"Emotion is a specific manner of apprehending the world" and transforming the world rather than an "accidental modification of a subject who is surrounded by an unchanged world," according to Jean-Paul Sartre. Bot..."Emotion is a specific manner of apprehending the world" and transforming the world rather than an "accidental modification of a subject who is surrounded by an unchanged world," according to Jean-Paul Sartre. Both Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions and Being and Nothingness set out to investigate these relationships in broadly two ways. One, consciousness of the world of others is experienced through our emotions (anger, fear, shame, and pride for instance) as a body that escapes our grasp in being-seen-by-another. Two, we apprehend the world through our emotions in the process of magical transformation (for example, fear, melancholy, and sadness). This paper examines emotions on two levels: how we experience our ontological state as being-for-itself-in-itself and being-in-the-world-for-others; and how we conceive emotions as "magic" changing its relationship with the world "so that the world should change its qualities." What is of critical interest here is the relationship between consciousness and emotions. Situating this discussion in the context of Satre's critique on psychology, it proceeds to advance his existential psychoanalysis, starting with establishing a place for emotions and concluding with its transformative power to escape their situations.展开更多
While there has been significant scholarly attention to the Showtime Series Dexter (2006-13) and the fundamental choice between being good or evil that its protagonist Dexter Morgan must make, this article advances ...While there has been significant scholarly attention to the Showtime Series Dexter (2006-13) and the fundamental choice between being good or evil that its protagonist Dexter Morgan must make, this article advances scholarship in three ways. Firstly, it examines Dexter's final twist in plot and the decision Dexter makes to finally embrace his "dark passenger" to argue for the necessity of the plot twist to the series, which scholarship has not yet performed. Secondly, by situating Dexter's decision within a framework focused on reproductive futurism, a revised and more nuanced approach to Dexter's ontological dilemma can be proffered. Finally, by locating Dexter's dark passenger within the theoretical frames of reproductive futurism and community this article adds an important dimension to notions of the monster conventionally rooted in theories of identity and subjectivity. In the final moments of the series everything changes for Dexter as his identity is redeemed for a reproductive future without guarantees, which this article argues is germane to considerations ofbiopolitics and community in the contemporary period.展开更多
This short paper aims to critically analyze a contemporary Taiwan Residents film, The Fourth Portrait, directed by Meng-Hung Chung, from the perspective of Delenzian theories. In Deleuze's two books on cinema, the di...This short paper aims to critically analyze a contemporary Taiwan Residents film, The Fourth Portrait, directed by Meng-Hung Chung, from the perspective of Delenzian theories. In Deleuze's two books on cinema, the discussion of images demonstrates the entangled juxtaposition of the three levels: brain-thought, cinema-screen, and world-images that compose the cinematic consciousness. Through the interacted movement-images and time-images, the film unfolds the storyline within the aesthetic pleasure of poetic sentiment that gradually leads the audience to learn that a wandering boy, Hsiao-Hsiang, after the death of his father, has had several adventurous encounters that gradually expose the secrecy of his traumatic family: His birth mother has no decent job and his step-father has killed his own brother. This broken family has been haunted by the shared guilt and the undead memory as Derrida famously claims that hauntology precedes ontology. As the past coexists with the present, Deleuze analyzes the concept of I, with a central fracture in its pure form of the past demonstrating an ontological enigma that remains forever a secret. When the director uses the four portraits to indicate the four important events of this wandering boy, he deliberately leaves empty the fourth portrait, the self-portrait of the boy; it remains as an incomplete piece which symbolizes an enigma of his own life. It shows certain constitutive unnamable forces acting within the boy that seduces him forever to painfully misrecognize himself.展开更多
The study deals with Demetria Martinez's Mother Tongue (1994), which is a love story between a Mexican American woman and a Salvadoran refugee. The female protagonist, Mary, delves into connotations of love, expand...The study deals with Demetria Martinez's Mother Tongue (1994), which is a love story between a Mexican American woman and a Salvadoran refugee. The female protagonist, Mary, delves into connotations of love, expanding it to understanding of the other. The story deploys politically imbricated religious practices in relation to the U.S. Sanctuary movement in the 80s. Mary's amorous encounter with the other leads her to discover the expansion of friendship and solidarity and, ultimately to rediscover religiosity based on reawakened ethics. This study argues that the melodramatic mode employed in this novel implicitly reveals an inherent aspiration for the sacred, albeit not fully representable. The author's involvement in the genre of romance and the melodramatic mode ironically attests to her striving for the spiritual ideal and ontological answer. In the end, this essay reveals that drawing on the popular melodramatic narrative, the romantic engagement with the alterity can be more efficiently introduced into the ontological quest for the absolute presence.展开更多
