Beyond subject-making: Conflicting humanisms, class analysis, and the “dark side” of Gramscian political ecology

This article examines conflicting conceptualizations of the human subject in political ecology and geography: Foucauldian views of “subject-making” and Gramscian views of “the person”. While Foucauldian work holds that the more complete exertion of power, the more coherent subject-making, Gramscian historical–geographical perspectives counter that, the more complete exertion of power, the more incoherent persons and their class-based collectivities. Outlining incongruities between these approaches, I argue that the “dark side” of Gramscian political ecology—with its emphasis on incoherence and fracture–allows geographers new nuance in understanding the human subject, although not without challenges to the actual writing of such scholarship.

Trajective Locomotion

This chapter examines the perceptual and aesthetic properties of the “follow shot,” a tracking shot that follows a human subject on foot from behind. Analyzing two films that conspicuously explore the follow shot as their core stylistic principle, Alan Clarke’s Elephant (1989) and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003), this chapter shows how the formal properties of the follow shot—the camera’s forward movement, its denial of the subject’s face, and its sense of being tethered to its subject—are crucial to each film’s meditation on violence and human agency. By visually emphasizing the forward movement of its subjects while denying access to their interiorities (via the face), the follow shot attunes its viewers to its subject’s agency as a sense of pure “towardness” devoid of psychological insight, an effect the chapter calls “trajectivity.” Such a mode of representing subjectivity, the chapter argues, opposes cinematic traditions that rely on a seamless relation between psychological motivation, human expression, and human action. In doing so, the chapter offers a revised film theoretical account of the relation between camera movement, expression, and ethics.

The Effect of Genders on the Perception of the Combined Effect of Local Discomfort Parameters

If the draught and the radiant thermal asymmetry caused by the warm ceiling appear simultaneously, will women and men be affected in the same way? This research aims to answer this question, by clarifying the understanding of the joint mechanism of action of the two local discomfort factors with the help of instrumental and human subject measurements. The most important result of the present research is identifying that if PPD < 6%, radiant thermal asymmetry varies in the range of 5–15 °C and the draught rate DR = 15% or DR = 25%, then at a given range of the interval men are significantly more dissatisfied with warm ceilings than women; women’s AMV votes are significantly lower than men's; In the case of DR = 15%, the work accuracy of women is significantly higher, while in the case of men, the work accuracy is higher at DR = 25%.

Integrating neural and ocular attention reorienting signals in virtual reality

Objective. Reorienting is central to how humans direct attention to different stimuli in their environment. Previous studies typically employ well-controlled paradigms with limited eye and head movements to study the neural and physiological processes underlying attention reorienting. Here, we aim to better understand the relationship between gaze and attention reorienting using a naturalistic virtual reality (VR)-based target detection paradigm. Approach. Subjects were navigated through a city and instructed to count the number of targets that appeared on the street. Subjects performed the task in a fixed condition with no head movement and in a free condition where head movements were allowed. Electroencephalography (EEG), gaze and pupil data were collected. To investigate how neural and physiological reorienting signals are distributed across different gaze events, we used hierarchical discriminant component analysis (HDCA) to identify EEG and pupil-based discriminating components. Mixedeffects general linear models (GLM) were used to determine the correlation between these discriminating components and the different gaze events time. HDCA was also used to combine EEG, pupil and dwell time signals to classify reorienting events. Main results. In both EEG and pupil, dwell time contributes most significantly to the reorienting signals. However, when dwell times were orthogonalized against other gaze events, the distributions of the reorienting signals were different across the two modalities, with EEG reorienting signals leading that of the pupil reorienting signals. We also found that the hybrid classifier that integrates EEG, pupil and dwell time features detects the reorienting signals in both the fixed (AUC = 0.79) and the free (AUC = 0.77) condition. Significance. We show that the neural and ocular reorienting signals are distributed differently across gaze events when a subject is immersed in VR, but nevertheless can be captured and integrated to classify target vs. distractor objects to which the human subject orients.

Outrageous: Defending the art of free expression

This essay makes a critical defence of free expression through the spirit of outrageousness. Drawing upon the ideas of Oscar Wilde, along with artists such as Frida Kahlo, Francis Bacon, Gilbert and George and Jake and Dinos Chapman, it looks beyond the current attempts to reduce the question of freedom to quintessential liberal tropes. In doing so, the paper both offers a critique of the moral absolutism that’s taken over certain sectors of the so-called ‘radical left’, while demanding more political appreciation for creatives and those with the abilities to reimagine the human subject. Such a critique not only suggests the need to rethink the meaning for freedom beyond the play of libertarians, but it also calls forth a new political subjectivity who appears timely and yet timeless – the much maligned and theoretically ignored figure of the infidel, who allows us to break free from moral entrapments.

‘To Speak of Cattle is to Speak of Man’: Anthroparchal Interactions in John Connell’s The Farmer’s Son

“To Speak of Cattle is to Speak of Man”: Anthroparchal Interactions in John Connell’s The Farmer’s Son. The present paper intends to build a critique of contemporary farming practices, based on Erika Cudworth’s theory of “anthroparchy.” By exemplifying how anthroparchal interactions function in John Connell’s memoir, I will outline the becoming of a posthuman farmer that awakens certain sensibilities towards nonhuman animals, in ways that compel a rethinking of gendered relations, patriarchy, violence, and capitalist interests. The analysis provides a needed insight into recent developments in Irish rural farming, detailing the position of the human subject in relation to nonhuman otherness and describing some of the changes that need to be made regarding the power relations that are at work within patriarchal systems. To this extent, Cudworth’s theoretical framework and Connell’s memoir are proven to be contributing to the necessary restructuring of farming practices and of human-nonhuman interactions. Keywords: anthroparchy, posthumanism, gender relations, zoomorphism, capitalism, farming

„Na dwu i na czterech łapach”. Eseistyka nieantropocentryczna i pisarstwo Michała Cichego

The starting point for the discussion presented in the article is the question whether it is possible and reasonable to distinguish the non-anthropocentric essay. The author refers to the latest genological findings, indicates why the assumed descriptive categories make it difficult to recognise that genre, and then formulates a range of counter-arguments (with a particular focus on subjectivity) and defines certain requirements for the non-anthropocentric essay. The later part of the article is devoted to the work of Michał Cichy as an example of a non-representative embodiment of that form. His essays, related to the concepts by Tim Ingold and Tadeusz Sławek, are examined from the angle of the practice of intertwining the open world, which abolishes the hitherto dominating position of the human subject and creates space for non-anthropocentric expression.