This article brings into dialogue the work of Cathy Caruth, a founding figure of trauma theory, with that of Svetlana Boym, an authority within scholarship on nostalgia. In doing so, it aims to showcase that the study of traumatic experience can benefit from a theoretical approach in which both of their perspectives are understood to be inherently intertwined. Despite being seemingly very much opposed in terms of their conceptualizations of trauma, their theories, when considered in light of each other, can in fact be said to make up a trauma-spectrum that traces the different, interconnected levels on which trauma operates and manifests itself. Therefore, by considering them part of a spectrum, new ways for analyzing traumatic experience open up that allow for it to not only be understood in terms of an individual acting out, as Caruth argues, but also as the shared performance of a haunting past utopia, as suggested by Boym. Such a spectrum, as I will demonstrate, is especially useful as a theoretical tool for analyzing the workings of trauma within small-scale communities in which there is a uniquely intricate mediation between the individual and the community, the past and the present. This will be further illustrated by a discussion of Magda Szabó’s novel Katalin Street (1969); a work that explores the complex social dynamics that emerge when an intimate community is traumatized during World War II by the murder of one of their own and the subsequent loss of their shared utopia. As a result, those who survive, as a coping mechanism for as well as symptom of their trauma, continue to reenact their idealized past as if the catastrophic event never occurred. As such, Szabó foregrounds how Boym’s nostalgic performance and Caruth’s acting out are often fundamentally interwoven in the creation of a never-ending, paradoxical cycle of remembering through forgetting and forgetting through remembrance. Moreover, by emphasizing the layers of witnessing within the text, Szabó underlines the importance of acknowledging this nostalgic reenactment of the past as a form of testimony in its own right, one that calls for new ways of listening to trauma.
{"title":"'Recreating Katalin Street': Reenacting a Haunting Past Utopia as Manifestation and Bodily Testimony to Trauma in Magda Szabó's Katalin Street","authors":"Lisa Van Straten","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.185","url":null,"abstract":"This article brings into dialogue the work of Cathy Caruth, a founding figure of trauma theory, with that of Svetlana Boym, an authority within scholarship on nostalgia. In doing so, it aims to showcase that the study of traumatic experience can benefit from a theoretical approach in which both of their perspectives are understood to be inherently intertwined. Despite being seemingly very much opposed in terms of their conceptualizations of trauma, their theories, when considered in light of each other, can in fact be said to make up a trauma-spectrum that traces the different, interconnected levels on which trauma operates and manifests itself. Therefore, by considering them part of a spectrum, new ways for analyzing traumatic experience open up that allow for it to not only be understood in terms of an individual acting out, as Caruth argues, but also as the shared performance of a haunting past utopia, as suggested by Boym. Such a spectrum, as I will demonstrate, is especially useful as a theoretical tool for analyzing the workings of trauma within small-scale communities in which there is a uniquely intricate mediation between the individual and the community, the past and the present. This will be further illustrated by a discussion of Magda Szabó’s novel Katalin Street (1969); a work that explores the complex social dynamics that emerge when an intimate community is traumatized during World War II by the murder of one of their own and the subsequent loss of their shared utopia. As a result, those who survive, as a coping mechanism for as well as symptom of their trauma, continue to reenact their idealized past as if the catastrophic event never occurred. As such, Szabó foregrounds how Boym’s nostalgic performance and Caruth’s acting out are often fundamentally interwoven in the creation of a never-ending, paradoxical cycle of remembering through forgetting and forgetting through remembrance. Moreover, by emphasizing the layers of witnessing within the text, Szabó underlines the importance of acknowledging this nostalgic reenactment of the past as a form of testimony in its own right, one that calls for new ways of listening to trauma.","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"12 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140441547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
José Dorenbos, África López Zabalegui, Luna Njoku Dominguez
This paper explores two contemporary literary visions of space settlement to gauge their potential within an emancipatory feminist and antiracist imaginary of the future. In doing so, it engages with the broader question of whether literary interplanetary dreams are necessarily tied up in a colonial rhetoric of violent expansion, or if they can also be organized to serve the interests of oppressed and underserved groups in an Anthropocene context. The text examines and compares two recent narratives of space settlement, the one found in Octavia Butler’s ‘Earthseed’ series and Adam Garnet Jones’ short story ‘History of the New World.’ Based on a comparative close reading of both, this paper argues that both stories frame the project of resettling in space as a hopeful alternative to life within a collapsed natural world and the precarious socio-political framework that has arisen from it, albeit with distinctly different outcomes. This comparison focuses specifically on the organization of such utopian extraplanetary societies and the roles they fulfill in the present. Crucially, this paper considers how both stories evaluate the possibility of choosing not to leave for the astral frontier.
