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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Amazon Web Services, The Lacanian Unconscious, And Digital Life, Marshall N. Armintor
Amazon Web Services, The Lacanian Unconscious, And Digital Life, Marshall N. Armintor
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In late 2011, ex-Amazon developer Steve Yegge’s rant about his former company described Amazon’s rapid transformation from an online bookstore to a web-services entity with a ruthlessly unified platform, all guided by the idea that the company’s effort to streamline its internal efficiency could be monetized, and the resultant software products sold through Amazon Web Services. The media consumerism that fed Amazon’s early years funded a surveilling behemoth, one that everyone feared Microsoft would become. As such, AWS has become a manifestation of the internet’s Lacanian unconscious (even providing the services and hosting for Reddit), structured around the optimization of …
The Social Sinthome, Ryan Engley
The Social Sinthome, Ryan Engley
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
Much of the critical discourse on social media misidentifies its problematic features as bugs, or problems to solve. Supposed solutions to these problems tend to focus on individual actions. We should delete the apps, own our own data, never click on recommended videos, and realize that we are the product. But if predatory algorithms succeed by individuating people—selling people “choice” and “options” as it harvests user data—then an entire online ecosystem arranged through the logic of that design can neither be meaningfully challenged nor effectively understood at the level of the individual alone. Transformative action addressing social media can only …
Rethinking The Monstrous: Gender, Otherness, And Space In The Cinematic Storytelling Of Arrival And The Shape Of Water, Edward Chamberlain
Rethinking The Monstrous: Gender, Otherness, And Space In The Cinematic Storytelling Of Arrival And The Shape Of Water, Edward Chamberlain
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
Through comparing the Hollywood films Arrival and The Shape of Water, this article explicates the films’ similar portrayals of gender, social collaboration, and monstrosity. Although the mainstream media in the United States has linked the idea of the monstrous to larger global forces, the two films suggest that “the monster” exists much closer to home. Hence, this article makes the case that monstrosity occurs in a variety of formulations such as the actions of national authorities like governmental officials that oppress and endanger a myriad of American citizens as well as newcomers. Further, this article makes the case that …
Suffering And Climate Change Narratives, Simon C. Estok
Suffering And Climate Change Narratives, Simon C. Estok
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Suffering and Climate Change Narratives" Simon C. Estok begins with a brief survey of definitional issues involved with the term “suffering” and argues that there has been a relative lack of theoretical attention to suffering in climate change narratives, whether literary or within mainstream media. Estok shows that suffering, far from being singular, is a multivalent concept that is gendered, classed, raced, and, perhaps above all, pliable. It has social functions. One of the primary reasons for the failure of climate change narratives to effect real changes, Estok argues, is that they often carry the functions of …
The Colonized Masculinity And Cultural Politics Of Seediq Bale, Chin-Ju Lin
The Colonized Masculinity And Cultural Politics Of Seediq Bale, Chin-Ju Lin
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article, “The Colonized Masculinity and Cultural Politics of Seediq Bale,” Chin-ju Lin discusses a Taiwanese blockbuster movie, a postcolonial historiography and a form of life-writing, which delineates the last Indigenous insurrection against Japanese colonialism. This article explores the cultural representations in Seediq Bale. Fighting back as a colonized man for pride and dignity is portrayed as means to restore their masculine identity. The headhunting tradition is remembered, romanticized, praised highly as heroic and even strengthened in an inaccurate way to promote individualistic masculinity and to forge a new national identity in postcolonial Taiwan. Nevertheless, the stereotypical …
How Burroughs Plays With The Brain, Or Ritornellos As A Means To Produce Déjà-Vu, Antonio José Bonome
How Burroughs Plays With The Brain, Or Ritornellos As A Means To Produce Déjà-Vu, Antonio José Bonome
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "How Burroughs Plays with the Brain, or Ritornellos as a Means to Produce Déjà-Vu" Antonio José Bonome discusses how the recurrence and significance of one of William S. Burroughs's most potent refrains, "dim jerky faraway," was inspired by its source text, Paul Bowles's second novel Let It Come Down (1952), where Tangiers-Interzone fuels the unwholesome descent of a US-American expatriate not unlike Bowles or Burroughs himself. "Dim jerky faraway" was used by Burroughs during more than two decades in different contexts, and its textual variations have sparked a mélange of colors, sounds, smells, and feelings oscillating in …
The Meaning And Relevance Of Video Game Literacy, Jeroen Bourgonjon
The Meaning And Relevance Of Video Game Literacy, Jeroen Bourgonjon
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "The Meaning and Relevance of Video Game Literacy" Jeroen Bourgonjon argues that video gaming deserves scholarly attention as a social practice and a site for meaning-making and learning. Based on an overview of contemporary trends in literacy and cultural studies, he argues that video games cannot be approached like traditional text forms. He contends that video games serve as an important frame of reference for young people and call for informed decision making in the context of culture, education, and policy. Bourgonjon provides an integrated perspective on video game literacy by employing theoretical insights about their distinctive …