Midterm #2 Flashcards
(81 cards)
1
Q
Precession of Simulacra, Simulacra & Simulation
A
Baudrillard
2
Q
Limited, Inc.
A
Derrida
3
Q
My Self and My Own: One and the Same?
A
Balibar
4
Q
Subcultures
A
Hebdige
5
Q
Embodied Trademarks: Mimesis and Alterity on American Commercial Frontiers
A
Coombe
6
Q
How did Marx invent the Symptom?
A
Zizek
7
Q
The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof
A
Marx
8
Q
Course in General Linguistics
A
Saussure
9
Q
The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, or, Critical Theory
A
Adorno & Horkheimer
10
Q
The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility
A
Benjamin
11
Q
Orders of Simulacra
A
- reflection of basic reality (good appearance, order of sacrament)
- masks & perverts basic reality (bad appearance, order of malefice)
- masks absence of basic reality (plays at appearance, order of sorcery)
- own pure simulacrum (no order of appearance)
12
Q
7 Perspectives on the Matrix:
A
- MARXISM: commodity fetish blinds us from reality of exploitation of labor
- LEGAL HISTORY: function of trademark is to distinguish source of product
- SEMIOTICS: “Coppertop” signifies “Duracell”, which signifies “power” or “trust”
- FREUD: advertisers & filmmakers use our unconscious to make us desire certain products
- ADORNO: film is a standardized product of the culture industry, produced. to sell us more standardized products
- BENJAMIN: film as psychic jolt against fascism
- BAUDRILLARD: simulation makes simulation of the simulator
13
Q
What is Derive?
A
The Baudrillard college-era 60s Situationist tactic of protesting called “to drift”, wherein life is art and art is life, thus we must change both
14
Q
Orders of Simulacra applied to The Truman Show
A
- First-order: Truman in his town
- Second-order: Truman as a prisoner
- Third-order: TS hides that there is no real America
- Fourth-order: TikTok meme about TS
15
Q
What is structuralism?
A
the Marx + Freud + de Saussure developed philosophy that universal truths exist at the level of structure, but are camouflaged at observable facts unless one knows how to decode those facts
16
Q
What school did many major post-structuralist philosophers go to?
A
École Normale Supérieure (ENS)
17
Q
What did Derrida call himself rather than a philosopher?
A
A self-termed historian
18
Q
What did Lacan say about the relationship between the signified & signifier?
A
that it can “slip” in jokes, puns, 13/B, A/4
19
Q
What does Derrida say about Iterability?
A
- it is different from repeatability because it incorporates paratext & everything
- thus, each new iteration cannot be repeated and is instead iterated
20
Q
What is Deconstruction?
A
a political reading tactic that makes us aware of the center in order to briefly decentralize it, dissolve binary oppositions, and allow marginalized terms to overthrow
21
Q
What are the interactions between Searle and Derrida?
A
Searle: “Reiterating the Differences” (1977), felt Derrida had misunderstood and mistranslated J.L. Austin’s speech acts theory
Derrida: “Limited Inc a b c” (1977)
22
Q
Why does Derrida say a signature is impossible?
A
its form as a special writing that captures the paradox of both writing and identity; signature is a legal & general verification of the self, it is a “pure reproducibility of a pure event with absolute singularity”, yet its “sameness corrupts its pure identity”
23
Q
What is differance?
A
Both difference & to differ; a destabilizing strategy that fills in the absence/disparities between signifier & signified
24
Q
What does Derrida argue about speech acts through the signature?
A
- speech acts cannot be repeated, only iterated
- speech itself is an action that can be as constitutive as any other language (J.L. Austin)
25
Why does Derrida call Searle "SARL"?
- refers to "three + n", or the shared community behind all of Searle's (divided, conjugated, shared) arguments
- short for Societe A Responsabilite limitee, or limited liability incorporated company in U.S. law (protects personal individual from company's liabilities), thus examining the split between the multitude of selves AND the irony of personifying a corporation
- to communicate the instability of authorship, and moreso, the self
26
Why does Derrida use the signature so heavily in Limited, Inc.?
forms of writing related to "the self" are traces of what are not "the self", and things are only what they are through having the trace of what they are not
27
What does Derrida say about confrontation?
questions whether a "confrontation" debate between writers can ever take place, where locationally would it be? how can writing which is on paper and reread be a confrontation?
28
What is paratext?
writing not in central texts but "outside of", "parasitic to"
29
What is an intraduisible?
an "untranslatable", impossible equivalents
30
What is logocentrism?
- to the Western philosophical tradition's tendency to center the "word" as a fundamental reality, causing a duality wherein speech is a presence and writing is an absence
- desire for a center
31
Why does Western philosophy spawn binary oppositions?
- Western philosophy seeks a center (under different names: Truth, Origin, God, Essence, Logocentrism Etc)
- thus spawns binary oppositions to construct this presence
- always haunted by an absence
32
How did Saussure and Derrida's approaches to speech v. writing differ?
