Something to do With a Girl Named Marla: Eros and Gender in David Fincher’s Fight Club

David Fincher’s 1999 film, Fight Club, has been characterized in many ways: as a romantic comedy, an exploration of white, middle-class male angst, an existentialist search for meaning amidst the moral ruins of late capitalism, an anarchist manifesto, and so on. But common to nearly every reading of the film, critical and laudatory alike, is the assumption that Fight Club is indisputably a celebration of misogynistic, masculinist virility and violence. On its face, this assumption appears so overwhelmingly obvious as to render superfluous any argumentation in support thereof, and absurd any opposing argumentation. Consider the ubiquitous homoerotic adulation of the male body; or Tyler Durden’s (Brad Pitt’s) lamentation at being part of a “generation of men raised by women;” or the titular subject of the film – a self-help group for men only, founded on the principle of life-affirmation through physical pulverization; or the fact that, besides the momentary appearance of a terminally ill cancer patient, there is but one named female character in the entire film; or the obsessive fetishizing of male genitalia, coupled with anxieties over phallic substitutes and the concomitant fears of castration. From the opening scene – the narrator kneeling with a gun barrel forced into his mouth, to the film’s crescendo – the destruction of a dozen major credit card buildings, Fight Club relentlessly assaults the viewer with visceral images of shirtless, full-throated hyper-masculinity and violence, and with the quasi-philosophical misogynistic sermons of Tyler Durden. But in spite of all this, Fight Club’s thoughts on gender and violence are far more complex than they first appear. We should keep in mind that the film’s embodiment of hyper-masculine aggression, Tyler, is a projection of a suffering and fragmented subjectivity amidst a psychotic breakdown. His status as the film’s antagonist severely complicates any putative simple heroizing of Tyler’s character or philosophy. We would also do well to note that despite her singularity as the only named female character in the film, Marla Singer is arguably the most interesting and admirable character in the film, with an evolving character arc that does not easily conform to traditional gender stereotypes or to standard Hollywood conceptions of feminine love or beauty. She is both strong and nurturing, brazen and uncouth but beautiful, and by turns confident and independent, vulnerable and insecure. She is the catalyst for the narrator’s path to selfhood, without recapitulating the Western myth of the “eternal-feminine” – the pure, selfless, virginal ideal who, from her unattainable heights, motivates the “hero’s quest”. Marla does not “complete” him, nor he her. She conforms to no ideal, and she is neither a prize nor a simple plot device. Whatever else one might say about Fight Club, its attitudes toward gender and violence are not cut and dry

Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought

In this paper I employ the notion of the ‘thought of the outside’ as developed by Michel Foucault, in order to defend the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze against the criticisms of ‘elitism,’ ‘aristocratism,’ and ‘political indifference’—famously leveled by Alain Badiou and Peter Hallward. First, I argue that their charges of a theophanic conception of Being, which ground the broader political claims, derive from a misunderstanding of Deleuze’s notion of univocity, as well as a failure to recognize the significance of the concept of multiplicity in Deleuze’s thinking. From here, I go on to discuss Deleuze’s articulation of the ‘dogmatic image of thought,’ which, insofar as it takes ‘recognition’ as its model, can only ever think what is already solidified and sedimented as true, in light of existing structures and institutions of power. Then, I examine Deleuze’s reading of Foucault and the notion of the ‘thought of the outside,’ showing the ‘outside’ as the unthought that lies at the heart of thinking itself, as both its condition and its impossibility. Insofar as it is essential to thinking itself, finally, I argue that the passage of thought to the outside is not an absolute flight out of this world, as Hallward claims, but rather, a return of the different that constitutes the Self for Deleuze. Thinking is an ongoing movement of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, or as Foucault says, death and life. Thinking, as Deleuze understands it, is essentially creative; it reconfigures the virtual, thereby literally changing the world. Thinking is therefore, according to Deleuze, thoroughly political

Derrida\u27s Voice and Phenomenon: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

This work provides a detailed analysis of Derrida\u27s 1967 book, Voice and Phenomenon, contextualizing it in the broader history of French receptions of the phenomenological tradition.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1076/thumbnail.jp

All the World Is Shining, and Love Is Smiling through All Things: The Collapse of the Two Ways in \u27The Tree of Life\u27

Chapter Summary: From the blackness emerges a subtly scripted epigraph from the biblical book of Job, silently posing a question to the viewer on behalf of the almighty: Where were you when I laid the earth\u27s foundation...while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Following thirty-five chapters of Job\u27s story, filled with relentless criticism on the part of Job\u27s friends in response to Job\u27s ongoing poetically formulated and impassioned lamentations, and the demands he places before God - demands for justice and an explanation for his suffering - at last the voice of the almighty speaks from within the raging storm, responding not with an answer but with a questions: where were you? - the very question Terrence Malick poses to us at the beginning of The Tree of Life. Thus, from the opening moments of the film Malick is signifying to the viewer that The Tree of Life is to be a meditation on the meaning of suffering. [excerpt] Book Summary: Amid all the controversy, criticism, and celebration of Terence Malick\u27s award-winning film The Tree of Life, what do we really understand of it? The Way of Nature and the Way of Grace thoughtfully engages the philosophical riches of life, culture, time, and the sacred through Malick\u27s film. This groundbreaking collection traverses the relationships among ontological, moral, scientific, and spiritual perspectives on the world, demonstrating how phenomenological work can be done in and through the cinematic medium, and attempting to bridge the gap between narrow theoretical works on film and their broader cultural and philosophical significance. Exploring Malick\u27s film as a philosophical engagement, this readable and insightful collection presents an excellent resource for film specialists, philosophers of film, and film lovers alike. [From the Publisher

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION: POETRY, POLICY AND SCIENCE

In this paper I review the evolution of the sustainability concept. This is followed by a description of three "classical" systems of sustainable agriculture. None of these systems were or are capable of generating growth of output consistent with modern rates of growth in demand. I then turn to three unresolved analytical issues that continue to divide the conventional resource economics and the sustainable development communities. In a closing section I argue sustainable growth in agricultural production should be viewed as a research agenda rather than as a package of practices that is available to producers whether in developed or developing countries.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development,

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA ESTIMATING THE ECONOMIC IMPACT

There is strong synergy among research, education, technology development and technology transfer. Examples of successful public-private technology transfer linkage institutions are provided. But efforts to document the benefits of research conducted at the University of Minnesota to the state have rarely been conducted with the rigor that would be required to meet the test of professional credibility. A program of research to develop more rigorous evidence on economic benefits to the State is proposed.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

The Asia Bureau Agricultural Research Review

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

QUANTIFYING AND MANAGING RISK IN AGRICULTURE

Risk and Uncertainty,

The Future of U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance

International Relations/Trade,

Solar collector performance evaluated outdoors at NASA-Lewis Research Center

An outdoor facility constructed to evaluate solar collector performance for conditions that would be encountered by collectors if they were incorporated in a solar heating/cooling system is described. Preliminary performance data is presented