Cary Wolfe
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226905136
- eISBN:
- 9780226905129
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226905129.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book examines contemporary notions of humanism and ethics by reconstructing a little-known but crucial underground tradition of theorizing the animal from Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Lyotard to ...
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This book examines contemporary notions of humanism and ethics by reconstructing a little-known but crucial underground tradition of theorizing the animal from Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Lyotard to Lévinas, Derrida, Maturana, and Varela. Through detailed readings of how discourses of race, sexuality, colonialism, and animality interact in twentieth-century American culture, the author explores what it means, in theory and critical practice, to take seriously “the question of the animal.”Less
This book examines contemporary notions of humanism and ethics by reconstructing a little-known but crucial underground tradition of theorizing the animal from Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Lyotard to Lévinas, Derrida, Maturana, and Varela. Through detailed readings of how discourses of race, sexuality, colonialism, and animality interact in twentieth-century American culture, the author explores what it means, in theory and critical practice, to take seriously “the question of the animal.”
Bruce Clarke
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816691005
- eISBN:
- 9781452949406
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691005.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This book rethinks narrative and media through systems theory. Reconceiving interrelations among subjects, media, significations, and the social, this study demonstrates second-order systems theory’s ...
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This book rethinks narrative and media through systems theory. Reconceiving interrelations among subjects, media, significations, and the social, this study demonstrates second-order systems theory’s potential to provide fresh insights into the familiar topics of media studies and narrative theory. This book offers a synthesis of the neocybernetic theories of cognition formulated by biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, incubated by cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster, and cultivated in Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory. From this foundation, it interrogates media theory and narrative theory through a critique of information theory in favor of autopoietic conceptions of cognition. Clarke’s purview includes examinations of novels (Mrs. Dalloway and Mind of My Mind), movies (Avatar, Memento, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and even Aramis, Bruno Latour’s idiosyncratic meditation on a failed plan for an automated subway.Less
This book rethinks narrative and media through systems theory. Reconceiving interrelations among subjects, media, significations, and the social, this study demonstrates second-order systems theory’s potential to provide fresh insights into the familiar topics of media studies and narrative theory. This book offers a synthesis of the neocybernetic theories of cognition formulated by biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, incubated by cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster, and cultivated in Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory. From this foundation, it interrogates media theory and narrative theory through a critique of information theory in favor of autopoietic conceptions of cognition. Clarke’s purview includes examinations of novels (Mrs. Dalloway and Mind of My Mind), movies (Avatar, Memento, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and even Aramis, Bruno Latour’s idiosyncratic meditation on a failed plan for an automated subway.
Suzi Adams
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234585
- eISBN:
- 9780823240739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234585.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Castoriadis's rethinking of the living being emerges as a central aspect of his shift to a trans-regional ontology of creative physis, but also as the site of relocation for the nomos/physis ...
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Castoriadis's rethinking of the living being emerges as a central aspect of his shift to a trans-regional ontology of creative physis, but also as the site of relocation for the nomos/physis problematic. Increasingly, Castoriadis began to characterize the living being as “self-creating” rather than “self-organizing” and redrew the demarcation between humans and non-humans more in terms of continuity (rather than discontinuity). However, he still maintained a line of discontinuity between human and non-human modes of being, as his rejection of Francisco Varela's notion of “biological autonomy” demonstrates. In rethinking the living being, Castoriadis developed what might be called a poly-regional ontology of the for-itself, which spans human and non-human regions. The living being inaugurates the level of the for-itself, by rupturing with non-living (that is, physical) regions of being, and creating what Castoriadis called the “subjective instance”; that is, putting the physical world into meaning. Common to each level of the for-itself, is the interrelation of imagination, world and meaning. In that the world manifests itself to the living being, Castoriadis extends—and radicalizes—conventional phenomenological approaches.Less
Castoriadis's rethinking of the living being emerges as a central aspect of his shift to a trans-regional ontology of creative physis, but also as the site of relocation for the nomos/physis problematic. Increasingly, Castoriadis began to characterize the living being as “self-creating” rather than “self-organizing” and redrew the demarcation between humans and non-humans more in terms of continuity (rather than discontinuity). However, he still maintained a line of discontinuity between human and non-human modes of being, as his rejection of Francisco Varela's notion of “biological autonomy” demonstrates. In rethinking the living being, Castoriadis developed what might be called a poly-regional ontology of the for-itself, which spans human and non-human regions. The living being inaugurates the level of the for-itself, by rupturing with non-living (that is, physical) regions of being, and creating what Castoriadis called the “subjective instance”; that is, putting the physical world into meaning. Common to each level of the for-itself, is the interrelation of imagination, world and meaning. In that the world manifests itself to the living being, Castoriadis extends—and radicalizes—conventional phenomenological approaches.
