Whoa, that's a good review! Your summary is so accessible and entertaining. And I see how Azuma's idea of the database could be useful for promoting transformative works all over the world. I wonder how it connects to Jenkins' idea of transmedia, where lots of small narratives in comics, novels, films, etc. can be created from the database of a certain ficitional universe? (Or is there still an overarching narrative to, say, the Star Wars verse that's unlike the database of moe elements?) Well, anyways, if the entertainment industry wants to see their projects succeed, I think they have to take their cue from Azuma and Jenkins and accept fanworks as another valid medium in the transmedia spectrum: you have the film, the tv show, the vids, and so on. Unfortunately, the logic of capitalism doesn't work that way, yet...
I'm also right there with you on the becoming-animal/posthuman count. There are so many bad psychoanalytic accounts of fujoshi and slashers that it's no wonder the slashers I talk to are suspicious of anyone trying to "explain us." And just try reading Saito Tamaki's article "Otaku Sexuality" in Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams without tearing your hair out! It's all on about how "in yaoi female desire it is important that one be a lacking subject oneself." Gah! That's why I like Deleuze and Guattari's work better. They're very critical of psychoanalysis. They say desire isn't a lack, but a productive force, a "desiring machine" (how posthuman!) Their "becoming-animal" is different from Kojeve's too; it's about connections, not closure. These ideas -the productivity of desire, the capacity for connection- are more important to me than any Freudian scheme of perversity and lack.
Oh, and good luck with the grad school applications! I hope to see you around at more conferences, aka academic geek fests. ^^
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-11-29 04:50 pm (UTC)I'm also right there with you on the becoming-animal/posthuman count. There are so many bad psychoanalytic accounts of fujoshi and slashers that it's no wonder the slashers I talk to are suspicious of anyone trying to "explain us." And just try reading Saito Tamaki's article "Otaku Sexuality" in Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams without tearing your hair out! It's all on about how "in yaoi female desire it is important that one be a lacking subject oneself." Gah! That's why I like Deleuze and Guattari's work better. They're very critical of psychoanalysis. They say desire isn't a lack, but a productive force, a "desiring machine" (how posthuman!) Their "becoming-animal" is different from Kojeve's too; it's about connections, not closure. These ideas -the productivity of desire, the capacity for connection- are more important to me than any Freudian scheme of perversity and lack.
Oh, and good luck with the grad school applications! I hope to see you around at more conferences, aka academic geek fests. ^^