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All things spectral

All things spectral <jats:p> The question of the human and the nonhuman, how they are produced and inscribed on bodies, has been the subject to a burgeoning amount of research. In this paper I'd like to offer an analysis of what seems to constitute a gap in our theories of the nonhuman, that is the question of dead – radically inert, mute and vulnerable – bodies. By reference to a Greek word sema, which denominated both a ‘tomb’, a ‘sign’ and a ‘trace’, I would like to investigate the three-fold context in which the dead bodies are enmeshed: the material, the discursive and the spectral one. Drawing on the concept of the ‘remnant’ (G. Agamben) and the ‘spectre’ (J. Derrida) I will pose a question regarding the ways in which dead bodies are included in power relations, powers of visibility and normalisation, and how they may challenge them. Finally, I will offer a project of ‘materialistic hauntology’, an ethical stand towards bodies that are in course of dematerialising, but that still matter. </jats:p> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Somatechnics Edinburgh University Press

All things spectral

Cielemęcka, Olga
Somatechnics , Volume 5 (2): 234 – Sep 1, 2015
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References (12)

Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press
Subject
Articles; Film, Media and Cultural Studies
ISSN
2044-0138
eISSN
2044-0146
DOI
10.3366/soma.2015.0163
Publisher site
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Abstract

<jats:p> The question of the human and the nonhuman, how they are produced and inscribed on bodies, has been the subject to a burgeoning amount of research. In this paper I'd like to offer an analysis of what seems to constitute a gap in our theories of the nonhuman, that is the question of dead – radically inert, mute and vulnerable – bodies. By reference to a Greek word sema, which denominated both a ‘tomb’, a ‘sign’ and a ‘trace’, I would like to investigate the three-fold context in which the dead bodies are enmeshed: the material, the discursive and the spectral one. Drawing on the concept of the ‘remnant’ (G. Agamben) and the ‘spectre’ (J. Derrida) I will pose a question regarding the ways in which dead bodies are included in power relations, powers of visibility and normalisation, and how they may challenge them. Finally, I will offer a project of ‘materialistic hauntology’, an ethical stand towards bodies that are in course of dematerialising, but that still matter. </jats:p>

Journal

Somatechnics – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Sep 1, 2015

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