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Ontology of Avulsion: Posthuman Freedom and Accidental Becoming

Riverine avulsion is a radical divergence of a riverbed. In this dissertation, I take this movement as a paradigm for understanding the features of radical change. I develop a model for understanding the essential features of radical change. I argue that the main features involved in avulsion are tension, abandonment, and material freedom. In my analysis, tension provides the catalyst for change, such that it pressurizes complex systems of organization to the point of collapse. I use Catherine Malabou's work on denegation to understand the collapse of a system as an accident; the rupture of a system entails that it is no longer affirmed nor negated, it is abandoned by the process of becoming. Utilizing the work of Deleuze, I present the moment of rupture itself as the moment where materiality breaks free from the restrictions of an organizing system to becoming consolidated into countless new forms of organization. In my analysis of the ontology of avulsion, I employ a new materialist process of becoming to capture the complex networks of relations involved in the moment of creation. I challenge these Deleuzean and new materialist fields of philosophy over their affinity for affirmation by integrating accidental abandonment. Finally, I propose a potentiality for the freedom of materiality as a transcendental property of all systems of organization, thereby revealing their precarious continuity and inevitable abandonment.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1873811
Date12 1900
CreatorsGrossman, Jacob Wayne
ContributorsKlaver, Irene J, Rowe, Terra S, Lewis, Tyson E
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formatv, 124 pages, Text
RightsPublic, Grossman, Jacob Wayne, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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