The Voice and the Gaze as ‘objet petit a’

Repression of the Real is a function of the coming-into-being of the Symbolic Order. That which is repressed resurfaces in the Symbolic, thereby threatening its order. What resurfaces is the non-repressible remainder, an excess that can neither be conceptualized nor can be eliminated. This remainder of the Real is what Lacan refers to as objet petit a or simply objet a. Objet is French for object, petit is French for small, and a is the first letter in the French autre, meaning other. In casual English translation, therefore, the objet a is essentially the small other. For Lacan, the objet a is a signifier of the Real that is lost in the process of symbolic constitution of the subject which resurfaces in the Symbolic Order. Its name is a misnomer in that it is not an object at all. It is rather a non-object because what is originarily lost is nothing—the original loss or the lost object is only a retroactive construction. And it is this loss that becomes the cause of desire, precisely because of the fact as a loss/lack it provides the necessary immaterial basis for desire—we desire what we have lost or currently lack. In other words, objet a is the object-cause of desire. It is equivalent of the partial object in Freud. Freud speaks of three partial objects—namely, breasts, faeces, and phallus; in Lacan, we find two more—namely, the voice and the gaze. This paper examines the voice and the gaze as objet a in Lacan.

Common and distinct predictors of non-symbolic and symbolic ordinal number processing across the early primary school years

What are the cognitive mechanisms supporting non-symbolic and symbolic order processing? Preliminary evidence suggests that non-symbolic and symbolic order processing are partly distinct constructs. The precise mechanisms supporting these skills, however, are still unclear. Moreover, predictive patterns may undergo dynamic developmental changes during the first years of formal schooling. This study investigates the contribution of theoretically relevant constructs (non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude comparison, counting and storage and manipulation components of verbal and visuo-spatial working memory) to performance and developmental change in non-symbolic and symbolic numerical order processing. We followed 157 children longitudinally from Grade 1 to 3. In the order judgement tasks, children decided whether or not triplets of dots or digits were arranged in numerically ascending order. Non-symbolic magnitude comparison and visuo-spatial manipulation were significant predictors of initial performance in both non-symbolic and symbolic ordering. In line with our expectations, counting skills contributed additional variance to the prediction of symbolic, but not of non-symbolic ordering. Developmental change in ordering performance from Grade 1 to 2 was predicted by symbolic comparison skills and visuo-spatial manipulation. None of the predictors explained variance in developmental change from Grade 2 to 3. Taken together, the present results provide robust evidence for a general involvement of pair-wise magnitude comparison and visuo-spatial manipulation in numerical ordering, irrespective of the number format. Importantly, counting-based mechanisms appear to be a unique predictor of symbolic ordering. We thus conclude that there is only a partial overlap of the cognitive mechanisms underlying non-symbolic and symbolic order processing.

The Devil and His Body

This chapter begins to consider Augustine’s perception of the history of Rome and its false gods as the history of the demons themselves, as the most profound works of demons are not individual miracles but the religious institutions of the earthly city. The demons’ fall away from God produces a rival symbolic order to Christ’s angelic ministers, one which manifests in a corporate opposition to Christ’s body. The contrary referents of the work of angels and demons correspond to contrary sacraments, which constitute contrary historical bodies: the body of Christ, which is identified with the church in Augustine’s doctrine of totus Christus, and the body of the devil, the exemplar of which, for Augustine, is pagan Rome. Augustine’s understanding of the earthly city is informed by a concept of disordered, demonic sacraments, and the paradigm for this is his discussion of Hermetic ‘god-making’. In this paradigm, human myths and artefacts manifest a demonic sacramental regime when they are elevated to divine status and given cult, a euhemeristic movement that demons both receive as worship and confirm with wonders.

