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Language as a Virus of the Mind: The Thinking and Writing of William S. Burroughs
Polák, Ondřej ; Vichnar, David (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
ENGLISH "The Electronic Revolution" is a collection of essays and articles by W. S. Burroughs, an American writer, artist, and cultural icon. Published in 1970, the texts are a response to the rapid technological advancements of the time, particularly in the field of electronic communication. One of the central themes of "The Electronic Revolution" is the notion of technology having the power to transform society. Burroughs was fascinated by the possibilities of electronic communication, which he saw as a way to shatter barriers between people and create a more connected, global community. He believed that the rise of electronic media would lead to a new era of human consciousness, one in which people would be able to communicate and exchange ideas on a scale never before seen. Another key theme of "The Electronic Revolution" is Burroughs' fascination with the human mind and its relationship to technology. He was interested in the way that electronic media could be used to alter human consciousness, and explored the potential of technologies such as brain implants to create new states of consciousness and expand human capabilities. Burroughs, however, also explored the darker side of the electronic revolution. He was concerned that electronic media could be used as a tool of control and manipulation by...
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We Are All Metamoderns: An Introduction to Metamodernism
Veselý, Tomáš ; Vostal, Filip (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
This work will provide a genealogy of the metamodern condition. The postmodern sentiment is by no means gone, but it has transformed so much at this point that the vague postmodern label has become obsolete. Indeed, the cultural sphere is now dealing with a whole set of urgent social, political and economic realities, spurred on by climatic, financial and geopolitical crises, that postmodernism could never seriously handle. In the course of this paper, I will examine the modernist and post-modernist streams of thought that have resulted in the emergence of metamodernism, which somehow counter-intuitively combines modernist sincerity with post-postmodernist irony. Moreover, I will assess this stream of thought through the lens of Actor-network theory, as outlined by Bruno Latour. In the end, I hope to demonstrate that metamodernism offers something that postmodernism, disappointed from the failure of modernist projects, never could: hope. Key Words Metamodernism, Actor-network theory, Post-modernism, Nordic School, Dutch School, Irony
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Towards a new social media model: redistribution of power in the subscription-based creator economy
Markova, Snezhanna ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Vichnar, David (referee)
This thesis evaluates the potential viability of the subscription-based creator economy by analysing three subscription creator platforms, Substack, Nebula and Patreon. Drawing on Bernard Stiegler's work in the sphere of digital technologies, this study argues that the alternative mode of information dissemination demonstrated by these platforms presents a more equal distribution of power between the players in the creator economy and a healthier, more thoughtful content creation and consumption, in contrast to the algorithmic distribution of information of the traditional advertiser-driven social media networks. The research focuses on delineating the circumstances which led to the political and spiritual malaise of modern online generations described by Stiegler and examines how subscription-based platforms attempt to combat the harmful effects of major social networks. The creator economy is an integral part of almost every online interaction, therefore evaluating alternative economic models can be the key to improving the declining quality of the online user experience. The use-case analysis will involve assessing the business model, as well as the impact on the relationship between the creator, consumer and the IT platform, employing the digital labour theory proposed by Christian Fuchs....
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Lost in Time: The Concept of Temporality in Works of the US Lost Generation
Fedorenko, Roksolana ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
The main focus of this thesis is the concept of time and temporality as represented in the major works of the US Lost Generation. The authors and the writings examined within this thesis are F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night; Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms; William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. This thesis explores the way in which the understanding of the concept of time has undergone a dramatic change at the turn and the first half of the twentieth century, shifting its focus towards the subjectivity of human perception of time. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter portrays the philosophy of influential thinkers of the period such as Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Walter Benjamin to create a background for further discussion and analysis of the novels. The following chapter provides the historical and cultural context of modernism to introduce major factors that shaped modernist thinking within which the Lost Generation appeared. The next three chapters are dedicated to the detailed analysis of the novels, with each chapter focusing on one of the above-mentioned authors. Each of the novels is examined by close reading, paying attention to the way it incorporates...
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Shades of Iconoclasm in Orson Welles' Film Noirs
Verma, Jyoti ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Vichnar, David (referee)
This diploma thesis is an effort towards unfolding the various dimensions of Orson Welles' originality of expression in his film noirs. For this purpose the films in focus are not only the noir classics from Welles' oeuvre like The Lady From Shanghai, Touch of Evil, Mr. Arkadin, and The Trial but also Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons which were important for his complete maturity in the noir tradition. The critical positions of various critics, mainly James Naremore, Simon Callow, Clinton Heylin, and Erik S. Roraback have been studied and cited to develop my arguments. The first chapter will be a study of characters in his films and Welles' acting methodologies, along with the treatment of female agency. The second chapter will be a thematic study of Welles' critique of major social shifts and attitudes that prevailed in the US. Events like Spanish-American War, Operation Wetback, and concerns like Yellow Journalism, attitudes towards immigrants, and racism will be studied in how they materialized in his films. The last section of this study will be a renewed study of theories of film critics and philosophers, namely Andr'e Bazin, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Ranci`ere. It broaches how their respective theories about cinema apply to Welles' oeuvre of film noirs. The last section of this...
