With this degree of realism, virtual tourism was a real possibility. As a reviewer for The Times ... more With this degree of realism, virtual tourism was a real possibility. As a reviewer for The Times remarked two weeks later: Mr Barker's improvement in Painting. .. must prove particularly interesting to their Majesties. .. who rarely go abroad. To them views of distant countries will be brought. .. before them, one entire uninterrupted circle, placing them in the centre, where they can see the same as those who travel;. .. and having seen it personally, they can retain it perfectly in idea, the same as nature could impress. 5
[A] poem is not without date, but despite its date it is always yet to come, it speaks in a “now”... more [A] poem is not without date, but despite its date it is always yet to come, it speaks in a “now” that does not answer to historical indicators. (Blanchot 112)While I was reading the collections of...
This paper compares Emanuel Swedenborg's account of how bodies ought to be organized with the rad... more This paper compares Emanuel Swedenborg's account of how bodies ought to be organized with the radical revision of his thought developed by William Blake. As I will suggest, the debate between these figures is not exhausted by the contest between reason and imagination; it is also about "hard" and "soft" systems, which organize bodies, passions, and arguably the imagination itself in ways radically different from each other. These differences are nowhere more evident than in the sexual politics they imply and in the radically different roles they reserve for creation and "emergence." My argument begins with Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, the at-first-sight unlikely points of departure for Blake's own thought on organization, and it concludes with a discussion of the 33rd plate of Blake's Milton, which echoes in order radically to revise the machine at the heart of the Swedenborgian world.
... Qualities of the Simple Earth, he represents: ... It establishes a third point that is the de... more ... Qualities of the Simple Earth, he represents: ... It establishes a third point that is the desired climax and conclusion of the narrative begun in the passage from sickness to health. Just as importantly, the healthy body mimics the resurrected body. ...
19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 2008
This is the extraordinary story of my adventure as the first human entering into a Cyber World; a... more This is the extraordinary story of my adventure as the first human entering into a Cyber World; a world which will, most likely, become the next evolutionary step for humankind." Kevin Warwick, I, Cyborg 1 "Android Video" records a conversation between Hiroshi Ishiguro (a computer scientist from Osaka University), Repliee Q1 (a "female" android) and Robert Epstein (an American psychologist). 2 With a face modelled after a Japanese TV host, Q1 has been described as "the most human-looking robot yet" and as one of the most beautiful (see fig. 1). 3 In "Android Video", Ishiguro presents himself as the android"s creator, Q1 rehearses her behavioural routines, while Epstein is on a date. Peter Otto, Dreaming of Cyborgs, Sex, and Catastrophe: Warwick's rush to the brink (and a note on Clayton's 'policy arena') 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 7 (2008) www.19.bbk.ac.uk Peter Otto, Dreaming of Cyborgs, Sex, and Catastrophe: Warwick's rush to the brink (and a note on Clayton's 'policy arena')
Virtual reality is one of the most prominent of the terms used to describe the postmodern world. ... more Virtual reality is one of the most prominent of the terms used to describe the postmodern world. In the last two decades, there has been discussion of virtual communities, virtual politics, virtual identities, and even virtual realism. Already in 1995 Jean Baudrillard, in an article entitled 'The Virtual Illusion', reported 'the transformation of life itself, of everyday life, into virtual reality' (107). Despite its contemporary valence there is no extended history of the term and no agreement on how the phenomena it names should be understood. Yet, as Katherine Hayles observes in How we became Postmodern, we must 'understand
FREUD'S SUGGESTION in" The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming" that much of the ... more FREUD'S SUGGESTION in" The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming" that much of the pleasure that we gain from works of art is a result of the writer" putting us into a position in which we can enjoy our own daydreams without reproach or shame" l is only in a very ...
This essay traces the architectural dimensions of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho by... more This essay traces the architectural dimensions of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho by focusing on the novel's presentation of a series of edifices, as the narrative moves from La Vallée to Venice and then from Udolpho to Chateau-le-Blanc. Emphasizing the architectural inscrutability – and therefore the historical illegibility – of the Castle of Udolpho, Radcliffe presents architecture as a material mediation of an incommensurable history. Against this conceptual framework, Chateau-le-Blanc becomes a space where disparate, apparently irreconcilable narratives of cultural and political history converge, enabling a new mode of affective life that, culminating with Emily's ultimate return to La Vallée, marks the emergence of a modern concern with the biopolitical and its relation to sovereignty.
Critical analysis of 'Remembering Babylon' by David Malouf. Review(s) of: Rememberring Ba... more Critical analysis of 'Remembering Babylon' by David Malouf. Review(s) of: Rememberring Babylon, by David Malouf, Chatto and Windus, Sydney, 1993, $29.95 hb. Includes endnotes.
It is the Semen of Man in which lieth hid the inmost [ Principle] of his Life, and thence the Inc... more It is the Semen of Man in which lieth hid the inmost [ Principle] of his Life, and thence the Inchoament or Beginning of a new Life, and from this Circumstance the Semen is holy; to make this common with the inmost Principles and Inchoaments of others, as is done in Adulteries, is prophane. Swedenborg 1 The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative powers of nature or matter, as the male were of the generative powers of God. Knight 2 a good number of these flying dreams are dreams of erection; for the remarkable phenomenon of erection, around which the human imagination has constantly played, cannot fail to be impressive, involving as it does an apparent suspension of the laws of gravity. Freud' the phallus is. .. the signifier intended to designate as a whole the effects of the signified. Lacan'
The earliest meanings of ‘modern’ are close to what we now call the contemporary. This is of cour... more The earliest meanings of ‘modern’ are close to what we now call the contemporary. This is of course still one of the ways in which this word can be understood, but during the eighteenth century it ...
