Residual Aesthetics: Rethinking Zoran Todorović’s Warmth Against the Benchmark of the Anthropocene

This paper focuses on Charlotte Wood’s 2015 dystopian novel The Natural Way of Things. Set in an unnamed place in the Australian outback, it recounts the story of 10 girls in their late teens and early twenties who are kept prisoners by a mysterious corporate organisation for their sexual involvement with an array of powerful men. The novel’s title invites two main readings: the first, and perhaps more obvious, along gender lines; and the second, which will provide the backbone to my analysis, within the framework of the natural world, the animal kingdom in particular. The Natural Way of Things has been described as a study in contemporary misogyny and the workings of patriarchy. The ingrained sexism of society—the insidious, normalised violence against females, often blamed on them, glossing over male responsibility—is undoubtedly the central topic of Wood’s work. Without losing sight of gender issues, my approach to Wood’s novel is inspired by Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman theories on the continuum nature–culture and the primacy of zoe—“the non-human, vital force of life”—over bios, or life as “the prerogative of Anthropos” (Rosi Braidotti). According to Braidotti, the current challenges to anthropocentrism question the distinction between these two forms of life, highlighting instead the seamless connection between the natural world and culture and favouring a consideration of the subject as embodied, nomadic and relational. My reading of The Natural Way of Things in light of Braidotti’s insights will be supplemented by an analysis of the novel in the context of transmodernity, both a period term and a distinct way of being in the world theorised by critics such as Rosa M. Rodríguez Magda and Marc Luyckx, who emphasise the relational, interdependent nature of contemporary times from a more human-centred perspective. The Natural Way of Things is also a story of female empowerment. This is especially the case with Yolanda Kovacs and Verla Learmont, the two protagonist women, who step out of their roles as victims and stand up to their guards. My analysis of the novel will revolve around these two characters and their different reactions to confinement and degradation. I conclude that although a more zoe-centred conception of the human subject that acknowledges the human–animal continuum should definitely be welcomed, literally “becoming animal”, as Yolanda does, deprives one of meaningful human relationality, embodied in the novel in Verla’s memories of her caring, empathic relationship with her father.

This thesis intends to uncover new forms of humanism grounded in a critique of the systems that produce and reify race and gender, by staging a conversation between six works of contemporary science fiction (SF) and five acclaimed theorists in gender, queer, postcolonial, humanist, and cultural studies. I engage in a reading of Jennifer Marie Brissett’s Elysium, Nicoletta Vallorani’s Sulla Sabbia di Sur and Il Cuore Finto di DR, works from Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya Universe series, Elia Barcelo’s Consecuencias Naturales, and Historias del Crazy Bar, a collection of short stories co-authored by Lola Robles and Maria Concepcion Regueiro, alongside the critical theory of Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul Gilroy, and Jack Halberstam. I focus on Butler’s conception of subjects who ‘become’ through affective encounters, Braidotti’s critical posthumanism, Spivak and Gilroy’s respective notions of ‘planetarity,’ and Halberstam’s theory of a ‘queer art of failure.’ These theorisations, chosen for their congruence with key themes from my primary sources of SF, are employed to demonstrate what I view as the complementarity of academic and science fictional enquiries into new forms of humanism that arise through interrogations of systems of race and gender. This thesis contends that women’s utopian SF has, since the seventeenth century, played an important role in the dissemination of nuanced debates regarding issues of race and gender to a wider public.

The article shows the relationship between philosophical thought and feminist art in terms of searching for subjectivity in women’s creations. This is a review of the theories proposed by Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and by Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, and Rosi Braidotti, which, as this article proves, manifest themselves in the art that defines itself as feminist. Monstrosity is an important prospect here. The author presents écriture féminine and women’s literature, namely Charlotte Roche’s Wet Places and Izabela Filipiak’s Total Amnesia. Moreover, visual arts by Cindy Sherman, Chili Kumari Burman, Jo Spece, as well as a performance by Carolee Schneemann and ORLAN are discussed.

This Special Issue of Humanities comes at a time when the viability of the humanities are challenged on numerous fronts. [...]

Zoe‐philic Desires: Wet media art and beyond

Frankenstein Redux

The article offers reflections on Rosi Braidotti’s book “Posthuman”, which was published in 2021 by the Gaidar Institute Publishing House (translator Diana Khamis). Rosi Braidotti is a contemporary philosopher and feminist theorist, originally from Italy, currently teaching at the Utrecht University (Netherlands). Despite her connection with significant international organizations and associations (including UNESCO, Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, European Consortium for Humanities Institutes and Centres, EEC) and the role that her research plays in contemporary social and humanitarian discourse, her name is not widely known to the Russian-speaking reader in comparison to other authors of feminist trend, such as Judith Butler or Donna Haraway. Rosi Braidotti’s interest is directed towards the reflections on the subjectivity of a contemporary person. Based on critical theory, the project of nomadology, feminist studies, and using her own anti-humanistic optics, she affirms the idea of a posthuman who has a developing identity, overcomes anthropocentric limits in its essence, and is open to assemblies with living matter and the world of technology. In this review, I focus on the main structural elements of the book, its key ideas; I offer my interpretation of some plots of the text; I dwell on the discussion points of the work. I come to the conclusion that the concept of the posthuman and the posthumanistic method allow us to open new horizons for the current research practices of man and society.

