Matter and Sense in Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense: Against the ‘Ism’ in Speculative Realism

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-496
Author(s):  
James Williams
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Speculative Realism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Independent Reality

I argue against the use of general ‘ism’ terms such as ‘speculative realism’ and ‘correlationism’ by Harman. This use is contrasted with more nuanced readings of philosophers, referring to Bryant and DeLanda’s more subtle versions of materialism that do not fit the general label. Instead of general categories I defend Deleuze’s use of the concept of problem as studied by Bell. This argument is then developed through a close reading of Logic of Sense, against Harman’s denial of the reality of relations and processes. I demonstrate that Deleuze is not a correlationist as defined by Harman, by following Sauvagnargues, Smith and Beistegui on the concepts of event and simulacrum in Logic of Sense. I then consider Deleuze’s study of language and his argument that designation, signification and manifestation rely on the concept of sense. This argument leads to a position which is neither idealism, nor materialism, because the differential processes at work in sense cannot be reduced to matter or to the subject, working instead between them and denying their independent reality.

scholarly journals An attempt at clarifying Maximus the Confesor’s remarks on (the fate of) sexual difference in Ambiguum 41

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-203
Author(s):  
Sotiris Mitralexis
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
As If

Maximus the Confessor?s Ambiguum 41 contains some rather atypical observations concerning the distinction of sexes in the human person. There is a certain ambiguity as to whether the distinction of the sexes was intended by God and is ?by nature? (as found in Genesis and asserted by most Church Fathers) or a product of the Fall. Namely, Christ is described three times as ?shaking out of nature the distinctive characteristics of male and female?, ?driving out of nature the difference and division of male and female? and ?removing the difference between male and female?. Different readings of those passages engender important implications that can be drawn out from the Confessor?s thought, both eschatological implications and otherwise. The subject has been picked up by Cameron Partridge, Doru Costache and Karolina Kochanczyk-Boninska, among others, but is by no means settled, as they draw quite different conclusions. The noteworthy and far-reaching implications of Maximus? theological stance and problems are not the object of this paper. In a 2017 paper I attempted to demonstrate what Maximus exactly says in these peculiar and oft-commented passages through a close reading, in order to avoid a two-edged Maximian misunderstanding: to either draw overly radical implications from those passages, projecting decidedly non-Maximian visions on the historical Maximus, or none at all, as if those passages represented standard Patristic positions. Here, I am revisiting this argument, given that the interest in what the Confessor has to say on the subject seems to be increasing.

scholarly journals Moutinho, Isabel. The Colonial Wars in Contemporary Portuguese Fiction. Woodbridge, UK: Tamesis, 2008.

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Rothwell
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Subject ◽  
University Setting ◽  
Original Approach

Moutinho’s work combines such an original approach to the subject with such rigorous and thoughtful referencing of secondary criticism that I cannot envision teaching or writing about any of these works again without drawing heavily on her contribution. Indeed, the book is structured perfectly so that readers can focus on only the particular close reading in which they are interested on any occasion, while following a logical, narrative flow that entices them to begin at the beginning and read right through to the end. Its usefulness, particularly in the anglophone university setting, is both as the first monograph in English to tackle the subject, and also because of the meticulous way in which Moutinho explains cultural references and intertextual allusions, revealing an immense erudition in Comparative Literature.

Alternative Literary Modernities: A Voice from Colonial Punjab

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Arti Minocha
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Language Content

Abstract This paper looks at the formation of colonial print publics in Punjab, the gendered subjectivities that emerged in this new discursive space, and middle-class women’s deployment of print to articulate the self. This will be done through a close reading of one of the first novels in English, Cosmopolitan Hinduani, which was published in Lahore, Punjab, by a woman in 1902. The essay examines the narrator’s notion of a gendered cosmopolitanism and the subject position that it affords, her attempt at going beyond the fault lines of religion to articulate a liberal and modern political subject, while reworking the cosmopolitan/local binary. How does her insertion of herself as a gendered subject in the provincial, national, cosmopolitan imaginary reflect in the author’s choice of language and genre? My attempt will be to see the novel and its author as part of a literary culture in which she made certain choices about the form, language, content, and audience.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Lena Cowen Orlin
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Textual Practices ◽  
Parallel Lives ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natal Family