本文探讨了当代文学对太空定居的两种设想，以衡量它们在解放女权主义者和反种族主义者的未来想象中的潜力。在此过程中，本文探讨了一个更广泛的问题，即文学中的星际梦想是否必然与暴力扩张的殖民主义修辞相联系，或者它们是否也可以被组织起来，在人类世背景下服务于受压迫和得不到充分服务的群体的利益。本文研究并比较了最近的两种太空定居叙事，即奥克塔维亚-巴特勒（Octavia Butler）的《地球种子》（Earthseed）系列和亚当-加内特-琼斯（Adam Garnet Jones）的短篇小说《新世界的历史》（History of the New World）中的太空定居叙事。通过对这两部作品的比较细读，本文认为，这两部作品都将太空定居计划描绘成一种充满希望的替代方案，以取代在崩溃的自然世界中的生活以及由此产生的不稳定的社会政治框架，尽管结果截然不同。本文的比较特别关注这种乌托邦式的星外社会的组织及其在当下所扮演的角色。最重要的是，本文考虑了这两个故事如何评价选择不离开星际边界的可能性。
{"title":"Beyond A New World in Space: Critical Astral Frontiers in Octavia Butler and Adam Garnet Jones","authors":"José Dorenbos, África López Zabalegui, Luna Njoku Dominguez","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.179","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores two contemporary literary visions of space settlement to gauge their potential within an emancipatory feminist and antiracist imaginary of the future. In doing so, it engages with the broader question of whether literary interplanetary dreams are necessarily tied up in a colonial rhetoric of violent expansion, or if they can also be organized to serve the interests of oppressed and underserved groups in an Anthropocene context.\u0000The text examines and compares two recent narratives of space settlement, the one found in Octavia Butler’s ‘Earthseed’ series and Adam Garnet Jones’ short story ‘History of the New World.’ Based on a comparative close reading of both, this paper argues that both stories frame the project of resettling in space as a hopeful alternative to life within a collapsed natural world and the precarious socio-political framework that has arisen from it, albeit with distinctly different outcomes. This comparison focuses specifically on the organization of such utopian extraplanetary societies and the roles they fulfill in the present. Crucially, this paper considers how both stories evaluate the possibility of choosing not to leave for the astral frontier.","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"104 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140444265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Do utopias emerge from envisioning where we want to live or where we do not want to live? According to Theodor Adorno, polarity, i.e. the grammatical distinction between affirmation and negation, is central to utopian thinking and showcases a crisis of imagination, as we can only conceive a utopian world by negating a given reality (Adorno in Bloch 1975, 68-70). My paper negotiates this idea through a grammatical-conceptual reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). Specifically, it argues that Ulysses first lays out a negative utopianism following Homer’s Odyssey but in the course of the narrative tests out the logical necessity that precludes affirmative utopian thinking. Starting from episode 12, ‘Cyclops,’ the Homeric utopianism ‘by negation’ (De Jong 2001, 233-35) seems inadequate to erect a utopian project, for a negative dystopia need not amount to a utopia; the Joycean Ireland negates the Homeric dystopia without being a utopia either. Utopianism by negation proves exclusionary too, for a negative utopia is dystopian for the ones negated, like nationalistic Ireland is a dystopia for a Jew like the protagonist, Leopold Bloom. Bloom offers an alternative to negative thinking by envisioning a utopian state that affirms everyone. Climactically, in episode 18 ‘Penelope’, Molly Bloom answers ‘yes’ to the query ‘where’. This unsyntactical, absurd affirmation exposes the limits of imagination, as delineated by Adorno, since we cannot understand possible worlds that are ‘yes’ as a response to ‘where’. However, it also prefigures conceptual structures yet to come, structures that may build utopian worlds based on the affirmation ‘where one does want to live’. These conceptual mechanisms that underlie utopian world-making and are captured through grammatical structures are identified as ‘grammars of utopia’ and constitute the overarching theoretical project in which this paper is inscribed.