文摘"Emotion is a specific manner of apprehending the world" and transforming the world rather than an "accidental modification of a subject who is surrounded by an unchanged world," according to Jean-Paul Sartre. Both Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions and Being and Nothingness set out to investigate these relationships in broadly two ways. One, consciousness of the world of others is experienced through our emotions (anger, fear, shame, and pride for instance) as a body that escapes our grasp in being-seen-by-another. Two, we apprehend the world through our emotions in the process of magical transformation (for example, fear, melancholy, and sadness). This paper examines emotions on two levels: how we experience our ontological state as being-for-itself-in-itself and being-in-the-world-for-others; and how we conceive emotions as "magic" changing its relationship with the world "so that the world should change its qualities." What is of critical interest here is the relationship between consciousness and emotions. Situating this discussion in the context of Satre's critique on psychology, it proceeds to advance his existential psychoanalysis, starting with establishing a place for emotions and concluding with its transformative power to escape their situations.
文摘While there has been significant scholarly attention to the Showtime Series Dexter (2006-13) and the fundamental choice between being good or evil that its protagonist Dexter Morgan must make, this article advances scholarship in three ways. Firstly, it examines Dexter's final twist in plot and the decision Dexter makes to finally embrace his "dark passenger" to argue for the necessity of the plot twist to the series, which scholarship has not yet performed. Secondly, by situating Dexter's decision within a framework focused on reproductive futurism, a revised and more nuanced approach to Dexter's ontological dilemma can be proffered. Finally, by locating Dexter's dark passenger within the theoretical frames of reproductive futurism and community this article adds an important dimension to notions of the monster conventionally rooted in theories of identity and subjectivity. In the final moments of the series everything changes for Dexter as his identity is redeemed for a reproductive future without guarantees, which this article argues is germane to considerations ofbiopolitics and community in the contemporary period.
文摘This short paper aims to critically analyze a contemporary Taiwan Residents film, The Fourth Portrait, directed by Meng-Hung Chung, from the perspective of Delenzian theories. In Deleuze's two books on cinema, the discussion of images demonstrates the entangled juxtaposition of the three levels: brain-thought, cinema-screen, and world-images that compose the cinematic consciousness. Through the interacted movement-images and time-images, the film unfolds the storyline within the aesthetic pleasure of poetic sentiment that gradually leads the audience to learn that a wandering boy, Hsiao-Hsiang, after the death of his father, has had several adventurous encounters that gradually expose the secrecy of his traumatic family: His birth mother has no decent job and his step-father has killed his own brother. This broken family has been haunted by the shared guilt and the undead memory as Derrida famously claims that hauntology precedes ontology. As the past coexists with the present, Deleuze analyzes the concept of I, with a central fracture in its pure form of the past demonstrating an ontological enigma that remains forever a secret. When the director uses the four portraits to indicate the four important events of this wandering boy, he deliberately leaves empty the fourth portrait, the self-portrait of the boy; it remains as an incomplete piece which symbolizes an enigma of his own life. It shows certain constitutive unnamable forces acting within the boy that seduces him forever to painfully misrecognize himself.
文摘The study deals with Demetria Martinez's Mother Tongue (1994), which is a love story between a Mexican American woman and a Salvadoran refugee. The female protagonist, Mary, delves into connotations of love, expanding it to understanding of the other. The story deploys politically imbricated religious practices in relation to the U.S. Sanctuary movement in the 80s. Mary's amorous encounter with the other leads her to discover the expansion of friendship and solidarity and, ultimately to rediscover religiosity based on reawakened ethics. This study argues that the melodramatic mode employed in this novel implicitly reveals an inherent aspiration for the sacred, albeit not fully representable. The author's involvement in the genre of romance and the melodramatic mode ironically attests to her striving for the spiritual ideal and ontological answer. In the end, this essay reveals that drawing on the popular melodramatic narrative, the romantic engagement with the alterity can be more efficiently introduced into the ontological quest for the absolute presence.