SCLG2623 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Creeping Death, Abjection, Sentience
2 Nov 2018
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Death as meaningful/meaningless death: an incident that illuminates social meaning- structures. Death acts as a shaping principle for an existence fraught with a fear of shapelessness: if nothing else can be relied upon, at least death provides a boundary - barreca in (utriainen & Women writing their death and dying: semiotic perspectives on women"s suicide notes. The space of death is crucial to the creation of meaning and consciousness we may think of the space of death as a threshold. (taussig 1984: 467) Mediation of the culture of terror through narration timmerman/dictatorship. Cultures of terror are based on and nourished by silence and myth - elaboration of fear as mechanism of control (taussig 1984 467) Selfhood, pain and the abject pain threatens loss of self. Takes body to limits of consciousness, to boundary of life/death beyond this border lies abjection, the point of extinction. Creeping death is the most abject of experiences.
