Search

The poetry in Cathy Park Hong's Empire Engine (2012) is separated into three time-lines: the period of Westward Expansion in the United States, a contemporary story of fine art reproduction in China, and a futurist story of data workers in California These three sections are united in their interrogation of the role of ideology in creating and sustaining an empire I argue that the first timeline stages a representation of ideology in the traditional Althusserian sense, that the second timeline shows this representation as inadequate, and most importantly, that the final section suggests a new model for oppression The key for the new model presented in the third timeline lies in the job the workers have: they work with data The main argument is that the ruling class no longer maintains its power through the ownership of capital Instead, as McKenzie Wark maintains in Capital is Dead (2019), this ruling class »owns and controls infor-mation« (Wark 5) The owning and controlling of information is no longer capitalism, »but something worse« (29) Following on Wark, I argue that this use and abuse of data changes ideology in a fundamental manner Rather than having a world from which an individual can feel more or less estranged in an Althusserian sense, the new reign of data suggests that estrangement is the fundamental experience of the world In other words, there is no world to feel estranged from, thus leading to ideology;rather, the feeling of estrangement is already the fundamental experience of our data-driven reality While in Hong's book this new model is located in the future, the end of the essay argues that a similar state is brought about not only by our data-driven world, but also pandemics such as that caused by COVID-19, which are part of our time now © University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts All rights reserved

The novels of Steph Cha posit two key characteristics for openness toward others: bitterness and recognition. The thesis of this paper is that both characteristics must be present together in order for openness to occur. Cha’s Juniper Song detective series (2013-15), as well as her stand-alone novel Your House Will Pay (2019), foreground the role that bitterness and recognition play in an openness of Korean-Americans to other American people of color. Following the work of Jacques Rancière and Axel Honneth, bitterness is seen as a characteristic that keeps recognition from falling into the oppressive traps of one group only recognizing the pre-established modes of identity of another. Cha’s novels insist on moments of bitterness within scenes of recognition, thus showing how both characteristics, together, form an essential way for a positive openness to another to be possible. Other Korean-American authors discussed include Cathy Park Hong, Caroline Kim, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

J.G. Ballard’s novel The Drought (1965) reimagines an ecological dystopia into a strategy for how to live through the catastrophe of the Anthropocene. We suggest the term “vacuum ecology” for a literary strategy which represents a way to live in our current ecological crisis. Ballard describes how a near-total emptiness of time and space is one way to respond to a global ecological catastrophe. Using Ballard’s novel as a guide, our concept of vacuum ecology is developed along with along with the work of Jason Moore, Roy Scranton and others. In The Drought, the concept of modulation is suggested as the mechanism for change. At the end of the essay, Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation (2014), along with Catherine Malabou’s notion of destructive plasticity, is seen as challenging the idea of modulation with a strategy of intermingling. In short, both texts foreground the possibility of new kinds of change when concepts of time and space are questioned. This has consequences for the different beings we must become in order to live in the Anthropocene.

The concept of scale is becoming lodged within contemporary theories about reality, change and possibility. This assumption materialises as an increased interest in diverse forms of otherness on the one hand, and an almost fanatic insistence on the non-identity of objects on the other (Franco Moretti, Thomas Piketty, Graham Harman). Scale thus functions both as a medium through which difference can be understood and the absolute limit to which human reason can stretch, and never beyond. Works based on the Israeli– Palestinian conflict have a long history of grappling with the paradox of scale. Assaf Gavron’s novel CrocAttack! (2006) depicts diverse forms of otherness in a missed point of understanding between an Israeli and a Palestinian. Nathan Englander’s short story ‘Sister Hills’ (2012) highlights the limits of scale in characters which take the ‘as if’ of Jewish law at its word. The structure of this paradox of scale is read through Marshall McLuhan and Graham Harman in order to show how being confronted with the non-identity of scale actually encourages adaptation or change to take place. The metaphor developed from this reading is that of ‘the wall’, which is used in an interpretation of Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s Divine Interventions (2002).

