Precision

This is the second post about my “Rewriting Humanism” project, functioning as my Annotated Bibliography. Sorry for those hoping for a new post, but I hope it’s some good news that I will be starting a different kind of blog, more of a deep-subject-study-wall, this time on Weebly.

My main focus in such a post is to show what subjects of popular culture I will be analyzing, as well as a few articles that I will apply to said subjects (as much as I would love to utilize my own postulating alone). In addition to incorporating Professor Read-Davidson’s suggestion that I limit myself to “well-known and influential examples within each sort of subcategory” (film, comics, non-fiction, etc.), I also propose a general overarching topic: loss. Whether on purpose or accident, through emotional loss, transformation, or escapism, I would like to study how popular-culture rewrites humanism through taking something away in our lives, and then replacing it with something else. Whether either “something” is defined or not, I know not; but hopefully we are at least aimed in a direction that promises a fulfilling journey, if not answers.

Below is a list of certain subjects and the articles I will connect them to, as well as the topic or scene I shall be studying for synthesis. Most likely, I shall find my sources as I continue researching on each individual piece (which is the process occurring as I am writing them all as we speak), but here is what I have so far:

1. Toby Fox’s Undertale, a meta video game. I will use the game’s three different ending to compose the framework for how mankind wishes to view morality in a posthuman world, and how said endings tries to subvert that. I will be using Descartes’ “Discourse on the Method for Seeking One’s Reason Well and For Seeking the Truth in the Sciences,” mostly for ideas of dual self-definition (very important in the game) and what is practically “the law of self.” CITATION: Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. 4th Edition. Trans. by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co, 1998. 1-44
   

2. Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion, a 1995 anime TV show and film about giant robots and alien battles. But way more than that, as the main goal of the villains is something I’ve mentioned a lot here: human instrumentality. I will finally explain what that phrase means, and how this paragon, this final end of posthumanism, is both terrifying and satisfying at the same time. Mead’s writings (which I will talk about later) are necessary here, as are my own writings from the Professor Read-Davidson’s Language and Rhetoric course I took last semester (this is the show I got the Hedgehog Dilemma idea from) and Foucault (whom I will be using rather loosely for Evangelion’s metaphors). CITATION: Foucault, Michel. “What is Enlightenment?” The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. 32-50

3. Satoshi Kon’s Opus, a manga. I will be using Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology” to show the accelerated loss of self-identity when in the act of creating, as the manga artist in this work by an early-departed genius quickly finds. And his story doesn’t even end! CITATION: “The Question Concerning Technology.” The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Garland Publishing Inc, 1977. 3-35

4. George Herbert Mead’s On Social Psychology, a selection of his papers. Truth be told, I know not yet what I will address within this book, as there are sections on “Time,” “The Problem With Society,” “Mind,” “The Self,” and more. It might even be better to use this book as a springboard for my own personal reflections in generalities, and then use it in other posts as best I can. CITATION: Mead, George Herbert. On Social Psychology: Selected Papers. Edited by Anselm L. Strauss, University of Chicago Press, 1977.

5. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a work of fiction. This one’s a surprise, specifically because I’m still trying to figure out which passages to focus on in the 1400 page book (read it over Christmas break). I will be using Edbauer, though, and then some points from the Mead papers. CITATION: Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Centenniel ed., Penguin Group, 2004. ANOTHER CITATION: Edbauer, Jenny. “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 35:4 (Fall 2005), 5-24.

6. Enrico Deaglio’s The Banality of Goodness, or Susan Suleiman’s The Nemirovsky Question, both biographies from the Holocaust era. I have already written a paper on them for another class, the first considering the social obligations of charity and how they become necessary (a positive), and therefore completely inconsequential in their impact on the self (a negative). The second considered racial identity in a posthuman world, something I’m not that fond of talking about, but which nevertheless I believe I could argue strongly on. CITATION: Deaglio, Enrico, and Gregory Conti. The Banality of Goodness: the Story of Giorgio Perlasca. University of Notre Dame Press, 1998.

ANOTHER CITATION: Suleiman, Susan Rubin. The Nemirovsky Question: the Life, Death, and Legacy of a Jewish Writer in Twentieth-Century France. Yale University Press, 2017.

7. Blues Traveler’s “Hook,” a song. I will use Bogost’s “Rhetoric-Classical to Digital” to explain how this song actually critiques, from a rhetorically humanist perspective, the gradual movement of language from the humanist to the posthuman. I will also need to ask Professor Read-Davidson for the CITATION, as I cannot find it anywhere.

8. Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, a film from a blockbuster franchise. I mentioned enough on this in my first blog post, and I think I shall continue my train of thought. I will be incorporating Haraway, and perhaps a pinch of Heidegger if I have the time. CITATION: Harraway, Donna. “The Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. New York: Routledge, 1991. 149-181

9. Tomohiko Ito’s Sword Art Online, a long-running anime franchise in which 10,000 players are trapped in a virtual reality game for two years where, if they die, their brain is fried in real life. While many adapt, thousands die in the first few days, many by suicide, and many others by “Player Killers.” I am studying the posthuman understanding of time and corporeal value here, with Butler’s “Bodies That Matter.” CITATION: Butler, Judith. “Bodies that Matter.” Bodies that Matter. New York: Routledge, 1993. 3-27

10. Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, a children’s cartoon. Love the show, but it unfortunately gets paired with a subject I don’t love very much: gender studies. There are three episodes to analyze scenes from, one of which is extremely prominent as far as “gendering” is concerned, and will help to establish a difference in normalization between epistemology and ontology. I will compare Miraculous‘ approach, which is strictly ontological, to approaches from two other kids’ shows, Star vs. the Forces of Evil and Loud House, both of which become epistemological by taking ontology to extremes. It will make more sense when I get into the scenes. I’m no gender studies professional, or really even have much of an interest in it, but I think I can make a posthuman case on entertainment here.

11. Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, a cult film. I just watched the film today in preparation for this project, and will need to finish gathering my thoughts before I can choose a jumping-off point.

These are the subjects I have so far. Hopefully, ten is enough to link these themes together of transitioning from humanism towards posthumanism through loss, which can be a positive affectation just as much as it can be a negative one. Though over-extension might affect the grasp of each individual study, I can certainly look for a poem or a short work of fiction if the need arises. I am also far more specific in my writing than in summaries, so head on over to the site when I post it to fully engage in the material with me.