Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/219
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Item On the Use of Animals in Contemporary Art: Damien Hirst’s “Abject Art” as a Point of Departure(英語學系, 2015-03-??) Tsung-huei HuangContemporary artists inclined to integrate animal elements into their works previously justified animal art as a means of reframing thought about life and ethics. But it is debatable whether the juxtaposition of animal and art is simply a gimmick. Damien Hirst’s animal installations, for example, have garnered both widespread acclaim and controversy. Do Hirst’s displays of animal carcasses amount, at best, to so-called “abject art,” or does the auratic perception they evoke serve to catalyze reflexive thoughts on ethics? Investigating Hirst’s animal works, this paper not only seeks to arrive at a better understanding of his oeuvre but also discusses the function of animal death in contemporary art. In the first two sections, Lacanian gaze and Benjaminian aura are drawn upon to explore whether eye-catching art is particularly thought-provoking and more likely to stimulate ethical thinking. The third section inquires into whether some of Hirst’s works are capable of evoking the auratic gaze; and if so, under what conditions do those works cease to be auratic and become abject? The last section compares the works of Hirst and Mark Fairnington to investigate how the auratic gaze emerging from artwork propels us to confront questions of life and ethics without remaining silent on the theme of animal concern.Item The Importance of Making Ashamed(英語學系, 2009-09-??) Tsung-huei HuangItem The Desire to Feed or the Desire to Be Fed?(英語學系, 2003-01-??) Tsung-huei HuangThe question as to whether Leopold Bloom, for all his gentleness and generosity, tends to have a biased conception of "woman" is a controversial one. Instead of charging Bloom with politically incorrect gender assumptions, this paper will argue that Bloom does not see all women through a distortional speculum. Woman's role as a mother, for one thing, is far from being the target of Bloom's disparagement. What significance does Bloom envisage in the maternal figure that prompts him to exempt the mother from the category of the threatening other? Seeking to penetrate into Bloom's complicated relation with the maternal figure, this paper first sketches how Bloom shows his sympathy towards women whenever they are thought of as caretakers or murderers. I proceed to argue that his eagerness to identify with the mother can hardly escape our attention if we track Bloom's desire to feed. Reading Bloom's desire to feed from a psychoanalytic perspective, I demonstrate how this desire is entangled with womb envy and how Bloom's own fantasy of becoming a mother can help him handle the trauma of losing his son. Further, I contend that Bloom's identification with the mother is vindicated by his desire to be fed as well. The desire reveals Bloom's underlying wish to be impregnated by the mother and thereby become a mother himself. I also suggest that the desire to be fed is related to Bloom's wish to be desired by the mother. The fantasy of being desired by the mother, to a certain extent, consolidates his identification with the lost son and thus makes possible the reunion with his wife Molly. Analyzing Bloom's entangled relation with the maternal figure, this paper is intended to counter psychoanalytic studies which, due to their excessive stress on the role of the father, lose sight of the importance the mother plays in subject formation.