As a rejection and continuous reframing of theoretical humanism, critical posthumanism questions and imagines the human condition in the current context, aligning it with nonhuman and more than human entities, past and future. While this philosophical approach has been referenced in many academic disciplines since the 1990s, it has been gradually garnering interest among nursing scholars, leading to questions such as what it means to be human and what it means to be a nurse in the here and now. As a deeply ethical and political project, posthumanism, which we associate with poststructuralist concepts of power and resistance, questions the formation of posthuman subjects who more accurately reflect complex times, characterized by capitalistic commodification of life-human and nonhuman. In this article, we aim to explore how the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of critical posthumanism, specifically through Rosi Braidotti's works, can be useful to understand a posthuman subjectivity that favors affirmative actions aimed at actualizing our world in becoming. Through examples in nursing practice, education, and research, we will explore not only how critical posthumanism allows us to frame transformations in the current situation that we are embedded in as nurses and more generally as beings but also how these examples allow us to move beyond critique to the actualization of affirmative actions that correspond to the creation of new worlds.

<i>Ontology and Closeness in Human–Nature Relationships: Beyond Dualisms, Materialism and Posthumanism</i>, by Neil H. Kessler

Research Article| July 01 1994 Feminism by Any Other Name Rosi Braidotti; Rosi Braidotti Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Judith Butler Judith Butler Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google differences (1994) 6 (2-3): 27–61. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-6-2-3-27 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Rosi Braidotti, Judith Butler; Feminism by Any Other Name. differences 1 July 1994; 6 (2-3): 27–61. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-6-2-3-27 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll Journalsdifferences Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1994 by Brown University and differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies1994 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Posthuman Glossary

Male domination manifests patriarchal practices that navigate societal expectations on women. Through patriarchal societal norms, women become socialized into patriarchal structure. Because of the oppression and discrimination that has been maintained by patriarchal norms, it causes women to have internalized patriarchal norms. In the novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017) by Taylor Jenkins Reid, the issue of compulsory heterosexuality, male domination and internalized patriarchal norms are being explored. This research used qualitative approach, focusing on the interpretation of human experiences and perspective by using feminist literary criticism. The analysis uses patriarchy and feminist theory by Catharine A. Mackinnon, Julia Kristeva and Sylvia Walby, and compulsory heterosexuality theory by Adrianne Rich and Judith Butler. This research found four forms of internalized patriarchal norms. The internalized of patriarchal norms causes women being the subject of domestic, power and law abuse, and discriminations from patriarchal society. By using “Four Faces of Resistance” by Eric S. Knowles and Jay A. Linn, Abjection and Semiotic by Julia Kristeva, Subversion of Norms by Judith Butler and Lesbian Continuum by Adrianne Rich, this research also finds five form of resistance. Women demonstrate the resistance to challenge how patriarchal norms are manifested through internalized patriarchal norms.

Since its publication in 1818, the narrative of Frankenstein has undergone diverse interpretations and adaptations. Despite the passage of two centuries, the enduring significance of this novel remains undiminished. The span between 1910 and 1975 saw the emergence of a total of thirty-two adaptations of the Frankenstein narrative. Notably, the 1973 adaptation of the novel, jointly written by Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, has often eluded the thorough examination it warrants. Isherwood and Bachardy reimagined Shelley’s novel, introducing a homoerotic perspective that offers an alternative lens to examine the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation. This interpretation of Frankenstein differs from the conventional reading of a strictly filial bond between the two characters. This essay aims to closely examine the 1973 teleplay Frankenstein: The True Story, analysing Victor Frankenstein’s relationship with his non-human/posthuman creation through the lens of a queer theory. Furthermore, the analysis will explore how the 1973 adaptation subverts the heteronormative ideology inherent in Mary Shelley’s narrative. Drawing from Butler’s theoretical stance, the essay contends that subversion serves as a political instrument to contest prevailing norms from within the framework of the narrative, thereby prompting a restructuring that highlights and questions heteronormative predispositions. This study will take a cue from the insights of posthumanist, queer, and feminist thinkers such as Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, and Lee Edelman for analysing the teleplay.

Editor’s Note

Jeremy Knox's book analyses the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) through the lens of critical posthumanism. Faithful to the posthumanist cartographic methodology expounded on most notably by Rosi Braidotti, Knox acknowledges that this is not an authoritative account of the development of the MOOC, but rather traces some of the dominant accounts and myths of its development. He also does not aim to give a detailed overview of what the MOOC is, but rather focuses on those aspects that relate to the subjectivity of the MOOC user. As an analytical tool or 'genealogical and a navigational tool' as Braidotti (2013: 5) puts it, posthumanism does not steer away from complexity, rather, it is a philosophy that eschews the bite-sized or absolute descriptions of phenomena that are so prevalent in the media today. The task of the critical theorist, according to Braidotti (2013) is to firstly account for the present. Once this is achieved, the critique can then be transformed into affirmative creation. Knox's book provides a substantial critique of the MOOC, and he does provide food for thought towards affirmative transformation.