{"title":"Beyond Grammars of Utopia: Crisis of Imagination and Utopianism by Negation or Affirmation in James Joyce’s Ulysses","authors":"Yiorgos Podaropoulos","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.180","url":null,"abstract":"Do utopias emerge from envisioning where we want to live or where we do not want to live? According to Theodor Adorno, polarity, i.e. the grammatical distinction between affirmation and negation, is central to utopian thinking and showcases a crisis of imagination, as we can only conceive a utopian world by negating a given reality (Adorno in Bloch 1975, 68-70). My paper negotiates this idea through a grammatical-conceptual reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). Specifically, it argues that Ulysses first lays out a negative utopianism following Homer’s Odyssey but in the course of the narrative tests out the logical necessity that precludes affirmative utopian thinking.\u0000Starting from episode 12, ‘Cyclops,’ the Homeric utopianism ‘by negation’ (De Jong 2001, 233-35) seems inadequate to erect a utopian project, for a negative dystopia need not amount to a utopia; the Joycean Ireland negates the Homeric dystopia without being a utopia either. Utopianism by negation proves exclusionary too, for a negative utopia is dystopian for the ones negated, like nationalistic Ireland is a dystopia for a Jew like the protagonist, Leopold Bloom. Bloom offers an alternative to negative thinking by envisioning a utopian state that affirms everyone. Climactically, in episode 18 ‘Penelope’, Molly Bloom answers ‘yes’ to the query ‘where’. This unsyntactical, absurd affirmation exposes the limits of imagination, as delineated by Adorno, since we cannot understand possible worlds that are ‘yes’ as a response to ‘where’. However, it also prefigures conceptual structures yet to come, structures that may build utopian worlds based on the affirmation ‘where one does want to live’. These conceptual mechanisms that underlie utopian world-making and are captured through grammatical structures are identified as ‘grammars of utopia’ and constitute the overarching theoretical project in which this paper is inscribed.","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"38 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140444387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A large part of what scholars do in the humanities is reading and interpreting texts, and they must do so in a just and righteous manner. But what does that mean, doing justice to a text? To a philosophical text, but also to a literary or a poetic text? This is the question at stake in the ‘Gadamer-Derrida encounter,’ which remains relevant for our daily interpretative endeavors. Rather than adding another commentary to the already extensive literature on this debate, this paper offers a comparative analysis of two closely related essays in which Gadamer and Derrida read the work of the German poet Paul Celan with a keen eye for differences, as well as similarities, between the hermeneutical strategies of both philosophers. These two essays lead me to specify the guiding question of this paper: what does it mean to do justice to a poetic text, that is, to poetry? To answer this question, the paper discusses several issues, starting with Gadamer’s and Derrida’s shared rejection of the intentions of the poet as the decisive factor in interpreting poetry. This is followed by a discussion of Gadamer’s hermeneutical approach, as exemplified by his interpretation of Celan, and Derrida’s main objections to this approach. Having subsequently discussed the way in which Derrida demarcates his own hermeneutics from that of Gadamer, the paper first concludes that Gadamer’s and Derrida’s positions are sufficiently refined to be considered as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Second, this paper argues that doing justice to a philosophical, literary or poetic text means seeking to decipher its meaning, as Gadamer argues, whilst accepting that no articulated meaning can ever be final, certain or exhaustive, as Derrida emphasizes.
