre-orientation, The Proposition is more successful than Australia when it comes to costuming, because its costumes are not only functional to the narrative, but, in Roland Barthes’ words, they also fulfil a prestation. This prestation highlights the social and cultural conflicts on which colonial Australia was founded, instead of gilding, and gliding, over them.

Tyhjyyden reunalla, helvetin kannella : Yhtenäisen subjektin hajoaminen Saul Bellowin Herzogissa

The study shows that the reading paradigm derived from codes Roland Barthes presented in his S/Z exposes the postmodernic nature of Saul Bellow s Herzog (1964), and embodies in which way the novel is organized as a radical rewriting of modernism and its ideology. I explore how solid, compact and modernistic subject breaks down at every level of Herzog s narration. I actually argue that the heteroglossic novel is representative of an early American postmodern movement in literaure, and it should by no means be dissected narrowly as a realistic or naturalistic novel at all. The intertextual code verifies that the interpretation of Herzog remains inadequate if one doesn t take account of the novel s significant intertextual references to other texts. In fact, even the mind of Moses Herzog, the protagonist of the novel, is a mosaic of citations. It emerges from the dissertation that the figure of Don Quixote follows Moses Herzog as an ambiguous shadow while the professor of history struggles with his anxiety and anguish, and travels in a mentally confused state around the U.S. for five days in the early 1960s, encountering the impending atmosphere of transition as the country is on the threshold of a significant cultural and social change. There is a strong necessity for updated interpretation of Herzog partly because its centrality to Bellow s own career as a writer but mainly because it has been previously read trough modernistic lenses. I shall try to proof in my study that American Jewish Saul Bellow s (1915 2005) Herzog escapes any kind of simple, elemental or essentialistic construction or reading and in real terms it doesn t offer any comprehensive, total or coherent solution or system for those philosophical doctrines it criticizes and makes fun of. The philosophical, conceptual and cultural substance of Herzog does not constitute an independent or autonomous theoretical tract which would have a life of its own. Altough the novel reflects the continuity of Bellow s writing it is clearly some kind of conscious or unconscious experiment during his long career as a writer. He hasn t been so radical before or since the publication of Herzog. It is unarguably his most postmodern novel.The reading paradigm based on specific codes demonstrates how deep into the basic questions of his personal life and existence itself he must dive in oder to find his many ways towards authentic or primordial self in fragmented and shattered world which is constanly rewritten and which makes human being a tourist of his own life. In that ongoing process the protagonist has to accept the ultimate plurality of his mind and self. He must confront that the modernistic definition of identity as a solid, monolithic and stable entity has broken down into different, inconsistent and even contradictory possibilities of identification. Moses Herzog embodies obviously Stuart Hall s description of the postmodern self his identity has turn into a movable feast.

Author-Illustrator

This essay investigates the concept author-illustrator by drawing on two influential essays – ‘Death of the Author’ by Roland Barthes and ‘What is an Author?’ by Michel Foucault. By engaging with the key points of debate that emerge from these positions, this essay argues that the notion of author-illustrator is part of a wider discursive field that is embedded in a complex, commodified, multimedia public sphere where the author is paradoxically reinscribed and erased. This environment is changing the nature of the text, authorship, and reader-text interaction, but until now the concept author-illustrator has been largely absent from these discussions.

Why brush up your Shakespeare and your theory?: an Angela Carter companion to myths

Essa dissertação visa estudar a formação do que veio a ser conhecido como o mito Shakespeariano e sua relação com a produção literária contemporânea, exemplificada pelo romance Wise Children, da romancista inglesa Angela Carter. Tal objetivo pretende ser alcançado por meio uma revisão teórica de elementos relacionados à concepção de mito desenvolvida pelo filósofo francês Roland Barthes, tais quais a concepção tradicional de mito, o Estruturalismo, o Pós-estruturalismo, a crítica ideológica marxista e os Estudos Culturais. Um estudo dos processos históricos que deram origem ao e ajudaram a propagar o mito Shakespeariano também é levado a cabo nessa dissertação: a apropriação da figura e da obra de William Shakespeare feita pelos pré-românticos e pelos românticos em geral; a associação da figura de Shakespeare com a identidade nacional do Império Britânico; o advento da industria Shakespeariana e o papel das adaptações das peças de Shakespeare na propagação do mito Shakespeariano

Do Vazio ao Gozo: intersecções entre o efeito estético e o prazer do leitor

Este trabalho tem como objetivo propor um diálogo teórico entre as obras O Ato de Leitura: uma teoria do efeito estético (1996, 1999), de Wolfgang Iser, e O Prazer do Texto (2006), de Roland Barthes. Da primeira obra, interessa-nos particularmente a formulação teórica sobre o vazio que, a nosso ver, pode ser articulada a outras elaboradas por Barthes na sua referida obra, sobretudo à delicada distinção entre gozo e prazer. A partir do entretecimento de uma rede teórica fundamentada nesta inter-relação, poderemos propor um ponto de vista concatenador que permita observar o objeto literário simultaneamente sob algumas noções oriundas da Teoria do efeito e outras vindas do pensamento barthesiano. A nosso ver, é possível demonstrar que as noções barthesianas de texto de prazer e textos de fruição ou gozo podem se adequar à observação do texto literário, quando considerado em relação à forma e à abundância dos vazios que eclodem na sua relação dialética com o leitor

