Networks of Desire


Book Description

“Japan's pop culture, once believed unexportable, is now hitting the shores of other nations like a tsunami. In North America, young fans consume vast amounts of manga and anime, while academics increasingly study the entire J-pop phenomenon to understand it. One community has passion while the other has discipline, and what has been lacking is a bridge between the two. Mechademia is the bridge, and with a name like that, how can one go wrong? So why wait? Hop in your giant mobile suit and stomp down to the local real or virtual bookstore to purchase a copy right now!” —Frederik L. Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics Networks of Desire—the second volume in the Mechademia series, an annual forum devoted to critical and creative work on Japanese anime, manga, and the fan cultures that have coalesced around them—explores the varieties of desire that structure and influence much of contemporary anime and manga in manifestations that range from the explicitly sexual to more sublimated text and imagery. Collecting original essays by scholars, artists, and fans, Networks of Desire considers key issues at play in a Japanese society increasingly uncertain of its place in a globalized world: from idealized representations of same-sex desire in such shjo manga (girls’s comics) as The Rose of Versailles, to fan fiction inspired by the gender-switching manga Ranma ½, to desire in otaku communities. Deftly weaving together desire and discourse, Mechademia 2 illuminates the techno-carnal fantasies, animalistic consumption, political nostalgia, and existential hunger underlying the most popular and influential expressions of Japanese popular culture today. Contributors: Brent Allison, U of Georgia; Meredith Suzanne Hahn Aquila; Hiroki Azuma; William L. Benzon; Christopher Bolton, Williams College; Martha Cornog; Patrick Drazen; Marc Hairston, U of Texas, Dallas; Mari Kotani; Shu Kuge, Penn State U; Margherita Long, U of California, Riverside; Daisuke Miyao; Hiromi Mizuno, U of Minnesota; Mariana Ortega; Timothy Perper; Eron Rauch; Trina Robbins; Brian Ruh, Indiana U; Deborah Shamoon, U of Notre Dame; Masami Toku, California State U, Chico; Keith Vincent, NYU. Frenchy Lunning is professor of liberal arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and editor of Mechademia 1: Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga (Minnesota, 2006).




Networks of Desire


Book Description

This work provides an analysis of the creation and maintenance of electronic and social networks amongst women, drawing upon empirical research conducted in the Bay Area of California and the Cyber Cafe in London.




The Transhumanism Handbook


Book Description

Modern humanity with some 5,000 years of recorded history has been experiencing growing pains, with no end in sight. It is high time for humanity to grow up and to transcend itself by embracing transhumanism. Transhumanism offers the most inclusive ideology for all ethnicities and races, the religious and the atheists, conservatives and liberals, the young and the old regardless of socioeconomic status, gender identity, or any other individual qualities. This book expounds on contemporary views and practical advice from more than 70 transhumanists. Astronaut Neil Armstrong said on the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Transhumanism is the next logical step in the evolution of humankind, and it is the existential solution to the long-term survival of the human race.




Exposed


Book Description

The death of Samantha Grey’s mother and imprisonment of her father made her shut everyone out of her life. Including him. Ten years later, the murder of her father brings them back together and now Detective Nate Evans has two mysteries on his hands: a murder to solve and a past of questions that still gnaw at the surface to face. A past he’s tried hard to bury. One that includes her. As Nate and Samantha are forced to work together to bring justice for the dead, it is clear the case is not the only mystery being unearthed between them. They are led down dark, township alleyways, towards drug-dealer territory, and into the box of a decade old cold case… but how long will they take to realize how deep the roots of this case go? Neither of them are prepared for the trials they face as they start digging through Samantha’s twisted family history and exposing the cost of hidden truths. Will the collision of the past and present destroy what little faith they have in finding healing, or will it be the key to solving the decade old mysteries between them and finding redemption in the chaos? Emily Hart is a young South African author. She’s been involved in humanitarian work in the Middle East and half a dozen African countries, meeting people and seeing places that inspire her writing. Emily lives in Stellenbosch with her family and five chickens.




Networks of Desire


Book Description

This work provides an in-depth social analysis of the changes which immersion in new technologies might bring to diverse lifestyles. It is a detailed analysis of the creation and maintenance of electronic and social networks amongst women, drawing upon empirical research conducted in the Bay Area of California and six months fieldwork in a cyber cafe in London. It also demonstrates the importance of spaces and places in the experience of cyberculture as well as the acknowledgement of gender and sexuality in arguing against the popular notion that the Internet suppresses all differences.




Networks of Desire


Book Description




Regimes of Desire


Book Description

Explores the limitations of sexual expression in Tokyo's "safe" nightlife district and in Japanese media




Hearings


Book Description




On Desire


Book Description

Desire indicates phenomena that are implicated in a productive ambiguity. These phenomena associate basic elements of human coexistence, while also referencing complex social processes and institutions. With today's new media we experience an assemblage of desire that maps out new relationships to the social body, to sexuality and gender questions, to ownership, and to the production, perception, and appropriation of moving images. This book brings together a broad spectrum of international positions relating to the time-based, immersive arts presented at the third B3 - the Biennial of the Moving Image Frankfurt/Main 2017 - which focuses on desire in the contemporary world. An extensive essay by Marc Ries develops a theoretical framework relating the moving image to desire. Contributions by Candice Breitz, Douglas Gordon, Johan Grimonprez, Jonas Mekas, Larissa Sansour, Igor Simic, and Frederico Solmi. Desire/Begehren benennt Phänomene, die in eine produktive Ambivalenz eingeschrieben sind. Sie assoziieren Grundelemente menschlichen Zusammenlebens, verweisen aber zugleich auf komplexe gesellschaftliche Prozesse und Institutionen. Mit den gegenwärtigen Medien erleben und erfahren wir ein Gefüge des Begehrens, das neue Verhältnisse zum sozialen Körper, zur Sexualität und Geschlechterfrage, zum Eigentum und auch zur Produktion, Wahrnehmung und Aneignung von Bewegtbildern entwirft. Der Band versammelt ein Spektrum an internationalen Positionen zeitbasierter und immersiver Künste der dritten B3 - Biennale des Bewegten Bildes Frankfurt/Main 2017 - zum Begehren in der Gegenwart. Ein umfassender Essay von Marc Ries entwickelt einen theoretischen Rahmen der Beziehung des bewegten Bildes zum Begehren. Beiträge von Candice Breitz, Douglas Gordon, Johan Grimonprez, Jonas Mekas, Larissa Sansour, Igor Simic und Frederico Solmi.




Culture in Networks


Book Description

Today, interest in networks is growing by leaps and bounds, in both scientific discourse and popular culture. Networks are thought to be everywhere – from the architecture of our brains to global transportation systems. And networks are especially ubiquitous in the social world: they provide us with social support, account for the emergence of new trends and markets, and foster social protest, among other functions. Besides, who among us is not familiar with Facebook, Twitter, or, for that matter, World of Warcraft, among the myriad emerging forms of network-based virtual social interaction? It is common to think of networks simply in structural terms – the architecture of connections among objects, or the circuitry of a system. But social networks in particular are thoroughly interwoven with cultural things, in the form of tastes, norms, cultural products, styles of communication, and much more. What exactly flows through the circuitry of social networks? How are people's identities and cultural practices shaped by network structures? And, conversely, how do people's identities, their beliefs about the social world, and the kinds of messages they send affect the network structures they create? This book is designed to help readers think about how and when culture and social networks systematically penetrate one another, helping to shape each other in significant ways.