For the following decades after the American Civil War,most American literature works presented the war in a romantic or sentimental manner.However,Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage gave it a naturalistic touc...For the following decades after the American Civil War,most American literature works presented the war in a romantic or sentimental manner.However,Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage gave it a naturalistic touch to tell the story of Henry Fleming,the main character,overcoming cowardice and becoming a hero.Through its revolutionary criticism of psychoanalysis and capitalism,Deleuze and Guattari contributed a legacy to postmodern philosophy with their affect philosophy,with virtuality at its pivot.Using the Deleuzo-Guattarian affective philosophy as a scope,it is clear that the maturing of Henry is in fact a sequence of two attempts of deterritorialization in the war,one failed and the other successful.The heroism Henry acquires is demonstrated in the form of virtual death and disconnection with meaning;nonetheless,his return to the society makes it an incomplete destratification,which,at the same time,indicates the opportunity to be a true hero is forever lost to Henry,lost on the battlefield.展开更多
This essay takes up the modernist tradition of representing fractured feminine selves in the work of contemporary Asian-American author Meena Alexander(1951-2018),examining her representation of the postcolonial artis...This essay takes up the modernist tradition of representing fractured feminine selves in the work of contemporary Asian-American author Meena Alexander(1951-2018),examining her representation of the postcolonial artist through a critical exploration o f autospecular affect.Drawing on m odernist im pulses—the breakdown o f human communication,the inefficacy of language,as well as experiences of alienation—Alexander depicts the creative act for the postcolonial artist as suffused with an autospecular desire to connect fragmented,displaced psyches through a reassessment of subjectivities.She delineates possibilities of moving past Eurocentric modernism through her articulation of the struggles of the postcolonial artist dealing with global modernity.Drawing from theories of specularity within affective paradigms,I trace the phenomenological process of self-other engagement in Alexander’s references to the autospecular subject looking in the mirror to understand herself and others around her.I also highlight how modernist writers such as Joyce,Eliot,and Woolf offer Alexander a metaphorical mirror wherein she sees the anxieties of the postcolonial artist and reflects them through renderings of their creative challenges.The essay concludes with a theoretical interpretation of Alexander’s autoscopic experiences in terms of Jacques Lacan’s“mirror stage theory”to understand subject formation in her work.展开更多
文摘For the following decades after the American Civil War,most American literature works presented the war in a romantic or sentimental manner.However,Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage gave it a naturalistic touch to tell the story of Henry Fleming,the main character,overcoming cowardice and becoming a hero.Through its revolutionary criticism of psychoanalysis and capitalism,Deleuze and Guattari contributed a legacy to postmodern philosophy with their affect philosophy,with virtuality at its pivot.Using the Deleuzo-Guattarian affective philosophy as a scope,it is clear that the maturing of Henry is in fact a sequence of two attempts of deterritorialization in the war,one failed and the other successful.The heroism Henry acquires is demonstrated in the form of virtual death and disconnection with meaning;nonetheless,his return to the society makes it an incomplete destratification,which,at the same time,indicates the opportunity to be a true hero is forever lost to Henry,lost on the battlefield.
文摘This essay takes up the modernist tradition of representing fractured feminine selves in the work of contemporary Asian-American author Meena Alexander(1951-2018),examining her representation of the postcolonial artist through a critical exploration o f autospecular affect.Drawing on m odernist im pulses—the breakdown o f human communication,the inefficacy of language,as well as experiences of alienation—Alexander depicts the creative act for the postcolonial artist as suffused with an autospecular desire to connect fragmented,displaced psyches through a reassessment of subjectivities.She delineates possibilities of moving past Eurocentric modernism through her articulation of the struggles of the postcolonial artist dealing with global modernity.Drawing from theories of specularity within affective paradigms,I trace the phenomenological process of self-other engagement in Alexander’s references to the autospecular subject looking in the mirror to understand herself and others around her.I also highlight how modernist writers such as Joyce,Eliot,and Woolf offer Alexander a metaphorical mirror wherein she sees the anxieties of the postcolonial artist and reflects them through renderings of their creative challenges.The essay concludes with a theoretical interpretation of Alexander’s autoscopic experiences in terms of Jacques Lacan’s“mirror stage theory”to understand subject formation in her work.