{"title":"Doing Justice to Poetry: Gadamer and Derrida on Reading Paul Celan","authors":"Lucas Gronouwe","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.171","url":null,"abstract":"A large part of what scholars do in the humanities is reading and interpreting texts, and they must do so in a just and righteous manner. But what does that mean, doing justice to a text? To a philosophical text, but also to a literary or a poetic text? This is the question at stake in the ‘Gadamer-Derrida encounter,’ which remains relevant for our daily interpretative endeavors. Rather than adding another commentary to the already extensive literature on this debate, this paper offers a comparative analysis of two closely related essays in which Gadamer and Derrida read the work of the German poet Paul Celan with a keen eye for differences, as well as similarities, between the hermeneutical strategies of both philosophers. These two essays lead me to specify the guiding question of this paper: what does it mean to do justice to a poetic text, that is, to poetry? To answer this question, the paper discusses several issues, starting with Gadamer’s and Derrida’s shared rejection of the intentions of the poet as the decisive factor in interpreting poetry. This is followed by a discussion of Gadamer’s hermeneutical approach, as exemplified by his interpretation of Celan, and Derrida’s main objections to this approach. Having subsequently discussed the way in which Derrida demarcates his own hermeneutics from that of Gadamer, the paper first concludes that Gadamer’s and Derrida’s positions are sufficiently refined to be considered as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Second, this paper argues that doing justice to a philosophical, literary or poetic text means seeking to decipher its meaning, as Gadamer argues, whilst accepting that no articulated meaning can ever be final, certain or exhaustive, as Derrida emphasizes. ","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140444804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Haunting Utopias","authors":"Lea Groß, Hanneke De Boer","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.196","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"24 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140443226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, I develop a philosophical account demonstrating how alternative feminist concepts, in particular an ethics of care and vulnerability, would help improve our political policies and practices. I suggest that reviewing our political institutions from a feminist standpoint allows for a rethinking of these structures and practices in a more democratic framework, opening the field to all minoritized groups that are excluded from it still. I rely on a positive account of vulnerability, understood as an inherent relational dynamic of interdependency and solidarity between embodied subjects, rather than an individual show of weakness in reaction to violence. The central question I address is: if caring relations of solidarity are a possible response to vulnerability, how can this inform politics despite the ambiguity of vulnerability itself? Is such a positive reframing of the concept even possible? In other words, how do we articulate vulnerability with violence, and can it be reframed outside of these ties to violence? First, I look at Judith Butler’s positive renewal of the concept (Butler 2004). Second, I contrast this approach to the complementary findings of Adriana Cavarero (Cavarero 2011) that would allow for the emancipation of vulnerability from its dichotomous ties to violence. These findings could have political ramifications for addressing a revisited account of vulnerability that informs alternative political institutions and practices, which I explore in the final section.
{"title":"Rethinking Political Organization from a Feminist Standpoint: Politicizing an Ethics of Care and Vulnerability","authors":"Roxane Eva Sarah Pret Théodore","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.169","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I develop a philosophical account demonstrating how alternative feminist concepts, in particular an ethics of care and vulnerability, would help improve our political policies and practices. I suggest that reviewing our political institutions from a feminist standpoint allows for a rethinking of these structures and practices in a more democratic framework, opening the field to all minoritized groups that are excluded from it still. I rely on a positive account of vulnerability, understood as an inherent relational dynamic of interdependency and solidarity between embodied subjects, rather than an individual show of weakness in reaction to violence. The central question I address is: if caring relations of solidarity are a possible response to vulnerability, how can this inform politics despite the ambiguity of vulnerability itself? Is such a positive reframing of the concept even possible? In other words, how do we articulate vulnerability with violence, and can it be reframed outside of these ties to violence? First, I look at Judith Butler’s positive renewal of the concept (Butler 2004). Second, I contrast this approach to the complementary findings of Adriana Cavarero (Cavarero 2011) that would allow for the emancipation of vulnerability from its dichotomous ties to violence. These findings could have political ramifications for addressing a revisited account of vulnerability that informs alternative political institutions and practices, which I explore in the final section.","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"11 24","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the apparent tension, recently highlighted by Amia Srinivasan, between sexual autonomy and one’s responsibility to critically engage with their desires in the context of Selective Sexual Preferences (SSP). Many see SSP, criteria employed for excluding and including potential sexual partners, as a fundamental expression of one’s sexual autonomy. Simultaneously, these preferences mirror oppressive social structures and have detrimental effects on already marginalized groups. Noting this politicalness, authors like Srinivasan hold that we have an obligation to critically engage with our desires. Such engagement impedes, however, our sexual autonomy, which presupposes we are all free in developing and enacting our desires. Sexual autonomy and moral responsibility seem to be at odds. This article argues that this tension is a fabrication. More specifically, it posits that SSP are morally objectionable because they signify a limitation of one’s own sexual autonomy and that of others. To do so, this article moves beyond the dominant liberal approach to autonomy and examines sexual autonomy through the lens of Catriona Mackenzie’s Integrated Bodily Perspective. Together with empirical findings regarding effeminophobia in the gay community, this reconceptualization shows that SSP signify a twofold limitation of sexual autonomy. SSP may be a symptom of the limited sexual autonomy of the individual expressing them. As SSP reify oppressive social norms, they can contribute to the disintegration of others’ sexual perspectives, thus constituting a limitation of their sexual autonomy as well. Consequently, this article argues that sexual autonomy is not limited by our obligation of critical reflection but can rather be enhanced by it. It lastly considers the position of critical reflection and argues that while insufficient, critical reflection marks a necessary, possible, and fruitful starting point for approximating sexual justice.
