Abstract: This essay looks at the figure of the cyborg via its origins in mid-twentieth century American astronautics. It begins by comparing different approaches to the ›space cyborg‹, helping to situate it within the distinctive cultural preoccupations of its times and places. The discussion then proceeds to consider the American cyborg’s roots in two discursive regimes: that surrounding military masculinities, and that surrounding the non-human or de-humanized medical test subject. Via an analysis of the 1976 sci-fi novel Man Plus by Frederik Pohl, the essay explores how this dual heritage generates tensions in terms of gender, before concluding with an analysis of the ways in which the cyborg’s mutable embodiment runs aground on the perceived fixity of human sexuality. How might we use the historical concept of the cyborg to queer the notion of ›participant evolution‹ today?

Keywords: Cyborg; astronautics; TESCREAL; gender and sexuality

Abstract: In his America travelogue Reise eines deutschen Professors ins Eldorado (1905), the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann took a surprisingly similar route to that of the protagonist Karl Roßmann in Franz Kafka’s novel Der Verschollene. So far, however, Boltzmann’s report has not been made fruitful for interpretations of Kafka’s Der Verschollene. This is the aim of this work. In the analysis, both texts are compared against the background of the concept of entangled naturecultures (Karen Barad, Donna Haraway). Given the great similarities in the descriptions of different places and topics—this applies, e.g., to the New York harbor, country houses, theaters and landscape descriptions during train journeys through the USA—Boltzmann’s travelogue, in which, according to my thesis, a rather separated worldview is represented, serves as a contrasting foil in order to make visible a specific, intertwined worldview in the sense of naturecultures in Kafka’s Der Verschollene. Boltzmann’s travel text as a historical parallel text can thus contribute to a better understanding of Kafka’s novel.

Keywords: Franz Kafka, Ludwig Boltzmann, Der Verschollene, USA, Naturenkulturen, naturecultures, entanglement, Environmental Humanities, New Materialism, Donna Haraway, Karen Barad, Hafen, Eisenbahn, Landschaft

Abstract: Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy has contributed a great number of concepts to the Humanities. Terminology like homo sacer, state of exception and the like are frequently used in cultural studies. Agamben’s theoretical triangle of image, writing and voice is known to a far less extent. The following paper argues that this linkage provides an important foundation for Agamben´s philosophy and needs to be understood before the backdrop of intellect theory. In drawing notions from Averroes, the medieval Arabic commentator of Aristotle, Agamben develops a theory of intellect, which allows to establish a link between language and phantasm, i.e. word and image as different medial forms, connected by the human voice. This emphasis on the voice is meant to provide an alternative to the structuralist model of the linguistic sign. The paper seeks to explore Averroes´ traces in Agamben´s thought discussing possible consequences for cultural studies.

Keywords: Form of Life, Intentional Species, New Materialism, Italian Theory, Speculative Thought

Abstract: The following article is a portrait of the French sociologist, philosopher, Systems thinkers and public intellectual Edgar Morin. It aims to present the life and works of Edgar Morin to a German-speaking audience. Introductory in nature, it does not claim to offer more than a concise, contemporary, and, where needed, critical summary of Edgar Morin’s main theoretical tenets. It proceeds by offering, first, a brief overview of Morin’s biography and a loose sketch of his position in the landscape of French 20th century philosophy. Based on a close reading of Edgar Morin’s chief theoretical oeuvre, La Méthode, it subsequently reconstructs his thought in four steps, paying attention to a) to the context of Morin’s specific intellectual concerns and his new cosmological »method«, b) to his theory of nature, c) to his theory of society, and d) finally to his ethics. The profile which should emerge from this procedure is one of an intellectual who is grappling with a wide-spanning, holistic thinking; whose working style is transdisciplinary and directed against academic specialisation; and whose philosophical concerns centre around the normative expectations of classical humanism. Edgar Morin is a thinker who invites us to think with him through matters of the contemporary world, and his viewpoints are here discussed and critically evaluated with particular reference to the relevance of his thought for the ecological discourse, and for the current challenges of ›knowledge societies.‹

Keywords: Edgar Morin; Systems Theory; Ecology; Knowledge Society; Cybernetic Hegelianism; Philosophy of Nature; French 20th Century-Thought

Unter dem Titel »Populäre Kulturen / Popular Cultures« hatte die inzwischen achte Jahrestagung der KWG mit 44 Panels und über 150 Vorträgen die kulturwissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit dem ›Popularen‹ und ›Populären‹ zum Ziel. Bezieht sich ersteres etymologisch auf ›volkstümliche‹ Artefakte und Bräuche,¹ wird zweiteres häufig quantitativ (»well liked by many people«) und/oder qualitativ (»inferior kind of work«) verstanden:² ›Populär‹ ist, was vielen Menschen gefällt, und was auf breites Interesse stößt, macht sich dementsprechend (ideologisch) ›verdächtig‹.³ So lässt sich das Populäre zwar kulturhistorisch als Ergebnis der (zunehmend globalisierten) Massen- und Unterhaltungskultur auf die gesellschaftlichen und ökonomischen Umbrüche des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts zurückführen,⁴ doch wurden bspw. Erzeugnisse einer (vermeintlichen) ›Trivialliteratur‹ von den frühen geistes- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschungen (noch) weitgehend ignoriert.⁵ Erst mit dem kritischen Bewusstsein der anglo-amerikanischen »Cultural Studies« der 1960er Jahre kam die programmatische Forderung, die ›Lücke‹ zwischen ›Hoch-‹ und ›Populärkultur‹ zu schließen (»close the gap«⁶) und Science-Fiction oder Pornographie, Comics oder Schemaliteratur, Popmusik oder Fernsehserien ebenso und mit gleicher Berechtigung in das universitäre Curriculum aufzunehmen.