Final Blog

Haraway talks a lot about knowledge, and its relationship to power. Right away this made me think of Foucoult’s idea of power/knowledge. Haraway doesn’t say that they have to exist together, like Foucoult does though. She says that we have learned that with knowledge, we can achieve power. Her idea of knowledge connects to her ideas of language and subjectivity. She says that it is important to know that we are “…language-mediated actors in the knowledge game”. This also reminds me of what we discussed in class about subjects as the vehicles. Language is a part of the knowledge discourse. I think that her views of language build on Lacan’s theory of language. Language creates and determines our subjectivity and it is through language that our identities form.

What I get out of this is that Haraway believes that language and knowledge exist together. “Rational knowledge is a process of ongoing critical interpretation among fields of interpreters and decoders”.

Haraway says that “There is no single feminist standpoint because our maps require too much dimension for that metaphor to ground our visitors. The woman is made up of one single view, it is the joining several partial views. In regards to her ideas of feminist theories, I found her to be pretty similar to Irigaray’s idea that the female is a complex and dynamic in comparison to the simple and stable man

Blog 11

Recently I saw an article about my favorite cheesesteak place back home in Philadelphia; Geno’s. There have been a lot of complaints nationwide about a sign they had in the window that said, “THIS IS AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH”. I can partially understand why people may be bothered by this and think that this is racist, but I also can see why people stick up for him. Geno’s is in South Philly, an area made up of all different races and languages. The food is cheap, quick and famous worldwide. When ordering, you have to be fast and know how to abbreviate what you want. This is where I understand their need for English speaking customers.

I think this can relate to Spillers’ ‘Politics of Melanin’, the idea that Ethnicity only exists in visible markers, such as skin color. This theory claims that white people have no ethnicity. I think this idea relates to my experience because people are calling owner Joe Vento, racist or prejudice against ethnicities, when really he is doing the opposite (according to The Politics of Melanin). The sign is asking for something having to do with the language of cultures. I think it is actually anything but racist because they are leaving that out, and they don’t assume that a white person speaks English, or that a black person does not. In the end the Philadelphia Commission ruled that the sign violate any city laws.

Blog 10

In the Homosocial theory of masculinity the woman is seen as the exchange between two males. Although she is important, the focus goes to the men fighting over her. I think that in a way this relates to the movie Shreck. One who has never seen this before thinks that it is entirely about a love story between the Princess and Shreck. The only reason that Shreck went to go save the Princess was to get his land back. The Prince who had Shreck get the Princess had the power. He made a deal that if Shreck brings back the Princess, he will give him back his land. The plot behind this all is about the exchange of Princess Fiona for what each of the men want for them selves.

Blog #9 Queer Theory

The queer theory says that it is essential for us to stop using the terms men and women, which implies difference in the heterosexual system. As gendered and sexual subjects, we will remain in society’s traditional gender binary. In queer theory, the desire of a sexual object that is not ‘normal’, challenges the heterosexual society. Mansfield says that we can have queer politics without fixed gender. I am not sure exactly what I think about this, but I think I would lean toward no. We cannot have queer politics without fixed gender and sexuality. Since our definitions of sexuality are based on the heterosexual gender system, I don’t see how queer theory would come up otherwise. If there was not a dominant norm, we wouldn’t be able to label anyone as different or queer.

Additional Blog #2

The genealogy of subjectivity refers to examining the different theories of subjectivity. Mansfield uses this term to analyze many theories of the subject, focusing on the theory as the subject. Genealogy is most often paired with tracing history of families. In the same sense, this idea traces the history of ideas of subjectivity.

Freud was the creator of the psychoanalytic theory of subjectivity which was based on his notion of the unconscious. The unconscious mind drives the conscious, the irrational and rational. We try to repress these thoughts in the unconscious, but they sometimes come out through certain behaviors, habits and dreams. The subject is a construct of relationships. The subject is also produced through a child’s relationship with their parents during the Oedipal Complex. Many other theories of subjectivity use Freud’s idea of psychoanalysis.

Lacan used Freud’s model of psychoanalysis to form his theory of language and subjectivity. We are subjects in the world of language. The biggest difference between Lacan and Freud is that Freud focuses more on the biology of a person, while Lacan focuses on the language and symbolic concepts. In Frued’s model, the subject develops through the Oedipal Complex, but in Lacan’s it is during the mirror-stage. The subject is always trying to become stable even though it never achieves complete stability. These are our desires and demands to get back to the “real”.

Another theory that has developed from psychoanalysis is Kristeva’s model of abjection. Kristeva uses ideas from both Freud and Lacan. She also believes that there is an area between the unconscious and conscious that creates our subjectivity. What sets Kristeva apart from the Freud and Lacan is that she focuses on the unknown and unstable, where they focus on the stabilization of the subject. This incomplete area of horror between the self and the other is what Kristeva considers to be abjection.

