This study analyzes the politics of contemporary conspiracy theory discourses in the United States. Departing from the predominant methodological individualism that characterizes many contemporary analyses of conspiracy theory, which take the individual subject as the unit to be explained and governed, this study situates the production and proliferation of conspiracy theory discourses in the context of cybernetics and related transformations in politics that have tended to reduce democratic representativeness and increase forms of economic and political inequality. Cybernetics, which is often defined as the science of command and control, offers a series of concepts that facilitate an understanding of how freedom and control have become aligned in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States. I utilize Michel Foucault's governmentality approach to formulate a cybernetic governmentality methodology, which analyzes the governance of subjectivity in and through cybernetic systems of communication. Cybernetics, which seeks to invite the individual subject to realize itself through 'choice' and by way of its imbrication into machinic systems, conceptualizes the subject as a consumer and processor of information. I put forth the notion of the scripted political to analyze a key tension within contemporary U.S. politics, as politics is becoming increasingly uncertain yet also often appears to be strongly controlled by political and economic elites. Conspiracy theory, as a speculative genre of thinking, aims to steer events towards certain political ends. Conspiratorial speculation has become a popular means to connect and reflect on a felt obsolescence or superfluity on the part of the individual subject. To substantiate these arguments, I specifically analyze the discourses of QAnon and Covid-19 conspiracy theories. These discourses express political fantasies that often privilege the idea of a liberal autonomous individual subject. The politics of contemporary conspiracy theory in the United States thus concerns the fact that these conspiratorial discourses seek to perform a form of liberal subjectivity. However, this performance of individual liberal subjectivity is always caught in cybernetic systems of communication, which seek to produce value, harvest data, and maximize the attention of their 'users', thus undermining the potential for any meaningful form of liberal subjectivity. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study analyzes the politics of contemporary conspiracy theory discourses in the United States. Whereas today many scholars approach conspiracy theory as concerning the beliefs of individual subjects, whose thoughts are considered deviant and potentially requiring reform or monitoring, this study engages with conspiracy theory discourses and their conditions of possibility. While many acknowledge that conspiracy theory is a response to a felt loss of control, this notion of control is understood to be only potentially true or valid. Cybernetics, which is often defined as the science of command and control, offers a series of concepts that facilitate an understanding of how freedom and control have become aligned in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States. Cybernetics, which seeks to invite the individual subject to realize itself through 'choice' and by way of its imbrication into machinic and technological systems, conceptualizes the individual subject as a consumer and processor of information. I develop a new notion that I call the scripted political to study a key tension within contemporary U.S. politics, as politics is becoming increasingly uncertain yet also often appears to be strongly controlled by political and economic elites. Conspiracy theory is a speculative genre of thinking that is well-suited to produce social and political meaning in a condition of information saturation characteristic of today's social domain. It does so, among other things, by providing explanations about the operations of what many conspiracy theorists consider to be concentrated forms of power and by attempting to steer events towards certain desirable political ends. However, as a way of producing social and political meaning, conspiracy theory often misses the mark. Yet, despite its frequent factual inconsistencies, conspiratorial discourses and speculations have become popular means to create social connections and to reflect on a sense of obsolescence or superfluity felt by many individual subjects. To support these arguments, I focus on the conspiratorial discourses of and about QAnon and about the Covid-19 pandemic. These discourses express political fantasies that often privilege the idea of a liberal autonomous individual subject. However, I show in this study that fantasies about a re-empowered mode of individual liberal subjectivity are often caught in cybernetic systems of communication, which are more interested in producing economic value, harvesting all sorts of data about individual subjects, and maximizing the attention of their 'users', thus undermining the potential for any return to a meaningful form of liberal subjectivity.

The thesis explores the notion of physicality in selected novels of Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald, using the works of Jean Baudrillard as its theoretical base. The text seeks to uncover the significance of a human body in the novels through a detailed observation of the depicted characters, focusing mainly on the role of the body as an emblem that reflects not only its owner's individual battles, but also the transgressive processes taking place in the society. The study assumes that the works written by the authors of the Lost Generation capture the gradual onset of capitalism and consumerism, and thus they reflect the emergence of the consumer society, a social order that became Baudrillard's main subject of study. The main aim of the thesis is thence to explore the human body as a reflection of major societal changes and uncover the methods in which the characters use their bodies to define their own position in the newly arising system. Following the theoretical introduction, the analysis firstly examines fashion and demonstrates its capability to either unify the members of the consumer society through their shared desire to follow specific trends, or alternatively hierarchically divide the consumers based on their dissimilar approaches to consumption. Secondly, the thesis...

