Performing the Posthuman

‘Performing the Posthuman’ is an investigation into reinvented representations, or re-presentations, of body–voice relationships in (musical) theatrical performances that can be called posthuman. Performance analyses lay bare the ways in which these body–voice relationships are used as strategies to theatrically image a posthuman condition. Combining new theories on posthumanism, new materialism and recent findings on the construction of voice, the study’s research dives into the ways in which both, the voice and the body, can be treated as floating signifiers in a mutual and mutable relationship. A close examination of the different ways in which what is posthuman is performed, exposes recurring tensions between modes of representation and presentation on stage.

Challenges in Digital Ethnography

The article explores ethical challenges in digital media ethnography in the field of militant political Islam, pointing to the dilemma that arises in doing research on Islam as part of the securitised research funding system. Expanding on discussions in anthropology about the principles of “do no harm” and “be open and honest about your work”, the authors reflectively contextualise the interrelated notions of “Jihadism” and “Salafism” and examine how these categories serve as “floating signifiers”. Examining one particular incident from the digital fieldwork leads to discussions of transparency, anonymity and shifting forms of “publicness” in the digital sphere.

Dissecting the language of elitism: The ‘joyful’ violence of premium

Aligned with renewed commitments to class critique in sociolinguistics and discourse studies, I examine premium as a floating signifier. My initial semiotic landscape analysis demonstrates how this word is attached to any number of goods/services, coaxing people into a sense of distinction and superior status. These language games occur most vividly in my second analytic site—Premium Economy—where status is fabricated as tangibly but not too obviously distinct from Economy while preserving the prestige of Business. From a corpus of over forty international airlines’ promotional materials, I pinpoint three key rhetorics underpinning Premium Economy: extraction, excess, and comparison. My analysis locates premium as a quintessential form of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1997/2000) deployed for controlling people by seducing, flattering, and enchanting them. The anxious bourgeoisie are thereby ‘joyfully enlisted’ (Lordon 2014) into the aspirational logics of elitism, all animated by the tenacious neoliberal ideologies of a supposedly post-class world. (Elite discourse, post-class ideology, floating signifiers, Frédéric Lordon ‘premium’, Premium Economy)*

Can populism and how be a new strategy for renewing the left?

I start with the question of whether populism can be a strategy for renewing the Left. I argue that populism has such potential if: a) it is used for bringing together ?scattered consciousnesses?, b) if it advocates and goes in the direction of radical reform, c) if it is accompanied by minutely pre-defined reform policies, and most importantly d) if the Left manages to bridge populism?s inherent gap between the promised and the fulfilled. Among the various definitions of populism discussed at the outset of the text, I choose to use one that defines populism as a discursive-rhetorical style and technique of doing politics. I offer six antitheses that could be considered to have contributed to the fall of the Left. The focus then shifts to the success and failure of the Third Way, which I interpret as a collection of ideologemes, phrases, and floating signifiers used for new populist rhetoric. I then seek to demonstrate what Le Bon?s Psychology of the Crowd - in which important topics about populism are discussed - has to say about the psychology of populism and the mechanisms of acceptance of populist rhetoric, and whether it contains any useful lessons for the Left. In the last part I propose six theses and discuss populism as a strategy for renewing the Left.

GIFs as floating signifiers

This paper investigates GIFs that use famous paintings and art collages in order to discern if their possible interpretations justify the label of ‘floating signifiers’. For this purpose, I explain what ‘floating signifier’ means and describe what happened with the term when it was correlated with the issues of information and digital materiality. Thus, in new media, the parallel term for ‘floating signifier’ is Hayles’s ‘flickering signifier’. In a subtle manner, GIFs represents perfect instantiation of both concepts. The paper also addresses the main “portrait” of GIFs, examining them in both online (Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook) and offline discursive contexts. The signifieds attributed to particular examples of GIFs, and to GIFs in general, delineate their profile in terms of floating signifiers.