Écriture Feminine and the Poetry of Langston Hughes

This paper attempts to locate Hughes’s poetic diction as Ecriture feminine since like feminist poetry the diction of his poetry is rebellious and questions the hierarchical structure of society where White people hold more power and promote the idea of racial superiority. His desire to express the angst of the Blacks finds currency in the definition and explication of feminine writing. The focus of this paper will be on analysis of the poetry of Langston Hughes in the light of ecriture feminine in order to show how Hughes counters hegemony’s repressive rhetoric, challenges the loss of agency through the language of the dominant class and recreates another symbolic order.

The Inherent Link between Gender and Sexuality: A Queer View to the Portrayal of Women in Herland, Things Fall Apart, Bombay Brides, and The Winner Stands Alone

Stevie Jackson and Jackie Jones regarded in her article- Contemporary Feminist Theory that “The concepts of gender and sexuality as a highly ambiguous term, as a point of reference” (Jackson, 131, ch-10). Gender and Sexuality are two most complexly designed, culturally constructed and ambiguously interrelated terms used within the spectrum of Feminism that considers “sex” as an operative term to theorize its deconstructive cultural perspectives. Helene Cixous notes in Laugh of Medusa that men and women enter the symbolic order in a different way and the subject position open to either sex is different. Cixious’s understanding that the centre of the symbolic order is ‘phallus’ and everybody surrounding it stands in the periphery makes women (without intersectionality) as the victim of this phallocentric society. One needs to stop thinking Gender as inherently linked to one’s sex and that it is natural. To say, nothing is natural. The body is just a word (as Judith Butler said in her book Gender Trouble [1990]) that is strategically used under artificial rules for the convenience of ‘power’ to operate. It has been a “norm” to connect one’s sexuality with their Gender and establish that as “naturally built”. The dichotomy of ‘penis/vagina’ over years has linked itself to make/female understanding of bodies. Therefore my main argument in this paper is to draw few instances from some literary works which over time reflected how the gender- female/women characters are made to couple up with a male/man presenting the inherent, coherent compulsory relation between one’s gender and sexuality obliterating any possibility of ‘queer’ relationships, includes- Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915), Bombay Brides (2018) by Esther David, Paulo Coelho’s Winner Stands Alone (2008) and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall apart (1958).

A Dialectical Relationship of Hegemony and Language in Marxism: Gramsci, Voloshynov, Pasolini

The article deals with three patterns for interpretation of language in its relation to the cultural hegemony, i.e. Gramscian, Voloshinian, and Pasolinian. As was shown, the analysis of the language problem is the necessary precondition for justifying the unity of theoretical and practical elements within Marxist philosophy. A common feature for the aforementioned patterns was an attempt to answer a fundamental question: how it is possible to make explicit the relationship between ideology and relations of production by means of the materialist dialectics. A refusal to fetishize language as a particular essence, a revealing that any sign systems are mediated by ideologies, and elaboration of a nonSaussurian structure of language are the core results of the proposed analysis. The starting point for the reflections of the mentioned thinkers was a tenet that communication in the state is determined by how much the institutions of power are able to bring the interests of society under control without disturbing the balance between the political body and the existing social forces. Thus, an ideology plays in two guises: as a symbolic order of legitimation on the society’s part and as a framing the growth of cultural forms. A distinction between the written and the spoken language becomes a politically significant tool to undermine the hegemony, for a balance between the political and the social, between the coercion and the approval, is widely open to fluctuations. Hence is the problem Marxist theorists have tried to solve: how can it be found out, with an examination of statements in non-political contexts, what someone talks of is a part of her political interest. The Marxist thinkers solved it in various ways. For instance, Gramsci focused himself on the reasons of making of the Italian literary canon; Voloshinov considered the proposition that in linguistics a formalism, as well as psychologism, following from a claim that semantics and means of expression are politically independent; and Pasolini sketched the difference between the spoken language, the spoken-written language, and the purely oral language, with unequal subjects of them.