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Notes from the House of Sleep: Reading the Hieroglyphs of Night-Language in Anais Nin, H.D., and Anna Kavan
Gezer, Yaren ; Vichnar, David (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
English Abstract This thesis aims to explore the works of three writers and their relations to their nighttime dreams as well as daydreaming and how the combination of their sessions with their psychoanalysts, their parental traumas, and their close approach to their dreams affect their creativity in developing their writing. The first writer to be dealt with is Hilda Doolittle or H.D. The main point of examining H.D.'s work Tribute to Freud will be her close account of the sessions she had with Sigmund Freud, the psychoanalyst's approach to H.D.'s creative side as well as her dreams and "visions", and the clash between her womanhood and Freud's ideas on the female inferiority complex and on her relationship with her mother. His interpretation of her writer's block, the nature of inspiration, and her struggle with artistic creativity along with his uneasy paternal role vis-à-vis H.D. will be dealt with in detail. Carl Jung's focus on the symbols and their connection to one's nature will be discussed as well for Doolittle's interpretation of her own dreams and visions can be considered in relation to him. The second writer to be mentioned will be Anais Nin. Her work, House of Incest in which she collects her dreams. Mainly her nightmares will be taken as the main source of discussing her dreams and her...
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The Development of African-American Rights in the United States
Marková, Kristýna ; Maderová, Blanka (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
This diploma thesis deals with the development of fight for civil rights in the United States with particular focus on the movement Black Lives Matter. Furthermore, it focuses on the feminist aspect of activist movements, and explores the neglect women are usually forced to deal with when it comes to this particular social issue. In specific examples, I show how women are often overlooked when it comes to cases of police brutality and basic human rights. Using the enlightening literature by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Toni Morrison and Leila Mottley, but also important works by activists and scholars such as Robin DiAngelo, bell hooks, Mikki Kendall, and Angela Y. Davis, I attempt to demonstrate the depth of this particular problematics, and the importance of understanding it, in order to eradicate police brutality and systemic racism. This thesis will consist of four chapters: in the first chapter I take a look at the history of development of civil rights and what preceded, and also influenced the Black Lives Matter movement. The second chapter then focuses on Black Lives Matter itself, how it came to be and how it evolved from a simple hashtag into the world-known movement it is today. The third chapter focuses on the main theme of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is police brutality and the...
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Indie Rock Poetry: Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Kiristaev, Michail ; Delbos, Stephan (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
The following thesis creates an academic discourse in order to prove that the lyrics on Arctic Monkeys' debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006) should be considered as literature and referred to as indie-rock poetry. The argument in favor of the lyrics being literature is based on the theoretical framework proposed by Terry Eagleton, Stanley Fish and Anthony Easthope: literature is a construct, with literary value being impossible to identify in universal terms. Literary value exists within an interpretative medium, in the context of which the value can only be artificially assigned. To prove that Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not has literary value, the thesis functions as an interpretive medium within which the value is assigned. It begins by presenting Eagleton's and Fish's notions about the nature of literary value, supported by Easthope's idea of the denouncement of literary value as a concept. It is then supported by the notion of the vanishment of the split between high culture and popular culture, which makes the academic study of Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not possible, since it is an item of popular culture. The next chapter provides a sociocultural framework for the literary analysis of the lyrics in the later chapters. It introduces...
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"It must have been the nigger blood in him": The Mechanism of Lynching in William Faulkner's Light in August
Matoušková, Magdalena ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
Race and the American South are inseparable from both the literary work of William Faulkner and the practice of lynching. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the mechanism of lynching in Faulkner's novel Light in August. Lynching served as a racial and social control tool to scare Black Americans into submission and acceptance of a lower social rank. Black people were cruelly treated - shot, beaten, burned alive, tortured, or hung from trees. The thesis argues that the character Joe Christmas from Light in August is a victim of such practice when he is hunted and shot on the pretense of being a Black criminal. The thesis explores how his identity has been created by the communities - first as a Black man and then as a Black criminal. From his early childhood, Joe Christmas has passed through different communities that created assumptions about his racial origin. Since his race is never revealed in the book and Joe is unsure of it himself, his racial identity is socially constructed as a Black man. His Blackness is further stereotyped by two myths - the myth of the tragic mulatto and the myth of the Black rapist. The myth of the tragic mulatto is based on the notion that a person of mixed Black and white origin does not belong anywhere and is doomed to end tragically. The idea of the Black rapist...
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On Animal Subjectivity in Contemporary US Cinema
Koilybayeva, Botagoz ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Vichnar, David (referee)
With an aim to explore the possibility of depicting non-human subjectivity in film, the thesis centers on three contemporary American films that venture beyond the current state of human exceptionalism and bridge a caesura between humanity and animality. Therefore, the thesis puts forward a hypothesis whether film as a cultural and visual medium has an aesthetic, ontological and ethical potential to illustrate animal subjectivity. Terrence Malick's war film The Thin Red Line is an example of highlighting intersubjective experiences of human beings and non-human phenomena. Kevin Costner's western Dances with Wolves underscores reciprocity between humans and animals as well as animal agency and practical and spiritual engagement with animals. Okja, the Korean- American collaboration, is a dystopian satire that reveals the anxieties of the present state of farm animals. Applying an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis engages with philosophy, anthrozoology, animal studies, and critical theory, in an attempt to balance between examining visual representation of animals in film and deconstructing the state of dominant cultural and political ideologies that have locked actual animals within the ideological frameworks of anthropocentric status quo. These human-centered paradigms explicitly and implicitly...
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