One way to advance in the world is to question it. The activity of questioning is the basis of scientific, philosophical and political thinking. However, this raises the issue of how a being can be distanced from the world enough to formulate a question about it. In other words, how can one be in the world which one questions? What is important here is not how we know that we know something, but rather, how we know that we do not know something (Mensch 2005: 1 ; Boyd 2009: 164). This problem of locating a profound relationship to one's world within the ability to question is found in how questions are formulated using the same symbolic code they are meant to investigate: language (Heidegger 1962: 19 ; Derrida 1991: 129- 136n6 ; Critchley 1993 ; Willems 2010: 78- 86). This essay aims to foreground ways in which the symbolic order is disturbed from within itself in order to open up moments of inquiry. In short this is done through strategies of resistance and withholding from within language itself. Put another way, fundamental questioning will be found in the refusal, stuttering and unnaming of things. In the literary domain, both T. S. Eliot and Graham Greene have created works which address this issue. Eliot's poem 'The Hollow Men' (1925) features a traumatic stuttering in the form of a repeatedly truncated question, while in Greene's novel The Power and the Glory (1940) a gap is opened by a refusal to name that which is welcomed into one's world. Both 'stuttering' and 'refusal' are considered essential in this analysis because they show how questions can be disruptive while still being lodged within the formulations of symbolic language, just as an answer is. To this end Jacques Lacan's use of 'The Hollow Men' in his essay 'The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis' (1953) will help develop a strategy for how to actually reside in such a traumatic moment of refusal, or what he calls the Real. This residing will take the form of a foregrounding of the 'stupidity' (Ronell 2002) of who we always already are.

Aleksei Fedorchenko’s First on the Moon (Pervye na Lune ; 2005) suggests that alternative histories are not about militarism or extreme dystopias. Instead the film is a mediation on the relationship between the past and possibility. In other words, if alternative histories are derided for eschewing the more traditional view of sf which sees change located in the future, First on the Moon suggests that the future is locked down, meaning that the limitless possibilities of what-is-to-come have already been decided for us. Reflecting the thought of Paolo Virno, the film paradoxically suggests that it is looking into the past which creates alternatives to the present. In fact, this idea will be taken one step further: First on the Moon shows that potentiality is only located in the past and never in the future. Thus alternative histories are seen to be central to discussions of sf, for they can show how the unanticipated future has now become the unanticipated past.

This article analyzes the four books of Samuel R. Delany's Neveryon cycle: Tales of Neveryon (1979), Neveryona, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities (1983), Flight from Neveryon (1985) and Return to Neveryon (1987). Michel Foucault's concepts of heterotopia, genealogy, biopolitics and reverse discourse are used to show how a sign of slavery in the novels, the slave collar, is used to create a heterotopia in which dominant discourse is reversed. This thesis starts by taking Foucault's concepts heterotopia and biopolitics to show how they relate to discourse and illustrate that certain notions we see as inherent are anything but. It continues by putting them in context with Delany and his work in order to demonstrate their correlation to discourse and how these concepts are involved in shaping discourse itself. We outline the dominant sexual discourse of our time to better understand Delany's need for subverting such discourse and the revolutionary stance he takes in his work by reversing it in a Foucauldian manner. Reading their work together shows that the key step in creating a heterotopia in fiction is not so much distancing oneself from universal thought, but rather, embracing a universal multiplication of discourses, which must be done with caution so as not to fall into the trap of binary oppositions., Ovaj članak bavi se analizom četiriju knjiga Samuela R. Delanyja koje pripadaju njegovu Neveryon ciklusu, Tales of Neveryon (1979), Neveryona, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities (1983), Flight from Neveryon (1985) and Return to Neveryon (1987). Koristi se pojmovima Michela Foucaulta kao što su heterotopija, genealogija, biopolitika te obrnuti diskurs kako bi se pokazalo da se simbol robovlasništva, robovska ogrlica, može iskoristiti pri stvaranju heterotopije u kojoj dominantan diskurs mijenja pravac. Ovaj esej počinje s Foucaultovim konceptima heterotopije i genealogije kako bismo uputili na njihovu povezanost s diskursom i njihovom ulogom u njegovu stvaranju te kako bismo pokazali da su određena razmišljanja koja držimo prirođenima zapravo naučena. Zatim te pojmove kontekstualno povezujemo s Delanyjem i njegovim djelima radi isticanja njihovih dodirnih točaka s diskursom te na koji način ti pojmovi sudjeluju u stvaranju diskursa. Prikazujemo dominantni seksualni diskurs našeg doba da bismo bolje razumjeli Delanyevu težnju da ga 'svrgne' te revolucionarno stajalište koje zauzima u svojim djelima mijenjajući mu pravac u Foucaultovu stilu. Foucaltova i Delanyjeva djela pomogla su nam zaključiti kako je bitan korak u stvaranju heterotopije u književnosti ne samo odbacivanje jednoznačne misli već i prihvaćanje raznolikosti diskursa. Korak koji se ne smije olako shvatiti kako ne bismo ostali omeđeni binarnim opozicijama. Ovaj rad pokušava dokazati kako je to upravo ono što Delany u svojim književnim djelima postiže.