Lembrar e inventar: o percurso autobiográfico de Lygia Fagundes Telles e Nélida Piñon

Consagradas escritoras brasileiras por suas obras de ficção, na forma de contos, crônicas e romances, Lygia Fagundes Telles e Nélida Piñon se ocuparam também do memorialismo em algum momento de suas carreiras. Lygia Fagundes Telles evitou escrever a sua autobiografia e optou por se autorrepresentar por meio de textos híbridos, em que os gêneros textuais se misturam e a ficção e a memória se amalgamam. Desse modo, a dissertação analisará esses textos que estão presentes nos livros A disciplina do amor (1980), Invenção e memória (2000), Durante aquele estranho chá (2002) e Conspiração de nuvens (2007), nos quais Lygia Fagundes Telles espalhou biografemas, termo cunhado por Roland Barthes, e apenas esboçou um autorretrato. Por sua vez, Nélida Piñon publicou o seu livro de memórias, Coração andarilho (2009), utilizando procedimentos de autorrepresentação característicos de uma autobiografia propriamente dita. O trabalho também examinará a obra referida, na qual a escritora buscou construir uma autoimagem sólida e nítida. Além disso, abordará as diferentes estratégias de autofiguração de ambas as escritoras acionadas nas obras conforme o objetivo perseguido por cada uma delas na construção de seus empreendimentos memorialísticos

Arquetipo y homofobia en el relato mexicano de temática gay

En este trabajo se pretende analizar cómo autores de diversas generaciones han contribuido al arraigo en el inconsciente colectivo, y en la misma literatura, a fijar valores y juicios predeterminados por los dogmas religiosos e ideologías de las instituciones gubernamentales. Para poder entender la evolución de los patrones del arquetipo y la homofobia, el análisis se realizará tomando en cuenta el orden cronológico en que se suceden los relatos, que van de la Revolución al término de la primera década del nuevo siglo, es decir cien años. También se analizarán los tratamientos estéticos y narrativos en los relatos.

Spectres of Shakespeare:Ong Keng Sen’s Search: Hamlet and the Intercultural Myth

Arguably, the myth of Shakespeare is a myth of universality. Much has been written about the dramatic, thematic and ‘humanistic’ transference of Shakespeare’s works: their permeability, transcendence of cultures and histories, geographies and temporalities. Located within this debate is a belief that this universality, among other dominating factors, is founded upon the power and poeticism of Shakespeare’s language. Subsequently, if we acknowledge Frank Kermode’s assertion that “the life of the plays is the language” and “the secret (of Shakespeare’s works) is in the detail,” what then becomes of this myth of universality, and how is Shakespeare’s language ‘transferred’ across cultures? In Asian intercultural adaptations, language becomes the primary site of confrontation as issues of semantic accuracy and poetic affiliation abound. Often, the language of the text is replaced with a cultural equivalent or reconceived with other languages of the stage – song and dance, movement and music; metaphor and imagery consequently find new voices. Yet if myth is, as Roland Barthes propounds, a second-order semiotic system that is predicated upon the already constituted sign, here being language, and myth is parasitical on language, what happens to the myth of Shakespeare in these cultural re-articulations? Wherein lies the ‘universality’? Or is ‘universality’ all that it is – an insubstantial (mythical) pageant? Using Ong Keng Sen’s Search Hamlet (2002), this paper would examine the transference of myth and / as language in intercultural Shakespeares. If, as Barthes argues, myths are to be understood as metalanguages that adumbrate social hegemonies, intercultural imaginings of Shakespeare can be said to expose the hollow myth of universality yet in a paradoxical double-bind reify and reinstate this self-same myth.

Cockney, pseudo-slang et argot de série noire : San-Antonio et le moment Peter Cheyney du roman noir français

This article examines how in post-war France slang became a byword for the noir genre. It considers the mechanisms, models, networks and translators' practices which set the tone for the "Série Noire”, whose influence, both written and on the screen, had, within a decade, become, a "mythology" studied by Roland Barthes. It argues that this use of slang is redolent of the inauthenticity which characterises this stage in the reception of the Noir genre in France. It is certain that this artificial French slang is far from devoid of charm, or even mystery. But it tends to depreciate and deform the translated works and seems to be the hallmark of an era that might have defined and acclimatised Noir fiction in France, yet remains one which has not fully understood the gravity of its purpose. While such translations seem outdated nowadays (if not quite incomprehensible ), original works written at the time in French by writers inspired by the model of " pseudo- slang" and the fashionability of American popular culture have benefited from them. In this very inauthenticity, derivative novels have found a licence for invention and freedom, with authors such as Cocteau hailing it as a revival of the French written language. We see here how the adventures of Commissaire San Antonio, by Frédéric Dard constitute the best examples of this new creativity in French and draw upon a template set for the reception of American literature