“The Ocean at the End of the Lane” and the Past

The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013) by Neil Gaiman follows the story of an unnamed man who returns to his childhood home on a whim. There, he meets a lady he remembers from when he was younger, and he reminisces about growing up. At this point, the novel turns to magical realism, …

Melancholy

It seems as if any song that you listen to on YouTube that is more than 5 or so years old will somewhere have a variation of the comment "Homesick for a time that doesn’t exist". Often I find myself struck with a similar feeling, although currently it's possible I'm just feeling homesick, as I …

‘Blade Runner 2049’ and its Representation of the Anthropocene and Kinship

The year is 2049, ecosystems have collapsed and lush fields have turned into lifeless squares of plastic and metal. Any spiritual connection to nature which humanity once held has long since been replaced with a physical oneness with technology. A car flies past, in it, the replicant K sits. A bioengineered clone, he is an …

Why is the Internet an Illustration of the Fact that we are Living Between the Age of the Sovereign and Biopower?

NB: This is an old essay that I wrote prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, hence the discussion on disease control without present day context. Introduction Foucault first develops the concept of biopower as a model allowing for societal control in volume 1 of The History of Sexuality. Historically, biopower follows on directly from the sovereign …

The Shop that Isn’t a Shop

Picture the following scenario: A shop opens in your local town. It is called 'The Memory Shop'. On it's window is a sign, that claims it is not an ordinary shop. Curious, you walk in. The shop is filled with old items - retroware, computers, pictures, comics, books, everything you can think of from the …

The Inhuman Human: The Role of Technology in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

In recent years, a contemporary issue has arisen as we see the need to identify not what separates us from animals, but what separates us from technology.1 With the ever-increasing prominence that technology holds over our lives, as well as the increasing attempt to introduce a form of consciousness to said technology through the likes …