{"title":"Discriminatory Desires and Disintegrated Sexual Selves: An Investigation into Selective Sexual Preferences and the Limitation of Sexual Autonomy","authors":"Joost Wijffels","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.166","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the apparent tension, recently highlighted by Amia Srinivasan, between sexual autonomy and one’s responsibility to critically engage with their desires in the context of Selective Sexual Preferences (SSP). Many see SSP, criteria employed for excluding and including potential sexual partners, as a fundamental expression of one’s sexual autonomy. Simultaneously, these preferences mirror oppressive social structures and have detrimental effects on already marginalized groups. Noting this politicalness, authors like Srinivasan hold that we have an obligation to critically engage with our desires. Such engagement impedes, however, our sexual autonomy, which presupposes we are all free in developing and enacting our desires. Sexual autonomy and moral responsibility seem to be at odds. This article argues that this tension is a fabrication. More specifically, it posits that SSP are morally objectionable because they signify a limitation of one’s own sexual autonomy and that of others. To do so, this article moves beyond the dominant liberal approach to autonomy and examines sexual autonomy through the lens of Catriona Mackenzie’s Integrated Bodily Perspective. Together with empirical findings regarding effeminophobia in the gay community, this reconceptualization shows that SSP signify a twofold limitation of sexual autonomy. SSP may be a symptom of the limited sexual autonomy of the individual expressing them. As SSP reify oppressive social norms, they can contribute to the disintegration of others’ sexual perspectives, thus constituting a limitation of their sexual autonomy as well. Consequently, this article argues that sexual autonomy is not limited by our obligation of critical reflection but can rather be enhanced by it. It lastly considers the position of critical reflection and argues that while insufficient, critical reflection marks a necessary, possible, and fruitful starting point for approximating sexual justice.","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"58 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140444944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper addresses the colonialist values at the foundation of Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot Atlas and contemporary robotics, generally, through an analysis of its dance video ‘Do You Love Me?’. This paper focuses on the concepts of ‘extractivism’ and ‘recognition’ to reveal how colonialist logic guides the human-robot relationship. I argue that Atlas is a new, posthuman colonial subject that has emerged in contemporary society and that, despite not having a sense of self and thus dodging ethical criticisms, robots such as Atlas display the succession and replication of colonial logic and practices. In other words, the desire for a colonial utopia—where we humans construct and rule the world based on the oppression and extraction of less-than-human others—haunts the robot that dances for your love. This paper thus problematizes the prevalence of colonialism in robotics and calls for reflection on the development of today’s robotics deeper than the symptoms of racism, sexism, and capitalism. Furthermore, I demonstrate how extraction as a dispossessing, dehumanizing force, and recognition as framing of false identity are two major mechanisms of colonialism that work closely together. Through the two tactics, colonialism not only serves capitalism but also deceptively obscures its existence.
