Biotech Fantasia

published in 'Borderlands e-journal', 6.1, 2007

Biotechnology has emerged in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries alongside a variety of formulations of 'the ethical' and in this way biotechnology has become an ideological phenomenon swept up in structuring freedom and processes of designating living beings in a full and objective manner. In the twenty-first century the mapping of the genome has provided individuals with a means of full self-objectivisation which necessitates a rethinking of the ethical content of biotechnology as human life is laid bare. This paper examines the ideology critique of Slavoj Zizek at the turn of the twenty-first century to show how a post-rational ethics can be generated when the human subject is reduced to an 'objective' phenomenon.

Zizek and the Ontological Emergence of Technology

forthcoming in 'Cosmos & History', 2009

This discussion utilises the thought of Slavoj Žižek as a departure point to consider the ontological emergence of technology as techne in the conceptual encounter of the Abyss in Being.

Techne and Impossibility: Re-reading Zizek’s Ideology-Critique as Geistgekritik

forthcoming in 'International Journal of Zizek Studies', 2009

This discussion delineates and explores Zizek’s ideology-critique towards the end of conceptually distinguishing the deployment of techne as the other side of impossibility, as revealed by his dialectical materialism. Central to this task is the way Zizek phrases his definition of ideology, succinctly stated by Hallward as: “a symbolic field which contains [a filler] holding the place of some structural impossibility, while simultaneously disavowing this impossibility.” (Hallward 2003: 90) From this definition Zizek derives the task of his ideology-critique to be elucidating this ‘filler’ and its inherent impossibility, to the end of bringing forth a critical awareness of the presence of ideology and its demystification. (Zizek 1994: 4) Techne appears herein as the other side of impossibility as the credentials of this style of critique rest on there being an ideal point in constellations of value and social ties (Geist) in the aesthetics of the life-world that encourage the crafting of the identity of the human subject and, at the same moment, hide the full realisation of this identity from the subject, making it impossible for s/he to develop the identification of their subjectivity beyond merely a token gesture of what they can ‘become.’ Our central task for this discussion is thus to locate and articulate this moment of impossibility in its various modalities and elucidate techne on these grounds, revealing Zizek’s critique as on of Geist in the Adornian sense.

Review - The Future of Psychoanalysis

published in 'Metapsychology Online Reviews' Nov 3rd 2009 (Volume 13, Issue 45)

Review - Science Fiction and Philosophy

published in 'Metapsychology Online Reviews' Aug 11th 2009 (Volume 13, Issue 33)

Review - Bios

published in 'Metapsychology Online Reviews' Mar 7th 2009 (Volume 13, Issue 10)

Review - Understanding Psychoanalysis

published in 'Metapsychology Online Reviews' Oct 7th 2008 (Volume 12, Issue 41)