With this degree of realism, virtual tourism was a real possibility. As a reviewer for The Times ... more With this degree of realism, virtual tourism was a real possibility. As a reviewer for The Times remarked two weeks later: Mr Barker's improvement in Painting. .. must prove particularly interesting to their Majesties. .. who rarely go abroad. To them views of distant countries will be brought. .. before them, one entire uninterrupted circle, placing them in the centre, where they can see the same as those who travel;. .. and having seen it personally, they can retain it perfectly in idea, the same as nature could impress. 5
[A] poem is not without date, but despite its date it is always yet to come, it speaks in a “now”... more [A] poem is not without date, but despite its date it is always yet to come, it speaks in a “now” that does not answer to historical indicators. (Blanchot 112)While I was reading the collections of...
This paper compares Emanuel Swedenborg's account of how bodies ought to be organized with the rad... more This paper compares Emanuel Swedenborg's account of how bodies ought to be organized with the radical revision of his thought developed by William Blake. As I will suggest, the debate between these figures is not exhausted by the contest between reason and imagination; it is also about "hard" and "soft" systems, which organize bodies, passions, and arguably the imagination itself in ways radically different from each other. These differences are nowhere more evident than in the sexual politics they imply and in the radically different roles they reserve for creation and "emergence." My argument begins with Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, the at-first-sight unlikely points of departure for Blake's own thought on organization, and it concludes with a discussion of the 33rd plate of Blake's Milton, which echoes in order radically to revise the machine at the heart of the Swedenborgian world.
... Qualities of the Simple Earth, he represents: ... It establishes a third point that is the de... more ... Qualities of the Simple Earth, he represents: ... It establishes a third point that is the desired climax and conclusion of the narrative begun in the passage from sickness to health. Just as importantly, the healthy body mimics the resurrected body. ...
19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 2008
This is the extraordinary story of my adventure as the first human entering into a Cyber World; a... more This is the extraordinary story of my adventure as the first human entering into a Cyber World; a world which will, most likely, become the next evolutionary step for humankind." Kevin Warwick, I, Cyborg 1 "Android Video" records a conversation between Hiroshi Ishiguro (a computer scientist from Osaka University), Repliee Q1 (a "female" android) and Robert Epstein (an American psychologist). 2 With a face modelled after a Japanese TV host, Q1 has been described as "the most human-looking robot yet" and as one of the most beautiful (see fig. 1). 3 In "Android Video", Ishiguro presents himself as the android"s creator, Q1 rehearses her behavioural routines, while Epstein is on a date. Peter Otto, Dreaming of Cyborgs, Sex, and Catastrophe: Warwick's rush to the brink (and a note on Clayton's 'policy arena') 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 7 (2008) www.19.bbk.ac.uk Peter Otto, Dreaming of Cyborgs, Sex, and Catastrophe: Warwick's rush to the brink (and a note on Clayton's 'policy arena')
Virtual reality is one of the most prominent of the terms used to describe the postmodern world. ... more Virtual reality is one of the most prominent of the terms used to describe the postmodern world. In the last two decades, there has been discussion of virtual communities, virtual politics, virtual identities, and even virtual realism. Already in 1995 Jean Baudrillard, in an article entitled 'The Virtual Illusion', reported 'the transformation of life itself, of everyday life, into virtual reality' (107). Despite its contemporary valence there is no extended history of the term and no agreement on how the phenomena it names should be understood. Yet, as Katherine Hayles observes in How we became Postmodern, we must 'understand
FREUD'S SUGGESTION in" The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming" that much of the ... more FREUD'S SUGGESTION in" The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming" that much of the pleasure that we gain from works of art is a result of the writer" putting us into a position in which we can enjoy our own daydreams without reproach or shame" l is only in a very ...
This essay traces the architectural dimensions of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho by... more This essay traces the architectural dimensions of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho by focusing on the novel's presentation of a series of edifices, as the narrative moves from La Vallée to Venice and then from Udolpho to Chateau-le-Blanc. Emphasizing the architectural inscrutability – and therefore the historical illegibility – of the Castle of Udolpho, Radcliffe presents architecture as a material mediation of an incommensurable history. Against this conceptual framework, Chateau-le-Blanc becomes a space where disparate, apparently irreconcilable narratives of cultural and political history converge, enabling a new mode of affective life that, culminating with Emily's ultimate return to La Vallée, marks the emergence of a modern concern with the biopolitical and its relation to sovereignty.
Critical analysis of 'Remembering Babylon' by David Malouf. Review(s) of: Rememberring Ba... more Critical analysis of 'Remembering Babylon' by David Malouf. Review(s) of: Rememberring Babylon, by David Malouf, Chatto and Windus, Sydney, 1993, $29.95 hb. Includes endnotes.
It is the Semen of Man in which lieth hid the inmost [ Principle] of his Life, and thence the Inc... more It is the Semen of Man in which lieth hid the inmost [ Principle] of his Life, and thence the Inchoament or Beginning of a new Life, and from this Circumstance the Semen is holy; to make this common with the inmost Principles and Inchoaments of others, as is done in Adulteries, is prophane. Swedenborg 1 The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative powers of nature or matter, as the male were of the generative powers of God. Knight 2 a good number of these flying dreams are dreams of erection; for the remarkable phenomenon of erection, around which the human imagination has constantly played, cannot fail to be impressive, involving as it does an apparent suspension of the laws of gravity. Freud' the phallus is. .. the signifier intended to designate as a whole the effects of the signified. Lacan'
The earliest meanings of ‘modern’ are close to what we now call the contemporary. This is of cour... more The earliest meanings of ‘modern’ are close to what we now call the contemporary. This is of course still one of the ways in which this word can be understood, but during the eighteenth century it ...
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