Saussure: preference for speech over writing, as speech is a presence within and writing is haunted by an absence
Derrida: speech and writing are both inadequate to describe general play of differences between speech and writing, writing is contained within speech
33
What does Spivak call translation?
interpretation
34
What does Spivak say about language?
"language ... is only a vital clue to where the self loses its boundaries"
35
What is possessive individualism?
Anglo-American philosophical, legal, judicial, and moral tradition of treating property & the self as one & the same, originating from John Locke's theory of property ("we are what we are because of what we possess")
36
What does Derrida use paratext to show?
the marginalized terms are already always present as an absent presence
37
What is textuality?
realising how a text means rather than what it means
38
What did Spivak mean by Deconstruction being a "persistent critique of what one cannot not want"?
- a hint towards psychoanalysis
- a more palatable explanation of Derrida: of course we want a self, in doing so we create a self that is paradoxical and impossible, thus must analyse it
- a perspective of her translation: in translating, it is a miming of the translator's own desires through inhabiting another's words, creating a paradoxical and impossible text, thus must analyse language
39
How do Balibar's tactics differ from Derrida's?
Both: historical, philological (where words are from), idioms, mistakes, popular, religion, biographical, translating
Balibar: examines "intraduisibles" (inequivalents, untranslatables, impossible equivalents) in Locke, approaches self as idea to appropriate or confess, discusses his mistakes & contradictions, readings through complexities and margins
Derrida: deconstruction
40
What does Balibar say about translation?
translation is a process of imitation + interpretation, and the privileging of English as a "universal language"
41
What does Balibar write about contradictions?
the one and the Other exist simultaneously and confront each other
42
What is the "culture industry"?
bitter oxymoron of totalitarian control over culture, wherein culture is standardized sameness that consumers don't critically think about
43
How does Cultural Studies alter the definition of "culture"?
Culture: art, poetry, civilization, elevation, self-liberation, autonomy, excellence, finery (as opposed to anarchy, stupidity, vulgarity, obscenity, barbarism)
to culture: low art, low culture, popular culture, mass culture, consumer culture
44
What are the 3 theoretical basises of Cultural Studies?
1. Superstructure v. Base: consumption as a form of active social production/reproductive, with the "prosumer" as not only passively consuming
2. Semiotics: language as made by culture, signs as codes that we encode ourselves and decode others with
3. Post-structuralism: decentering of the self & of authenticity (questions Representation & the Other)
45
What are the 7 key areas of inquiry behind Cultural Studies?
1. tactic knowledge of localized culture v. universal knowledge
2. cultural practices & their relation to power
3. cultural in political & social content
4. "reading" of signs, codes, & representations of culture to reveal power, politics, & social relations of power
5. (Marxist) study of working class culture, thus expanded to other marginalized (aboriginal, alternative, ethnicized, racialized, gendered) cultures
6. global migration of cultural studies
7. studying science & technology as cultures too
46
Why does Cultural Studies have the capacity to be socially/politically transformative?
cultural practices change constantly, and through these lens we can recognise, see, and name social/political transformation , thus finding a way out of Adorno's totalizing nothing
47
How does Spivak define the subaltern?
they cannot speak; oppressed class beyond registration of hegemonic discourse
48
Why does Cultural Studies critique Marx?
for the European Marxist bias and exclusive focus on privileging class above all; working class is not the only condition of oppression, nor can we easily map onto it; focus also on anti-colonialist liberation and independence movements in EU former colonies
49
What is hegemony?
when one power ideology exerts totalizing social authority over subordinate groups, can't see ideology because it is so naturalized, can't imagine any alternatives
50
What is subculture?
a set of people with distinct behavior & beliefs within a larger culture, which reworks & appropriates parent/dominant cultures to communicate resistance
51
What does Hebdige say about commodity usage?
how commodities are used can be a form of resistance, through embellishing, decorating, parodying, recognizing & rising above expected assigned subordinate positions
52
What does Hebdige say about ideology?
it's an implicit structural logic that can be revealed (structuralism)
53
What does Hebdige say about culture?
its rituals, objects, practices which, all together form a "way of life"; a hidden set of rules/codes/conventions
54
How is deconstruction applied to the signature?
analyzes the signature's boundaries, and thus the self's boundaries as it is comprised as a form of "self-writing"; acknowledge the trace of the Other right at the beginning
comparatively, metaphorically making something about the body a "signature" is building a self, a narrative, proving the existence of both
55
What can appropriation be?
an act of domination but also of resistance, through expressing possibility outside of hegemonic domination
56
How is appropriation present in Marx?
appropriation is at the center of Marx's understanding of men & change; it is his most general expression for the fact that man incorporates nature that he comes into contact with into himself
57
How is appropriation present in Hebdige?
subculture appropriates styles of parent/dominant culture; subcultures can all appropriate each other in a constant cycle of conflict
58
What does re-embodiment offer?
a method of legally resisting, contesting, & remaking trademarks/copyright, as many marginalized cannot access abstraction due to being forcefully embodied by corporations and must instead re-embody to be able to "speak"
59
What is abstraction?
the white privileged ability to be "unmarked"
60
What is Intellectual property?
the originator/creator of an original idea has exclusive ownership and rights over it
61
What does Coombe critique anthropology's perspective towards trademarks for?