Sociala plattformar är på många sätt integrerat i människors liv. Sedan uppkomsten av de mest vanligt förekommande sociala plattformarna har sättet på vilket människor framställer sig själv genom dessa förändrats. Från att ha delat filterlösa vardagsbilder, har en stark kultur präglad av yta och perfektion kommit att karaktärisera innehållet på dessa plattformar. Denna kultur har dock visat sig påverka människor negativt, i form av ökad psykisk ohälsa och utseendefixering. Som en reaktion på detta efterfrågas därför mer transparens kring innehållet som publiceras. Utifrån denna bakgrund har denna uppsats haft som avsikt att undersöka hur människor framställer sig själva på plattformar där syftet är att skildra en autentisk verklighet. En fallstudie på den sociala plattformen BeReal har därför genomförts. Frågeställningen som studien ämnat att besvara är: Hur konstruerar människor sin identitet med hjälp av teknik vars uttalade syfte är att möjliggöra en autentisk framställning av jaget? För att besvara frågan har nio deltagare fått i uppgift att föra dagbok kring sitt användande av BeReal. Därefter har en uppföljande intervju gjorts med varje enskild deltagare. Empirin har analyserats utifrån Jean Baudrillards (1981) teoretiska ramverk Logic of Signification och även Social Network Affordances formulerade av Jeffrey Treem & Paul M. Leonardi (2013). Resultaten visar att användare lyfter fram önskvärda aktiviteter med syfte att framställa sig på ett visst sätt. Dessa aktiviteter står ofta högt i rang utifrån en kulturell och samhällelig kontext, vilket synliggörs genom Logic of Signification. Social Network Affordances synliggör på vilket sätt tekniken begränsar och möjliggör för användare att nyttja plattformen. Genom detta framkommer därför hur användare ibland kringgår de tekniska aspekterna med syfte att konstruera sig på ett önskvärt sätt. Därför mynnar resultatet ut i en diskussion kring att det tycks svårt att undkomma den polerade bild som präglar många sociala plattformar. En förklaring till detta kan vara att igenkänning i andra, snarare än autenticitet, är vad som ger bäst positivt utfall för identitetskonstruktionen. Ytterligare ett fynd, som går under namnet autenticitetsparadoxen, synliggör hur en autentisk framställning i vissa fall kan bidra till att människor mår ännu sämre. Detta grundar sig i att den ständiga jämförelsen med andra påverkar synen av jaget. / Social platforms are in many ways integrated into people's everyday lives. Since the emergence of the most common social platforms, the way in which people present themselves online has changed. From sharing unfiltered everyday images, a strong culture characterized by surface and perfection has come to influence the content of these platforms. However, this culture has shown to affect people negatively in the form of mental illness and an increased appearance fixation. As a response to this, more transparency is requested regarding the content of these platforms. Based on this background, this essay has investigated how people present themselves on platforms with the purpose to portray an authentic reality. A case study on the platform BeReal has therefore been carried out. The question that the study has intended to answer is: How do people construct their identity through technology whose stated purpose is to enable an authentic representation of the self? To answer the question, nine participants have been given the task of keeping a diary about their use of BeReal. A follow-up interview was then conducted with each participant. The empirical work has been analyzed based on Jean Baudrillard's (1981) theoretical framework Logic of Signification and also Social Network Affordances formulated by Jeffrey Treem & Paul M. Leonardi (2013). The results show that users highlight desirable activities with the aim of portraying themselves in a certain way. These activities are often highly ranked based on a cultural and societal context, which is made visible through the Logic of Signification. Social Network Affordances sheds light on the way in which technology limits and enables users to use the platform. This shows how users sometimes bypass the technical aspects with the aim of constructing themselves in a desirable way. Therefore, a discussion has been held about how it seems difficult to escape the polished image that characterizes many social platforms. An explanation for this could be that recognition in others, rather than authenticity, is what gives the best positive outcome for identity construction. Another finding, the authenticity paradox, highlights how an authentic presentation in some cases contributes to even more negative feelings. This is based on the fact that the constant comparison with others affects the view of the self.

