Semiophagy: Journal of Pataphysics and Existential Semiotics is pleased to announce a new volume of articles, artwork, and reviews. Semiophagy is also now accepting papers, artwork, and reviews for peer review. The general theme of our next issue will be “The Disembodied Hand: Signs of the Body”:
Inundated by the media spectacle surrounding Michael Jackson’s death, we are reminded that much of this pop star’s power and ubiquity stemmed from his careful use of iconographic images. Take, for instance, his sequined gloved hand. From the white glove of a clown to that of a cop, the Hamburger Helper mascot to Mickey Mouse, an illuminated hand has a certain existential appeal that surpass ordinary significance and reveals the threshold of a more powerful order. As if disembodied from its own flesh, a gloved hand seems to float before the body, drawing the gaze of others and arresting their movements (e.g. the eye of the hamsa; the white glove of a traffic cop). Likewise other parts of the body have been used by artists and statesmen as icons of their various regimes: Dali’s lips-couch, Carroll’s Cheshire grin, the eye of Ra, the boot of Italy, Hitler’s saluting arm, etc. Accordingly, Semiophagy invites articles that explore the existential allure of these incorporeal body parts and their theoretical implications. From Lacan’s phallus to Deleuze and Guattari’s floating eyes of the ‘white wall/black hole’ system, Bataille’s Story of the Eye to Žižiek’s Organs without Bodies, many philosophers and theorists have tried to place these severed parts. Building on their work, what is the power and allure of a disembodied organ?
Possible Themes for Papers:
By what techniques do organs detach themselves from the body?
How are disembodied organs used to organize and territorialize power?
Cloning and the techniques of mass-producing organs.
Amputation, and the semiotics of the body.
Bodily symbols and their uses.
Media images and use of body parts.
Performance art and illuminated organs.
Historical constructions of our body parts.
Feminist and post-structuralist critiques of the organization of the body.
The relation of artificial and virtual limbs and appendages to flesh.
Please forward any materials related to these themes by Oct. 1, 2009 to doctordrohan@gmail.com.
In this volume:
ARTICLES
“iThink Therefore Everything Is: A Brief Phenomenology of the Spirit of New Technology”
– An Excerpt from the Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of the New Medium
by Christopher M. Drohan
“Of Oxen and Obama” by
Jeremy Fernando
“A Primer on Oncontology”
by Kane X. Faucher
“An Emotionalist Manifesto”
by James Desrosier
VISUAL ART
“Letters from the Communique: The Factory”
by Kenny Png
“Telegenetic Images”
by Kenneth Feinstein
REVIEWS
“Trial on T/Error: A Review of Jeremy Fernando’s Reflections on (T)error” by Julia Hölzl
