Oedipus 2.0: Rethinking Digital Subjectivity with Lacan and the Posthuman

Proponent/s Name/s (Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial)

Rance Jomill Z. Tamayo, De La Salle University Integrated School (Manila)

Document Types

Paper Presentation

Research Advisor (Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial)

Mark Anthony L. Dacela

Abstract/Executive Summary

Succeeding the theoretical foundations of modernism and posthumanism, contemporary theories on digital subjectivity have been composed of various discourses concerning the subject as a dichotomy of either a corporeal or cybernetic entity. However, resting on this debate persists a conceptual stagnation; building on the seemingly opposite orders of Posthumanism and Lacanian Psychoanalysis, I develop the concept of Cyber-Oedipal subjectivization as a subversive alternative. Cyber-Oedipus is a becoming figure that synthesizes the composition of the inhuman core of the Oedipal structure and the rhizomatic virtuality of the posthuman flux. This subject is a patchwork project, rather than a fluctuating creature of the organic and technical material/world. Lacan’s work functions as the basis of the construction, but is mediated as a process through the conception of the posthuman by Katherine Hayles and Donna Haraway, ultimately becoming the triadic protean of cyberspace.

Keywords

Lacan, posthumanism, digital subjectivity, Oedipus, cyborg

Research Theme (for Paper Presentation and Poster Presentation submissions only)

Theoretical, Philosophical, and Historical Studies (TPH)