Irigaray has a modern feminist theory of psychoanalytic subjectivity that opposes Freud and Lacan’s theories of the dominate male by adding the female imaginary. This idea is also based on the genitals, except this time it is the female. It represents the diverse and complex women, as opposed to the simple and stable male.

additional blog #1

Foucault- First there must be power in order for subjects to emerge. Subjects are produced through culture and power. Our subjectivity is based on the idea of knowledge/power. We are formed as individuals by the institutions that have power. “The subject is the vehicle of power”. It is a continuous circle of power reproduction. Institutions that have power need subjects to have power over. Foucault disagrees with the institutions that formed to find truths. He believes that there is no “truth”.

Freud’s two models of subjectivity are the unconscious and the oedipal complex. The unconscious us where we repress thoughts that we don’t want to enter into our conscious, but they often slip out. The development of the subject is based on the child’s relationships with the parents during the oedipal stage. At first the boy desires the mother and wants to replace his father, but then power of his father makes him see that there is a threat of castration, so he goes with his father. The subject is constructed through these experiences.

Lacan- In order for the subject to emerge, language must be there. The subject is constructed through a very complex process. The subject is constructed through the world of language, specifically through the mirror-stage. This stage is when the child first realizes that they are separate from the rest of the world. They then become lost in the symbolic world. Once subjects are created, they constantly desire to get back to the imaginary.

Blog 8: Essentialism

Luce Irigaray studied the female subject since it was something most theories of subjectivity neglected to address properly. She opposes psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Lacan, which represented the female as the by-product of the male. Irigaray used the idea that males were stable, unified and fixed to uphold her theory that the female was diverse and complex. Butler believes that gender came first and then sex. If we are going to look at the idea of nature vs. biology, we cannot do that without influences, since we are already apart of our society. Everything in our culture is a result of gender.

I feel that Butler’s theory is more “essentialist” because she believes that “Gender is a regulated system of performances”. Our society is based on norms of what it means to be a gendered subject and we follow and repeat this system as best as we can. I think that Irigaray’s argument is more “anti-essentialist”. Irigaray believes that women are not uniform like men are. They are all different and are not fixed subjects.

Blog 7

Foucault believes that in order to have new power relations we have to analyze the resistance of certain powers. In order to find out what is healthy, we need to first figure out what is unhealthy.

Foucault believes that there are different ways that power is displayed, which make up a discipline for our society to follow. Power assigns relationships between subjects. When someone has the power over another, they have control to change or even destroy them. This is relevant to all institutions that hold power. For example in a school, the institutions have control of how we think of ourselves based on their analysis of us as individuals. Power goes through communication systems which can designate relationships among subjects. Power is assigned in institutions through types of communication.

Power only exists when it is put into action. Without some type of action, power can not be exercised. The judicial system would not exist if there weren’t individuals making actions. Once people have actions, the institutions have power.

Blog 6: Foucault

Foucault's idea is that the subject has been constructed by power in our society. We become subjects as we are subjected to the discourses, which occur through interpellation. The subject is not natural, it has no structure. He strongly opposes Rousseau’s theory that the subject is a free and autonomous individual and the Enlightenment model. Although he sides with Lacan in the sense that subjects are created through relationships and experiences, he believes that they are the relationships of power.

Foucault uses the term Power/Knowledge because power and knowledge always exist together. Subjectivity exists within power/knowledge. We are subjects of the discourse of power/knowledge. Power categorizes individuals that are always being examined. Foucault believes that the panopticism principle of power in jails is the same model of power among all subjects in modern society. Power comes first, and then the individual.

Abjection & Self-Mutilation

Kristeva’s uses the term abjection as something that disturbs identity, meaning and systems of order; horror. She believes the process of abjection occurs in the incomplete area of repression, which is between the conscious and the unconscious, and is always present. The exciting and dangerous unconscious is always apart of the conscious.

The idea of the corpse in relation to abjection may be similar to the drives behind self-mutilation. The actual cut and the blood flow during self-mutilation bring together life and the possibility of death. This may be an effective remedy for one that is trying to show themselves that they are really hurting, and they want to feel like themselves again. The physical effects of this process may help them realize that they are a part of this world. It may attach a selfhood to their body.

People involved with self-mutilation may be unconsciously challenging the idea of the “clean and proper body’, instead of playing the defensive position. Self-mutilation may show someone the materiality of themselves as a subject that they have not been able to see. It could be their way of distinguishing themselves from the other, the subject from the object and the inside from the outside. They are in that hazy, unstable, incomplete area of abjection.

Blog 4 Subjectivity and Language

Benveniste’s main argument in the “Subjectivity of Language” is that language creates the basis of subjectivity. The example of nature and man in this reading helped make her overall view of language clear to me. There were three specific arguments within this central idea that I found interesting.