- for seeing dissemination of U.S. TMs as a culture loss/sameness/modernized/westernized
- for not analyzing global TM narratives and instead forming a binary between authenticity and inauthenticity
- for seeing spread of trademarks as tying the public to nation & markets, as many marginalized societies are already part of the nation & market narratives through being the Other
62
What does Coombe argue the use of trademarks should be seen as?
use rather than ownership
63
What does Coombe argue the incorporation of the U.S. is integrally related to?
the forceful corporeality of the Other
64
How does Coombe define Mimesis?
(originating from Taussig) the ability to copy & imitate & yielding into in a way that the copy draws power from & influences the original; involves making contact between the body of percieved & perciever
65
How does Coombe define Alterity?
the state of being different & otherness that is marked in the body, emphasized instead of assimilated into; encounters with alterity haunts the proper name
66
How is alterity seen in trademarks?
Certain trademarks connotate "fanciful" distinctive nature on the spectrum of distinctiveness through being random in their "distant", exoticized nature
67
What is appropriation?
to make one's own, to take something, artistic technique of taking past images and making them your own
68
What is Zizek/Lacan's formula?
$♢a
- $ = barred subject of desire (self)
- ♢ = in relation to, dialectic to
- a = petit object a/the kernel
69
What is Zizek/Lacan's "$"?
the subject that is split by the symbolic order of language, through going through stages of societal development they are inducted into symbolic order of language and culture. thus, they are repressed with a "lack" in their split between their conscious/unconscious selves.
70
What is Zizek/Lacan's "a"?
the lack "caused/concealed" by the existence of the subject's split/lack, or the hard kernel absence at the center of the symbolic order. this is the last remaining "real" of the pre-imaginary and pre-language
71
What is ideological fantasy?
the double ideology that ideology, rather than being something which conceals reality and needs to be unmasked to see the truth/the real, is instead the mechanism through which concealment occurs in the first place. secondly, a person consciously knows that this concept of ideology is a fantasy, but subconsciously acts in actions and habits as if they do not know.
72
What is the symptom?
(Freud + Marx) the indicator of the mechanism of ideology, which both subverts the ideology and closes the circular logic of the ideological fantasy. ex: freedom to sell one's own labor
73
What is the symbolic order?
the place of language
74
What are Zizek/Lacan's 3 orders?
1. Imaginary: our desires embedded in what we imagine (images, dreams, movies, stories)
2. Symbolic: place of language (language, law, religion, father)
3. Real: kernel in symbolic order (unrepresentable, impossible, void only grasped by interaction with symbolic and imaginary)
75
How do we explain the Kinder's Surprise Egg through psychoanalysis?
First desire: chocolate shell
Second desire: replaced by toy car (surplus) to try and fill desire more
Real/unconscious: recognize the emptiness of shell structures the Egg, no more language of true/false, what you desire can never be named nor accessed or ended -- then, allow for alternatives
76
What differentiates Zizek/Lacan?
their methods are collective, as they psychoanalyze us all together as the same body
77
How does Zizek/Lacan apply to politics?
they argue that we are in an "unfinished reality"; we must confront and accept our desire as perpetual, thus confronting our psyche to really engage in politics; we must allow for alternatives outside of the symbolic order in a collective mannerism
78
What are the Beat/Beatniks?
40s-50s, predominately middle class, college-educated, preoccupation with the literary and with art, perceived Black culture as a kind of heroic myth as juxtaposed by a history of enslavement and a kind of spiritual essence
79
What are the Teddy Boys?
50s, Clothing of the Edwardian aristocracy contrasted to predominately Black, working class music. Excluded from idea of the "respectable" working class, condemned in all probability to life of unskilled labor. Rooted in white working class, and possessed white working class xenophobia.
80
What are the Mods?
70s, Clothing defined by meticulousness to the extreme, representative of having carefully been able to transition between spaces (school to work to leisure etc.) whilst simultaneously still having an indescribable, unidentifiable sense of "off-ness", strangeness, and lack of belonging in those spaces. Pushing neatness to the point of absurdity. On amphetamines.
81
What are Glam and Glitter Rockers?
70s. Movement into a fantasy past, taking heavily from Bowie with regards to sexual identity and freedom as cultural concepts and preoccupations, as well as just taking from Bowie's general aesthetic.