To introduce both the subject of the book and its methodological approach, the Introduction takes up the case study of the date of Shakespeare’s baptism: 26 April 1564. Those who want to believe that the national poet was born on the national feast day (23 April, or St George’s Day), have compiled ‘evidence’ to prove it, but under close analysis the evidence disintegrates. We know his day of baptism but cannot know his birthday. Much of Shakespeare’s biography has been built out of similar ‘evidence clusters’. The book interrogates many of these old clusters and also assembles new ones. This involves close reading familiar historical documents contextually, referring to other examples from the same record classes to show how their conventions and textual practices shape their meaning. A further strategy is to include mini-biographies for some of Shakespeare’s cognates in Stratford-upon-Avon, the stories of parallel lives through which we can learn more about his own. The chapter also introduces the members of Shakespeare’s natal family.

Ambivalent images of birth in Psalm vii 15

2005 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Grohmann
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Birth Process ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Oriented Approach

AbstractIn this article Psalm vii 15 is analysed by means of close reading, interaction theories of metaphor and a reader-oriented approach, including Jewish medieval commentaries. The very fabric of Psalm vii 15 is made up of the tension between the constructive image of birth and the destructive aspects of the wicked. The verse does not correspond to the expectations of the reader: e.g. the sequence of stages in the birth process is unusual: labour—pregnancy—birth; the birth process is described with masculine verbs, and it is not clear who the subject is. Ps. vii 15 is an example of the fact that concrete and abstract features often go together in biblical metaphors. The presentation of the enemies' negative features in personified images of birth makes them more drastic. It reduces the possible connotations of birth to its negative aspects. Using birth as a negative image, the text shows something of the ambivalence of birth.

The memetic molester: Creating and characterising the child sex abuser through digital humour and transgressive media through a close reading analysis of Pedobear

First Monday ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethany Rose Lamont
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
North American ◽  
Youth Culture ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Reading Study

The paper consists of an interdisciplinary close reading analysis of the 4chan character of Pedobear as an example of transgressive humour surrounding traumatic subjects in interactive online media. The character and its various applications, from simple knock-knock style jokes, pranks against an ignorant outsider public, countercultural consumption and even as an accusation of real-world abuse, are examined here. The close reading study locates the subject within a broader context of the insider currency of the shocking and taboo subject for white, masculinist, North American youth culture communities both online and off.

Bad cops and true detectives: The horror of police and the unthinkable world

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis Linnemann
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Police Power ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
Speculative Realism ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ontological Position

The first season of the HBO series True Detective has drawn attention to Eugene Thacker’s horror of philosophy trilogy and his tripartite mode of thinking of the world and the subject’s relation to it. This article is an effort to read Thacker’s speculative realism into a critique of the police power. Where the police concept is vital to sustaining the Cartesian world-for-us, a world of mass-consumption and brutal privation, the limitations, failures or absence of police might also reveal horizons of disorder—primitivism, anarchism—the world-in-itself. A critical reading of True Detective and other police stories suggests that even its most violent and corrupt forms, as inseparable from security, law and order, the police power is never beyond redemption. What is rendered unthinkable then is the third ontological position—a world-without-police—as it exposes the frailties of the present social order and the challenges of thinking outside the subject.

scholarly journals Three contrasting colors in the kaleidoscope of Taras Shevchenko’s diary: “Radiant,” “Hardly-forgettable” and “Liubitsa”

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Dmytro Yesypenko
Keyword(s):  
Russian Empire ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Positive Image ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Architectural Development ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The One ◽  
Alternative Reading