PADDY FIELD CONVERSION IN INDONESIA IN A CONTEMPORARY GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE: A CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW OF HUMAN-NATURE DIALECTICS

Experts from various perspectives have widely reviewed the patterns, processes, reasons, and impacts of paddy field conversion. However, most of these reviews tend to understand paddy fields from the physical-material dimension. By using the perspective of contemporary geography, this paper provides a critical conceptual overview of the conversion of paddy fields through the elaboration of human-nature dialectic as a central theme in the discipline of geography. The dialectic also contains identity, spatial awareness, and spatial-symbolic order issues that affect the existence of farmers and their paddy fields. This critical review results in the argument that the relationship between farmers and paddy fields represents a spatial-symbolic order that contains values, enthusiasm, identity, and living traditions. The identity and existence of farmers are part of the existence of paddy fields. Paddy fields have become part of the minds and consciousness of the farmers. The conversion of paddy fields will reduce the eco-cultural relations in this order and replace it with a capitalistic system.Keywords: contemporary geography, human-nature dialectic, paddy field conversion, spatial-symbolic order, sustainable agriculture

KRITIK ARAFAT NUR TERHADAP TATANAN SIMBOLIK DAN SUBJEK DALAM NOVEL BURUNG TERBANG DI KELAM MALAM

In the creation of literary works, either consciously or unconsciously the author will always insert his ideology. The insertion of the ideology can be seen from the criticisms delivered by the author. Literary works are a medium for the author to convey a critique of the reality that occurs, be it religious, social, cultural, political and other criticisms. But that becomes interesting when the author tries to open up an unconscious reality, opening up the decay of a system of power that will eventually become cynicism and submit to an ideological order. In this study, Arafat Nur's novel Burung Terbang di Kelam Malam was chosen to prove this ideological fantasy. The problem contained in this study is (1) What is the symbolic order of acehnese people in the novel Burung Terbang di Kelam Malam? (2) What is Arafat Nur's criticism of the subject (Acehnese) in the novel Burung Terbang di Kelam Malam? To answer that question, the theory used was an authentic subject and ideological fantasy introduced by Slavoj Zizek and analyzed with descriptive analytical methodology. The results of this study prove that, firstly, the symbolic order (Islamic Sharia as the identity of Aceh) failed to form a radical subject. Although the subject has relinquished the symbolic order that shackled him all along, he remains returning to the new symbolic order. The subjects who are still in power of the Big Other will never escape from the order that subjected them. The subject will not be able to reach the Real, because they cannot discuss it so the subject desires to fulfill Che Vuoi's call?, unconsciously the subject commits ideological fantasies. Second, the subject of fantasizing the ideology of Islamism (Islamic sharia) that desires the achievement of spirituality instead leads it to capitalism. Not just the subject (the character in the novel). Arafat Nur as an author was also caught up in capitalism so his attempts to go radical ended in failure.

"When will my reflection show who I am inside?": Queering Disney Fantasy

In this thesis, I argue that the treatment and seemingly progressive representation of gender and queer identity in Disney films serves merely as a form of baiting to modern audiences, a baiting that suggests Disney wants to be understood as having embraced the ideas of progressive feminism and "homosexually-inclusive" ideologies, only to undermine and disavow them with a "bait and switch" narrative maneuvering that undercuts the film's ostensible message. I analyze and interpret the ways in which "classic" Disney animated features represent gender and sexual identity binaries through a close reading of Bambi (1942), Mulan (1998), and Frozen (2013). I bring together Lacan's notion of the "mirror stage," the Symbolic order, and the idea that at the heart of identity lies a fundamental misrecognition, which leaves children especially vulnerable to the "hail" of ideology as it informs nearly the entirety of a child's headspace. Today, gender and sexual binaries are challenged at every level, and Disney seems to have embraced this progressive trend. Yet the lack of proper representation of LGBTQ characters and the negative subsequent treatment of those allowed to be seen in its films complicates this evolutionary progress that Disney claims it has achieved.