“The conscious self is only possible if it is experienced by contrast”. In order to use language one must also be aware of opposing subjects or else subjectivity is not present. A person uses the term ‘I’ knowing that there has to be a ‘you’ on the other end. I agree with this argument and I really like it. It reminds me of Lacan’s mirror-stage.

“A language without the expression of a person cannot be imagined”. At first I was skeptical about this concept but overall I agree with it. Subjectivity is only revealed through the use of pronouns. In certain cultures that do not use pronouns, they are still implied and acknowledged since they refrain from using them.

I do not completely agree with her argument that “language always makes a distinction of tenses”. She says that language always uses a tense no matter what it is, but I can’t believe that this could be true in all cases of language. I do feel that the use of ‘I’ with no other tense is a tense itself because it is occurring.

Blog 3 Lacan

One of Lacan’s steps in the development of the subject is his idea of “The Real”. He describes “The Real” in relation to the imaginary and symbolic and in a way our sense of completeness gets lost once we enter into the world of language. The Real puts the individual in the state of need; we are always in a need to find a sense of reality. The imaginary is when a child realizes through the mirror-stage that they are separate from the rest of the world, giving them an image of completeness. In “The Real” we are lost in the symbolic constantly trying to bring back the imaginary.

Children’s relationships with their stuffed animals are imaginary. The computer chip that goes into the dolls shows that the body and the subject of the stuffed animal are separate. Eva knew that the ‘real’ Easter was in the chip, not the body. This also relates to the idea of the signifier and the signified. Eva is able to differentiate the actual stuffed animal to the concept that it exists.

Frued

Fred believed that sexuality develops through the relationships with parents in early childhood. Children go through stages with their parents that make up their gender identity and sexuality. His theory is that the Oedipus complex constructs the child’s sexuality, enabling them to separate the differences of their parents. The boy is at first attached with the mother but then he fears the idea of castration and he follows the father, internally removing the mother. It is important for the child to go through these stages otherwise they could have serious mental, identity or relationship problems later. His theory demonstrates that boys will see the father as strong and the mother as submissive.

I partially agree with Freud on his idea of the development of sexuality. I believe that our relationship with our parents throughout childhood helps develop our sexuality, but I don’t think that it is necessarily the leading factor. I think that our sexuality is partially innate and partially constructed. I think that there is a greater construction from society instead of only our parents. Freud’s theory of the oedipal stage is accurate when it comes to identifying gender in others, especially at a young age. The belief that the woman is good and nurturing and the man is independent and powerful is pretty common among young children. When I was a child I was not intentionally taught this, but I was under the impression of it. I assume that this was what I observed and experienced at a very young age with my parents. Although I do believe that it is an idea that I acquired through interactions with peers and other adults as well as my parents, which is something that Freud does not mention. This may be a part of our changing society. Since it is now common for women to work outside of the house, children are more often put in social environments, such as day care at earlier ages. In terms of my personal sexuality, I pretty much have the same partial thoughts of Freud’s idea. I was not close with my father at a young age so I feel that other factors in society led to the development of my sexuality. But I also think that sexuality might develop earlier than Freud assumes, perhaps in the infant stage. Overall I like the idea of the Oedipus complex but I agree with the ‘The New Oedipus’ that this is only one step, and that other forms of social integration pre or post Oedipus stage might be even more influential, especially in our changing society.

The Enlightenment Era & Subjectivity

The Enlightenment period was an intellectual movement which was a significant turning point during the eighteenth century of the western world. The philosophical ideas of this era were perhaps partially in response to the unfortunate conditions that much of the world was in at the time. Subjectivity became a concern during this period and for the first time the subject was viewed as a self-ruling individual that is constructed through society. Some of the leading theories of subjectivity and selfhood during the Enlightenment period came from Descartes, Rousseau and Kant.
The Cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am” was a quote from Descartes that explain his ideas of selfhood and the individual during this era. He believed that the “self” is the basis of the world around us and creates our experiences, knowledge and feelings. Descartes theory of selfhood is based on the individual’s consciousness of reality and reason. His idea of consciousness is making sense of the world, which is what “selfhood” is. These theories have had a remarkable impact on other enlightenment thinkers.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau often used his own life in explaining his theory of self-sufficiency. He stressed the idea that each person is good and it is the unnatural aspects of society that has corrupted them. Whether they are good or bad, they are an individual, different from next. He believed that the only way to find the truth of the natural individual is to remove yours self from the unnatural word that we were once in.
Immanuel Kant believed that the “self” or the “I” was always the origin of our thoughts, actions and perceptions of all aspects of the world around us. He believed that for every mental and physical experience in this world we must have a conscious awareness of the self.