Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/219

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    The Data-Subject and Its Freedom
    (英語學系, 2003-01-??) Chia-yi Lee
    With the emergence and sprawl of the Internet, people are wired in increasing numbers to data online. As the interface between humans and data starts to disappear due to better web integration at the front-end, interstices seem to be cut open in cyberspace by those who have gone too far in their dependence on this data h(e)aven. This paper attempts to look into one of those interstices to read traces of the existential status of the data-subject. The main argument will be that the dilemma of the data-subject, being prone to the spectral attraction of data yet always anxious about its helpless addiction to cyber-space, discloses certain aspects of freedom essential to human existence. Previous studies on existential freedom and civil liberties will be drawn upon to help understand the factical condition of the data-subject in a broader context of human freedom.
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    Metamorphosis and the Genesis of Xenos
    (英語學系, 2010-09-??) Ronald Bogue
    In the Xenogenesis Trilogy (1987-89), Octavia Butler recounts the recolonization of earth by human-alien hybrids following a catastrophic nuclear war. Although Butler never read the works of Deleuze and Guattari, her trilogy provides apt illustrations of Deleuze-Guattari's concept of "becoming." Diverse forms of becoming—becoming-woman, becoming-child, becoming-animal, becoming-molecular, and becoming-imperceptible— characterize various elements of Butler's plot, and all these becomings have ramifications in the domain of gender politics. Deleuze-Guattari valorize becoming as a mode of metamorphic invention, and they situate it within a general ontology of affective intensities, whereby human sexuality is at once fully sociohistorical and cosmic. Butler, too, imagines a world of sociohistorical and cosmic intensities, and she grants becoming a privileged role in creating new possibilities for future life. Yet she also envisions in alternative sexual, social and natural relationship the ambiguities and dangers of reconfigured networks of affectivity. Especially of concern to her are the perils of unbridled metamorphosis and the antithetical threat of addiction as a means of stabilizing the chaotic tendencies of uncontrolled processes of becoming. Ultimately, Butler's saga poses the question of free will and its relationship to biological imperatives. Deleuze-Guattari also see the dangers of anarchic becoming, arguing frequently that becoming-other must always be pursued with caution and in selected domains of activity. They do not address the topic of addiction in the same manner as Butler, but their articulation of the politics of social oppression implies a similar concern with the concept of agency in relation to desire. Finally, both Butler and Deleuze-Guattari subordinate their speculations about becoming, sexuality, politics, and sociohistorical and cosmic networks of relation to the general task ofimagining a new mode of collective living, which Deleuze-Guatta