SUBJECT TO NATURAL LAW
2008; Routledge; Volume: 23; Issue: 55 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/08164640701827162
ISSN1465-3303
Autores Tópico(s)Anthropological Studies and Insights
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959 Snow, Charles P. 1959. The two cultures and the scientific revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]) was an early acknowledgement of the growing intellectual opacity between the sciences and the humanities. More recently, the phrase ‘the two cultures’ tends to evoke the impasse between constructionist arguments that underline the cultural value of knowledge vs scientific research that requires objectivity and proof. 2. See, for example, Judith Butler's explanation of Nature in Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (1993 Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’, New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). Although Butler is exemplary of a certain canonical reading, this essay seeks to retrieve a more counter-intuitive political dimension in poststructural criticism. 3. Science studies, a sub-branch of cultural studies, assumes that science is also a cultural practice inasmuch as it relies on discursive and rhetorical strategies to produce its truths. To this extent, hermeneutic questions about the subject and the object fall within the purview of cultural analysis. Nevertheless, the suggestion that cultural studies is ill-equipped to address the specifics of scientific analysis was forcefully staged in the Social Text affair, where Alan Sokal, a physicist, parodied postmodern insights in a paper he submitted to the journal. The fact that the hoax was not detected by the journal editors was a cause célèbre at the time: there was a very real sense that scientists were hitting back. See Sokal and Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science (1998 Sokal, Alan and Jean, Bricmont. 1998. Fashionable nonsense: Postmodern intellectuals’ abuse of science, New York: Picador. [Google Scholar]). 4. Bruno Latour, a well-known practitioner of science studies, rails against the excesses of postmodern approaches that fail to appreciate the value and achievement of scientific methodology. His work captures the problem under discussion. See Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (1999 Latour, Bruno. 1999. Pandora's hope: Essays on the reality of science studies, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]). 5. For an exemplary illustration of Grosz's position, see Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (1994 Grosz, Elizabeth. 1994. Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Google Scholar]). 6. Based on Grosz's more recent accounts of Nature, which have not sustained this earlier provocation, it is certainly possible that my own reading is, indeed, my own. A review in this issue of Grosz's more recent work illustrates the problem. See Noela Davis Davis , Noela . 2008 . Review of Elizabeth Grosz , Time travels: Feminism, nature, power. Australian Feminist Studies 23 ( 55 ): 164 – 6 . [Google Scholar]’ review of Elizabeth Grosz, Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power (2005 Grosz, Elizabeth. 2005. Time travels: Feminism, nature, power, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) in this issue of Australian Feminist Studies. 7. For an interesting discussion of some of these concerns, see Andrew Murphie and Adrian Murphie , Andrew , and Adrian Mackenzie . 2008 . The two cultures become multiple? Sciences, humanities and everyday experimentation . Australian Feminist Studies 23 ( 55 ): 87 – 100 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] Mackenzie, ‘The Two Cultures Become Multiple? Sciences, Humanities and Everyday Experimentation’, in this issue. 8. For a fascinating explanation of the meaning of ‘superposition’ in physics, see Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (2007 Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 254–69). 9. I have made special mention of Butler's contribution in several recent articles, and this follows a close discussion of her work in Kirby (2006 Kirby, Vicki. 2006. Judith Butler: Live theory, London and New York: Continuum. [Google Scholar]). I would like to underline that this critical attention follows my own interest and appreciation of the important role that her work has played. These criticisms are not meant to diminish Butler's path-finding influence but rather to acknowledge it. 10. See Elizabeth Wilson (1998 Wilson, Elizabeth. 1998. Neural geographies: Feminism and the microstructure of cognition, New York and London: Routledge. [Google Scholar], 189–98). 11. Many biosemioticians use Peirce's work as their linguistic model. See, for example, Jesper Hoffmeyer Hoffmeyer , Jesper . 2008 . How can it be the case that the world contains human beings? Australian Feminist Studies 23 ( 55 ): 19 – 30 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] in this collection, and especially his Signs of Meaning in the Universe (1996 Hoffmeyer , Jesper . 1996 . Signs of meaning in the universe . Translated by B.J. Haveland . Bloomington and Indianapolis : Indiana University Press . [Google Scholar]). 12. Derrida argued that ‘textuality’ was the very stuff of cybernetics and genetics in Of Grammatology (1984 Derrida , Jacques . 1984 . Of grammatology . Translated by G.C. Spivak . Baltimore and London : Johns Hopkins University Press . [Google Scholar], 9). 13. See ABC Mind meets matter: Stress, schizophrenia, immunity and heart disease . 2007 . All in the Mind . ABC Radio National. Broadcast 3 November. Available from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2007/2074827.htm [Google Scholar] Radio National's All in the Mind (‘Mind Meets Matter: Stress, Schizophrenia, Immunity and Heart Disease’). The programme description notes: ‘Science has long struggled with the question of whether states of mind influence the body, and vice versa. But the historic mind–body divide is being challenged as cardiologists, immunologists and neuroscientists meet across the lab bench’ (2007). This is a good opportunity to at least mention that the emphasis in my own argument is on culture affecting biology. Time constraints prevent me from reversing this picture of causality. I hope that the reader will appreciate that an argument that posits one system of influence will perceive both causality and efficacy as multi-directional; indeed, there cannot be two separate entities influencing each other. 14. Concerns in Britain over Occupational Health and Safety issues have translated on-the-job stress in the police force—stress that arises from specific practices, attitudes, and bureaucratic inattention to perceived needs and frustrations—as a health hazard. See the transcript on the ABC website, Catalyst, ‘Workplace Stress—Stopping the Juggernaut’ (2007 Workplace stress—Stopping the juggernaut . 2007 . Catalyst . ABC Television Australia. Broadcast 6 September. Available from http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s2025212.htm [Google Scholar]). See also Elizabeth Wilson's article on depression, ‘Ingesting Placebo Wilson Elizabeth . 2008 . Ingesting placebo . Australian Feminist Studies 23 ( 55 ): 31 – 42 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]’, in this issue of Australian Feminist Studies. On this question of dying of a broken heart, see Robert Reynolds (2007 Reynolds , Robert . 2007 . The demise of sadness: Melancholia, depression and narcissism in late modernity . Australian Humanities Review 41. Available from http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-February-2007/Reynolds.html [Google Scholar]). Although his article goes somewhere else, the opening anecdote is to the point. 15. For a fascinating meditation on the immune system, which suggests that the defended self is dramatically more volatile and ‘open’ than previously supposed, see Michelle Jamieson's work on allergy and the immunological body (in progress Jamieson , Michelle . In progress. PhD diss. on allergy and the immunological body , Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of New South Wales . [Google Scholar]). 16. See my ‘Quantum Anthropologies’ (2001 Kirby, Vicki. 2001. “Quantum anthropologies”. In Derrida downunder, Edited by: Simmons, Laurence and Worth, Heather. Palmerston North, NZ: Dunmore Press. [Google Scholar]) for an elaboration of how Derrida's early essay ‘Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences’ can be enlisted into this meditation on Nature as reader/writer. 17. For a recent discussion of violence and normativity that resonates with the concerns being canvassed here, see the essays by Fiona Jenkins Jenkins, Fiona. 2007. Toward a nonviolent ethics: Response to Catherine Mills. differences, 18(2): 157–79. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Catherine Mills Mills, Catherine. 2007. Normative violence, vulnerability, and responsibility. differences, 18(2): 133–56. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] and Judith Butler in differences: a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (2007 Butler, Judith. 2007. Reply from Judith Butler to Mills and Jenkins. differences, 18(2): 180–95. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).
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