This dissertation examines two films directed by Quentin Tarantino, whom I have situated as a postmodern film director, within the theoretical context of the philosophies of two postmodern philosophers: Jean Baudrillard and Jean-François Lyotard. I argue that the major institutions of society, such as the family and religion, are viewed as grand narratives, in Lyotard’s sense of the term, which Tarantino repeatedly subverts. Overlapping with this intersection of Lyotard’s philosophy in Tarantino’s films is the Baudrillardian loss of the real, which manifests as hyperreality in many scenes. I suggest that Tarantino makes a conscious effort to create such hyperreality with the creation of playful signifiers in his films. I examine selected scenes to find Baudrillard’s “successive phases of the image” (Baudrillard 2010:6) that lead to the creation of a simulacrum. The compelling intersections between the creation of Baudrillardian simulacra and the subversion of Lyotard’s grand narratives are explored within selected scenes which are deconstructed by means of film narratology, semiotic analysis and narrative analysis. The combination of the various methods of media research in this thesis enables what Jane Stokes calls “a more textured understanding” (2008:27) of the films under discussion. A close reading from a semiotic point of view facilitates a deconstruction of some obscure elements, such as the embedded meaning in lyrics and dialogue or the messages implicit in the mise en scène. / English Studies / M. A.

This dissertation examines two films directed by Quentin Tarantino, whom I have situated as a postmodern film director, within the theoretical context of the philosophies of two postmodern philosophers: Jean Baudrillard and Jean-François Lyotard. I argue that the major institutions of society, such as the family and religion, are viewed as grand narratives, in Lyotard’s sense of the term, which Tarantino repeatedly subverts. Overlapping with this intersection of Lyotard’s philosophy in Tarantino’s films is the Baudrillardian loss of the real, which manifests as hyperreality in many scenes. I suggest that Tarantino makes a conscious effort to create such hyperreality with the creation of playful signifiers in his films. I examine selected scenes to find Baudrillard’s “successive phases of the image” (Baudrillard 2010:6) that lead to the creation of a simulacrum. The compelling intersections between the creation of Baudrillardian simulacra and the subversion of Lyotard’s grand narratives are explored within selected scenes which are deconstructed by means of film narratology, semiotic analysis and narrative analysis. The combination of the various methods of media research in this thesis enables what Jane Stokes calls “a more textured understanding” (2008:27) of the films under discussion. A close reading from a semiotic point of view facilitates a deconstruction of some obscure elements, such as the embedded meaning in lyrics and dialogue or the messages implicit in the mise en scène. / English Studies / M. A.

Detta är en uppsats som tar sig an, på ett semantiskt sätt, ordet Gud och människors syn på vad ordet Gud har för betydelse. Genom att göra en idéanalys av Jonna Bornemarks analys av Nicolas Cusanus för att se om detta kan vara en väg för att ge en mera mångfasetterad bild och värde av ordet Gud och gudsbilden till den scientistiska människan i Sverige. Uppsatsen tar avstamp i att försöka visa på de nycklar Cusanus filosofi ger genom Jonna Bornemarks tolkning av Cusanus i Det omätbaras renässans. / Nicholas Cusanus levde mellan åren 1401 och 1464. Cusanus var astronom, matematiker, teolog och filosof. En verklig renässansmänniska. Cusanus var en man som var på gränsen mellan skolastiken på medeltiden och renässansens mera kosmopolitiska livshållning som tiden gav. Cusanus var starkt influerad av den mystiken som bland annat Mäster Eckhart stod bakom. Den mystika negativa teologin som talade om att det är enklare att beskriva vad den kristna Gud inte är, än att berätta vad som Gud är. Cusanus studerade både Aristoteles och den Plotinos nyplatonska filosofin. Denna filosof kom jag kontakt med genom Cusanus lilla bok Gudsseendet med stort innehåll, vilket han skrev som en guide till munkarna i Tegernsee. Den behandlar den sinnliga bilden och de begrepp som gör att man kan se det som kan finnas bakom den ikoniska bilden. Den ikoniska bilden uppfattar Cusanus vara det djup som en bild kan vara bärare av. Det symboliska värdet på den bild som väcker åskådarens reflektion och reaktion. Den ikoniska bilden är bärare av detta djup som kan vara en utlösande av det personliga symboliska värdet för den specifika bilden. I Gudseendet är det en ikon som Cusanus kallar för ”Guds ikon”. Cusanus öppnade dörrar för mig i hur man kan tänka om att inte ser med de fysiska sinnena, utan måste använda sitt inre öga för att kunna se det som är större än det jag bara kan med de fysiska sinnena erfara. Startpunkten till denna uppsats är att kanske kunna förstå hur människan kan komma närmare det som inte sinnligt kan erfaras, den kunskapen menar Cusanus behöver människan för att vara en hel människa. Bornemark tar Cusanus filosofi till dagens samhällsproblem med att samhället alltid vill mäta allting. Studiens inriktning är att försöka svara på de frågor som uppsatsen ställer inför Bornemarks tolkning av Cusanus filosofi. / <p>På grund av corona utfördes framläggningen online.</p>

