Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs)
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Kent State University / OhioLINK
2021
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| Online Access: | http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1626919557257155 |
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ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-kent16269195572571552021-08-03T07:17:44Z Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) Ben-Ezzer, Tirza American Studies Artificial Intelligence Communication Comparative Comparative Literature Gender Gender Studies History Mass Media Multimedia Communications Philosophy Web Studies Metaphysics internet end of history digital subject digital subjectivity Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Deleuze Gilles Deleuze history philosophy of history virtual virtuality Katherine Hayles cyborg Donna Haraway gender queer queer theory Now more than ever, the encroaching significance of the internet and its capacities calls us to question how we relate to ourselves as subjects — this question is necessarily a historical one. The notion of a 'virtual' dimension to our social world reorients all of our preconceived metaphysical notions on which we ground our understanding of history. The modern, neo-liberal view of history that informs the popular imagination offers a teleological model of continued progress — I argue that this is ultimately a troubling narrative and urges us to rearticulate how we think of history in the digital age. In order to take on this endeavor, chapter one explores Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s dialectics and the “End of History'' primarily through exegetical work. The chapter concludes with an examination of how this model posits a prescriptive teleology that is appropriated by institutions, such as capitalism, to legitimize themselves as the logical progression of history and to justify the violence used to establish their despotism. Chapter two explores Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s own notions of history in response to the Hegelian model, or rather the dominant western, liberal view of history that dialectics has given rise to. They offer a rhizomatic view of history in which independent, but interrelated elements move and converge into a dynamic aggregate of conditions which pose problems or questions that subjects take up and perform. I adopt this view in order to identify the historical condition of the internet as one which challenges us to question what a (techno)virtual world of possibilities means for a subject — Where does my cognition start and my computer end?; What happens to gender in the digital world?; Who can I be in cyberspace? In chapter three, I explore these stated problems through Deleuze and Guattari in tandem with concepts such as the cyborg (Donna Haraway), computational logos as both the limit and extension of reason (Luciana Parisi), and cognitive assemblages (Katherine Hayles) in order to illustrate how subjectivity in the cyber-age has been inextricably co-constituted with digital technologies. I further this view through analyses of internet memes, different internet platforms, and how the absurd humor characteristic of internet culture points to a condition of unresolved contradiction, resisting a teleological model. Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic model of history frames a way to relate to our subjectivity that is open to contingency and experimentation — it allows us to think about the internet as a potential space to experiment with new modes of being which offer liberatory promise. 2021-07-23 English text Kent State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1626919557257155 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1626919557257155 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws. |
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NDLTD |
| language |
English |
| sources |
NDLTD |
| topic |
American Studies Artificial Intelligence Communication Comparative Comparative Literature Gender Gender Studies History Mass Media Multimedia Communications Philosophy Web Studies Metaphysics internet end of history digital subject digital subjectivity Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Deleuze Gilles Deleuze history philosophy of history virtual virtuality Katherine Hayles cyborg Donna Haraway gender queer queer theory |
| spellingShingle |
American Studies Artificial Intelligence Communication Comparative Comparative Literature Gender Gender Studies History Mass Media Multimedia Communications Philosophy Web Studies Metaphysics internet end of history digital subject digital subjectivity Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Deleuze Gilles Deleuze history philosophy of history virtual virtuality Katherine Hayles cyborg Donna Haraway gender queer queer theory Ben-Ezzer, Tirza Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) |
| author |
Ben-Ezzer, Tirza |
| author_facet |
Ben-Ezzer, Tirza |
| author_sort |
Ben-Ezzer, Tirza |
| title |
Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) |
| title_short |
Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) |
| title_full |
Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) |
| title_fullStr |
Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Naming the Virtual: Digital Subjects and The End of History through Hegel and Deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) |
| title_sort |
naming the virtual: digital subjects and the end of history through hegel and deleuze (and a maybe few cyborgs) |
| publisher |
Kent State University / OhioLINK |
| publishDate |
2021 |
| url |
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1626919557257155 |
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