José Colmeiro
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781786940308
- eISBN:
- 9781786944399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940308.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter explores new conceptual models to approach the work of a new generation of experimental Galician filmmakers adopting a peripheral position, understood as a conceptual, ideological,and ...
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This chapter explores new conceptual models to approach the work of a new generation of experimental Galician filmmakers adopting a peripheral position, understood as a conceptual, ideological,and aesthetic positioning more than merely a geolocation, which questions the mainstream hegemonic values emanating from the center while aiming to bring visibility to the fringes. It examines the boom of the so called Novo Cinema Galego (New Galician Cinema), focusing on the border crossing and blending of fiction/documentary generic conventions, and analyses the most representative cases, such as Oliver Laxe, Xurxo Chirro, Lois Patiño, Peque Varela, Eloy Enciso, and Susana Rei.Less
This chapter explores new conceptual models to approach the work of a new generation of experimental Galician filmmakers adopting a peripheral position, understood as a conceptual, ideological,and aesthetic positioning more than merely a geolocation, which questions the mainstream hegemonic values emanating from the center while aiming to bring visibility to the fringes. It examines the boom of the so called Novo Cinema Galego (New Galician Cinema), focusing on the border crossing and blending of fiction/documentary generic conventions, and analyses the most representative cases, such as Oliver Laxe, Xurxo Chirro, Lois Patiño, Peque Varela, Eloy Enciso, and Susana Rei.
Thomas J. Shelley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823271511
- eISBN:
- 9780823271900
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823271511.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
In August 1839, Hughes buys 106 acres in Rose Hill for the future campus of St. John’s College. He spends nine months in Europe raising the $30,000 he could not obtain in New York. After obtaining a ...
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In August 1839, Hughes buys 106 acres in Rose Hill for the future campus of St. John’s College. He spends nine months in Europe raising the $30,000 he could not obtain in New York. After obtaining a state charter, Hughes celebrates the first real graduation in 1846.Less
In August 1839, Hughes buys 106 acres in Rose Hill for the future campus of St. John’s College. He spends nine months in Europe raising the $30,000 he could not obtain in New York. After obtaining a state charter, Hughes celebrates the first real graduation in 1846.
John Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262101264
- eISBN:
- 9780262276351
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262101264.003.0005
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
This chapter examines John von Neumann’s theory of self-reproducing automata and Christopher Langton’s self-reproducing digital loops. Langton’s theory of artificial life (ALife) as a new science ...
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This chapter examines John von Neumann’s theory of self-reproducing automata and Christopher Langton’s self-reproducing digital loops. Langton’s theory of artificial life (ALife) as a new science based on computer simulations whose theoretical underpinnings combine information theory with dynamical systems theory is contrasted with Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana’s theory of autopoiesis, which leads to a consideration of both natural and artificial immune systems and computer viruses.Less
This chapter examines John von Neumann’s theory of self-reproducing automata and Christopher Langton’s self-reproducing digital loops. Langton’s theory of artificial life (ALife) as a new science based on computer simulations whose theoretical underpinnings combine information theory with dynamical systems theory is contrasted with Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana’s theory of autopoiesis, which leads to a consideration of both natural and artificial immune systems and computer viruses.