{"title":"Why Make Atlas Dance? Colonial Utopia that Persists in Contemporary Robotics","authors":"Soyun Jang","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.183","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the colonialist values at the foundation of Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot Atlas and contemporary robotics, generally, through an analysis of its dance video ‘Do You Love Me?’. This paper focuses on the concepts of ‘extractivism’ and ‘recognition’ to reveal how colonialist logic guides the human-robot relationship. I argue that Atlas is a new, posthuman colonial subject that has emerged in contemporary society and that, despite not having a sense of self and thus dodging ethical criticisms, robots such as Atlas display the succession and replication of colonial logic and practices. In other words, the desire for a colonial utopia—where we humans construct and rule the world based on the oppression and extraction of less-than-human others—haunts the robot that dances for your love. This paper thus problematizes the prevalence of colonialism in robotics and calls for reflection on the development of today’s robotics deeper than the symptoms of racism, sexism, and capitalism. Furthermore, I demonstrate how extraction as a dispossessing, dehumanizing force, and recognition as framing of false identity are two major mechanisms of colonialism that work closely together. Through the two tactics, colonialism not only serves capitalism but also deceptively obscures its existence.","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Embarking on a close reading of Jenny Hval's 2018 novel, Paradise Rot, this paper sets out to unveil the utopic potential rooted in reimagining the body not as a self-contained being but as an intricate network extending beyond the confines of the skin. It challenges prevailing Western epistemologies that isolate humans, hierarchically distancing them from non-humans such as plants and animals. By taking up the literary conventions of gothic horror, the analysis focuses on the peculiar, co-dependent relationship of Paradise Rot's central characters: Carral and Johanna. As the women’s unsettling love affair unfolds, they become a symbiotic and mycorrhizal entity akin to the sprouting mushrooms inhabiting their dilapidated house. Exploring the metaphorical and tangible challenges posed by mushrooms, the paper underscores the interconnected, non-singular nature of fungal networks. Hval provocatively links the queerness of her main characters with fungi, both typically demonized as alien, contaminating, and freakish. This paper furthermore aligns these characteristics with queered figures from classic gothic horror, including the lesbian vampire and Susan Stryker’s transgendered Frankenstein. Together, these monstrous entities disturb the boundaries between the “natural” and the supernatural, the human and the non-human, the living and the dead. Marxists have drawn comparisons between the vampire’s parasitic need to feed on blood and capitalism’s exploitation of labor. Through the character of Carral, who I read as a femme vamp figure, I argue that vampires have redemptive qualities that illuminate our fundamental dependence on others to survive. Hval's novel illustrates the essential, confronting fact that we need one another, and more so than ever in precarious times. In the context of the climate crisis, neoliberal individualism, and ongoing economic instability, understanding our indebtedness to one another and our environments is crucial for planetary survival. Ties of care in late capitalist societies are complex, messy, and unequal, yet by recognizing our reliance on one another, we might, as scholar Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018) argues, realize a utopia where one’s dependence on others cannot, and need not, be concealed.
{"title":"Monstrous Mushrooms, Toxic Love and Queer Utopias in Jenny Hval's Paradise Rot","authors":"Hannah Elizabeth Pezzack","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.182","url":null,"abstract":"Embarking on a close reading of Jenny Hval's 2018 novel, Paradise Rot, this paper sets out to unveil the utopic potential rooted in reimagining the body not as a self-contained being but as an intricate network extending beyond the confines of the skin. It challenges prevailing Western epistemologies that isolate humans, hierarchically distancing them from non-humans such as plants and animals. By taking up the literary conventions of gothic horror, the analysis focuses on the peculiar, co-dependent relationship of Paradise Rot's central characters: Carral and Johanna. As the women’s unsettling love affair unfolds, they become a symbiotic and mycorrhizal entity akin to the sprouting mushrooms inhabiting their dilapidated house.\u0000Exploring the metaphorical and tangible challenges posed by mushrooms, the paper underscores the interconnected, non-singular nature of fungal networks. Hval provocatively links the queerness of her main characters with fungi, both typically demonized as alien, contaminating, and freakish. This paper furthermore aligns these characteristics with queered figures from classic gothic horror, including the lesbian vampire and Susan Stryker’s transgendered Frankenstein. Together, these monstrous entities disturb the boundaries between the “natural” and the supernatural, the human and the non-human, the living and the dead.\u0000Marxists have drawn comparisons between the vampire’s parasitic need to feed on blood and capitalism’s exploitation of labor. Through the character of Carral, who I read as a femme vamp figure, I argue that vampires have redemptive qualities that illuminate our fundamental dependence on others to survive. Hval's novel illustrates the essential, confronting fact that we need one another, and more so than ever in precarious times. In the context of the climate crisis, neoliberal individualism, and ongoing economic instability, understanding our indebtedness to one another and our environments is crucial for planetary survival. Ties of care in late capitalist societies are complex, messy, and unequal, yet by recognizing our reliance on one another, we might, as scholar Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018) argues, realize a utopia where one’s dependence on others cannot, and need not, be concealed.","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"12 28","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction to the Special Section on the 2022 Utrecht Philosophy Graduate Conference","authors":"Dennis Jansen","doi":"10.33391/jgjh.195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.195","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":115950,"journal":{"name":"Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities","volume":"11 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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