The subject of this paper is Taras Shevchenko’s attitude towards the key personalities – Mykhailo Shchepkin, Nicholas I, and Yekaterina Piunova – as reflected in his diary (also called “The Journal”). The goal is to focus on the author’s characteristics of these people, those that illuminate his own personality too. Although there are a number of studies on the poet’s contacts with them, quite a few important details still remain unclear and unexplained. Another pertinent issue is dubious theses and interpretations, which have become widespread in academic discourse. Thus, the article proposes possible answers to a number of problematic issues in the studies of Shevchenko’s biography. It covers the formation of an almost entirely positive image of Shchepkin, the expressions of the author’s respect and affection to him, that were misunderstood by researchers. The paper also emphasizes Shevchenko’s authorship of the bright expression “neudobozabyvaemyi Tormoz” [hardly-forgettable brake/slowpoke], the one attached to the most negative character of the diary, Tsar Nicholas I. It explains the accuracy of the author’s notes about the monarch’s influence on the architectural development of the cities in the Russian Empire. Particular attention is paid to the prospects of research of those events and plots that, for various reasons, were virtually never mentioned in “The Journal.” I propose an explanation for the fact why Shevchenko did not provide lengthier feedback on his train ride, this new experience for him. The article also talks about the most controversial figure in the diary, namely Piunova. I suggest an alternative reading and etymology for one of the epithets addressed to her, that speaks in favor of the poet’s linguistic competencies and creativity. The emerging result of the research is the clarification of a few episodes of the poet’s biography and his relationship with the mentioned persons. The article demonstrates the productivity of a comprehensive examination of the text both at its macro- and micro-levels. This novel approach combining “distant” and “close” reading can be successfully used for investigation of other Shevchenko contacts and personalities mentioned in his diary.

scholarly journals THE PHENOMENON OF DISRUPTED COMMUNICATION IN THE NOVEL “EFFI BRIEST” BY THEODOR FONTANE AND IN THE FILM ADAPTATION BY RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER: SPEECH AND GESTURE

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-72
Author(s):  
Александра Владимировна Елисеева
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Film Adaptations ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Theodor Fontane ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Hierarchical Relationship ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Effi Briest

The subject of this article’s comparative intermedial analysis is the phenomenon of disrupted communication in the novel by the German writer Theodor Fontane “Effi Briest” (1895) and in the film adaptation of this work by Rainer Werner Fassbinder “Fontane Effi Briest” (1974). The article consists of five parts: 1) introduction; 2) analysis of dialogues in Fontane’s novel; 3) description of the means of creating the effect of disrupted communication in Fassbinder’s film; 4) comparative analysis of some fragments of two works by the method of close reading; 5) conclusions. Methodologically, the research is based on the achievements of the theory of communication, carpalistics, comparative and intermedial approaches to the study of film adaptations. The main point of the article is that the effect of disrupted communication, which is observed in numerous dialogues of Fontane’s novel, is also created by visual means in Fassbinder’s film, among which a significant place is occupied by a gesture. The gesture of turning away deserves special attention: the characters of the film turn away from each other, turn their backs to the interlocutor and the viewer, turn to their reflection. The unconventionality and intensity of such gestures accentuate the problematic nature of communication between the characters. This structure, peripheral in Fontane’s work, becomes central in the film of Fassbinder, grasping the viewers’ attention. In this regard, the article adds to a traditional discussion about the hierarchical relationship between a literary text and its film adaptation.

scholarly journals Critical Dystopia: Local Narrative in the Threshold in Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-194
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
System Structure ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
Critical Orientation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Knowledge Memory ◽  
Critical Dystopia

This study is an exploration of critical dystopia within a postmodern context. Literary and historical viewpoints associate dystopia with the failed utopia of twentieth-century totalitarianism manifested in regimes of extreme coercion, inequality, and slavery. Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan, of whose perspective this study makes use, theorize that critical dystopia provides a potential for change through rejecting the traditional dystopian ending marked by the subjugation of the individual. Problematizing critical dystopia further, the study proposes that the critical orientation of this sub-genre originates mainly from the “local narrative” of a subject whose agency generates from his position in the “threshold” between those in and under control, combined with the “counter-conducts” he uses to acquire knowledge, memory, and awakened consciousness. As a full agent, the subject resists the “utopian” “metanarrative” of an oppressive system/structure and offers possibilities of meaning in a process of “différance” which entails a potential for change. This proposition is clarified through the close reading of Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia (2011; first published in Arabic in 2008). The novel is discussed as a critical dystopian text in which Gaber, the subject in the “threshold,” opposes the totalitarian regime of Utopia in his “local narrative.”

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