Giovanna Colombetti
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262014601
- eISBN:
- 9780262289795
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014601.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter adopts two converging strategies in order to elaborate on the problematic view contending that emotion science tends to disregard the meaning-generating role of the body and to attribute ...
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This chapter adopts two converging strategies in order to elaborate on the problematic view contending that emotion science tends to disregard the meaning-generating role of the body and to attribute it only to separate abstract cognitive-evaluative processes. First, the idea of whole-organism-generated meaning is illustrated by drawing on the notion of sense-making in the autopoietic and adaptive system. The notion of sense-making maintained by Weber and Varela in 2002 and Di Paolo in 2005 is interpreted here as a bodily cognitive-emotional form of understanding that belongs to all living systems, and which is present in a primordial form even in the simplest ones. Arguments positing that modern emotion science overintellectualizes our capacity to evaluate and understand are then presented, showing that this overintellectualization goes hand in hand with the rejection of the idea that the nonneural body is a vehicle of meaning.Less
This chapter adopts two converging strategies in order to elaborate on the problematic view contending that emotion science tends to disregard the meaning-generating role of the body and to attribute it only to separate abstract cognitive-evaluative processes. First, the idea of whole-organism-generated meaning is illustrated by drawing on the notion of sense-making in the autopoietic and adaptive system. The notion of sense-making maintained by Weber and Varela in 2002 and Di Paolo in 2005 is interpreted here as a bodily cognitive-emotional form of understanding that belongs to all living systems, and which is present in a primordial form even in the simplest ones. Arguments positing that modern emotion science overintellectualizes our capacity to evaluate and understand are then presented, showing that this overintellectualization goes hand in hand with the rejection of the idea that the nonneural body is a vehicle of meaning.
Marjorie Levinson
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198810315
- eISBN:
- 9780191864841
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198810315.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 3 pursues Chapter 2’s immanent critique of the new historicism. Whereas new historicism’s bedrock is epistemology—questions about the domain of rationality—metaphysics is the province of ...
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Chapter 3 pursues Chapter 2’s immanent critique of the new historicism. Whereas new historicism’s bedrock is epistemology—questions about the domain of rationality—metaphysics is the province of questions about reality. The change in Romantic poetry crystallizes in effects that resist our codes not through denial, displacement, or repression—the conditions for a hermeneutics of suspicion—but through something like indifference. We see a new kind of negativity. This version of Romanticism verges on withdrawal from the scene of interpretation, resistance to the depth hermeneutics of earlier Marxist criticism. It is enabled by Spinoza’s theory of conatus; the work of Sebastiano Timpanaro, whose Marxist historicism arises from the nature and biology side; and the notion of autopoeisis of neurophysiologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The relevant patterns in Romantic poetry are then illustrated through a reading of Wordsworth’s “Old Man Travelling: Animal Tranquillity and Decay.”Less
Chapter 3 pursues Chapter 2’s immanent critique of the new historicism. Whereas new historicism’s bedrock is epistemology—questions about the domain of rationality—metaphysics is the province of questions about reality. The change in Romantic poetry crystallizes in effects that resist our codes not through denial, displacement, or repression—the conditions for a hermeneutics of suspicion—but through something like indifference. We see a new kind of negativity. This version of Romanticism verges on withdrawal from the scene of interpretation, resistance to the depth hermeneutics of earlier Marxist criticism. It is enabled by Spinoza’s theory of conatus; the work of Sebastiano Timpanaro, whose Marxist historicism arises from the nature and biology side; and the notion of autopoeisis of neurophysiologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The relevant patterns in Romantic poetry are then illustrated through a reading of Wordsworth’s “Old Man Travelling: Animal Tranquillity and Decay.”