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【中 文 摘 要】 博物館功能主要為「展示、教育、研究、典藏」，其中「展示」為博物館與大眾接觸最直接的方式。在現代科技發展中，「展示」的觀念與形式也有所改變，互動式展示日受重視，虛擬呈現的比例亦逐漸加重。 本研究以「國立海洋生物博物館」之BOT專案「世界水域館」《深海水域》電子展示設計為主題，以實務個案為例，探討自然博物館如何規劃與製作深海水域的生態展演，與如何利用〝虛擬實境〞、〝人工智慧〞與〝即時運算〞等尖端技術，架構出「世界第一」無水水族館的展示模式。 往昔自然生態展示以活體展示為主，即複製生態空間讓水中生物悠遊水族箱內。但為了超越時空，讓全球代表生態皆能集中於特定展示館內，遂有電子展示的觀念與製作，以擬仿物取代真實，創造尚‧布希亞的「超真實」世界。 本研究於製程的影音紀錄與相關人員的訪談中，歸納、整理出發展生態電子展示設計的因素與理想，探討製作上的困難之處，同時也以研究者觀點對展示設計過程提出檢討與建議。 深海水域生態在陸地上展示係屬跨越時空的創舉，本個案不但為台灣首例，在世界上亦為先驅。創新嘗試，成果雖不如預期，但以整個專案的具體呈現而言，實為相關領域之前鋒。本研究認為，整理與探討本個案，對未來電子展示設計與製作皆有參考價值；同時，由本個案所建置的生態電子展示平台，亦為台灣博物館界提供國際化的新思維，對博物館未來的展示設計奠定了新的基礎，創造一個新的開始。 / Abstract The main functions of museums are demonstration/exhibition, education, research and collection/preservation. “Exhibition” provides the most direct link between a museum and the public. As modern science and technology continue to develop, the concepts and formats of “exhibition” have also evolved. Interactive exhibits become more valued, and virtual simulation approaches have also increased in proportion. The focus of this research study is the electronic display design for the Waters of the World – BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) Project, pioneered by the National Museum of Marine Biology & Aquarium. This study uses this project as a case study to explore how a Nature museum planned and produced an exhibit of The Deep Sea waters ecology, and with the use of the most advanced technology such as VR (Virtual Reality), AI (Artificial Intelligence), and the “real-time operation,” etc., how the museum built the world’s first protocol for a water-less aquarium. In the past, ecological exhibits mainly constituted real living creatures, by duplicating the ecological environment necessary for underwater creatures to survive in an aquarium. But, in order to go beyond the limitation of space and time, and to facilitate the presentation of global ecology within a specific exhibition space, the electronic display concept and production has thus been introduced. It is to imitate reality and create a world of hyper-reality, as depicted by Jean Baudrillard. Relying on historical video and audio records, and actual interviews with key people on the project, this research study summarized factors and objectives of the original design, and discussed difficulties encountered in the production process. In addition, the study also provided input and recommendations concerning the design process. The exhibition of The Deep Sea waters ecology on land is a pioneering act, second to none. The case is not only a 1st in Taiwan, but also a 1st of its kind in the world. Although the new attempt has not exactly achieved the expected outcomes, it did initiate a pioneering work within ecology demo field. The researcher believes that the case study is a valuable reference for future electronic display design and production. In the meantime, the ecological electronic-platform created by this project provides an international perspective, and establishes a new milestone for further development in the future.

本篇論文旨在探討，將尚．布希亞所觀察到的擬仿物應用到詹姆斯．喬伊斯的《都柏林人》之可能性。擬仿物是一種自我指涉、和真實脫離關係的符號，且擬仿物的誕生即代表了真實的死亡。擬仿物的論證有助於解釋《都柏林人》中二元對立的瓦解，例如真實∕想像，民族主義∕帝國主義，精神性∕物質性，加害者∕被害者，過去∕現今等。除此之外，其他和布希亞擬像理論相關的概念如墨比絲環迴繞的否定性、退卻的歷史，和內爆，都能闡釋都柏林中意義的蒸發。從＜會議室裡的常春藤日＞中的民主選舉擬仿物，＜賽車之後＞中的民族認同擬仿物，＜阿拉比＞中的商品擬仿物，＜伊芙琳＞中的父權擬仿物，＜一抹微雲＞中的國界擬仿物，到＜死者＞中的歷史擬仿物，喬伊斯的都柏林人在察覺真實的消失之後，感到震驚或無法反應。儘管喬伊斯典型的結局透露出一絲灰暗，將布希亞應用至喬伊斯，確實提供都柏林人從二元對立的結構中獲得自由的機會。