Environment And Planning D: Society And Space, 2010

My current research attempts to build a microontologyöengaging with sciences of the microcosmosöwithin biophilosophy (Hird, 2009). It is enlivened by Donna Haraway's contemplation about what can happen When Species Meet. In this short review, I hope to build on Haraway's important insights to contemplate meetings-with the Other in circumstances when the majority of Others are not species and when this Other majority meets without human recognition or involvement. At the outset of her latest work, Haraway details the community of the human body:`I love the fact that human genomes can be found in only about 10 percent of all the cells that occupy the mundane space I call my body; the other 90 percent of the cells are filled with the genomes of bacteria, fungi, protists, and such, some of which play in a symphony necessary to my being alive at all, and some of which are hitching a ride and doing the rest of me, of us, no harm. I am vastly outnumbered by my tiny companions; better put, I become an adult human being in company with these tiny messmates. To be one is always to become with many'' (page 3). Haraway asks of these families of kin and (taxonomic) kind important questions about the possibilities for becoming-with companion species. Here, relating precedes identity. Not, as Haraway points out, that species do not have ontologies-in-themselves``sometimes-separate heritages both before and lateral to this encounter'' (page 25). But there is contagion at work in Haraway's species-meeting: kin and kind defined less through``arboreal descent'' and more through``the play of bodies'' (page 30). Haraway's companion species impregnation is metaphoric to be sure in its weaving of histories of codependence and production, but it is more than this: a literal enmeshing of bodies and all of their resident companion species (and those species') in a recursive cascade that defines how we know what we know.``Turtling all the way down'' as Haraway, and Isabelle Stengers (1997) put it. This incalculable enmeshment proceeds from a different, non-human-centered ontology than Kant's sublime, Wittgenstein's lion, Lyotard's inhuman and differend, Heidegger's Hand-Werk, Levinas's dog Bobby, and ultimately Derrida's cat, each of whose epistemologies pivot on a comparison between humans and (the) animal that leads to the latter's ultimate disavowal. And while the main meetings that concern Haraway are those of dogs and humans (and all of their cascading technological, political economic, ecological, and ethical entanglements), she is clearly sympathetic to the fact that focusing on animals``big like us'' (Margulis, 2007, personal communication) encourages a profoundly myopic humanism. In short, insofar as the philosophical limit remains the human-animalöand given that humans are animalsöbacteria's faciality' remains obscured within the human imaginative horizon. Microontologies concern companion species that are not species at all: companion with not-species as it were. Populating this`unseen majority' are about 5610 30 bacterial cells on Earth: that's 5000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bacterial cells (Whitman et al, 1998). Another estimated 10 18 ö1000 000 000 000 000 000öbacteria circulate in the atmosphere attached to dust. Most organisms are bacteria: they evince the greatest organismal diversity, and have dominated evolutionary history. Bacteria invented all major forms of metabolism, multicellularity, nanotechnology, metallurgy, sensory and

Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya) Are you ever really alone? Even when you think you are sitting at home alone, you are still in the company of a great number of living things. Bacteria live on you and in your body, and constantly protect you and also, occasionally, cause you to become ill. Mites that are spread everywhere, from the chair you sit in to your carpet, to the air you breathe. Moulds and fungi begin reproducing on foods left out in the open in your kitchen for even a few hours—all of these constitute a different world with its own unique lifestyles, nutritional systems and structural features. Maybe you have always thought that the humans, animals and plants you see around you represent the sole community of living things. Yet the microorganisms, members of a secret world that reach to every corner of the Earth, are far more numerous that those other, more familiar living things. These minute creatures outnumber the animals in the world by twenty to one. 1 In the same way that they are present all over the world, they are also essential to human life. What are the members of this enormous community of microorganisms? The living things we shall be examining in this book consist of bacteria, viruses, fungi, algae and mites. You will doubtless be familiar with their names, but may be mostly unaware of how closely your life is bound up with them. For example, the nitrogen cycle—one of the basic processes that make life on Earth possible—is established by bacteria. Root fungi, on the other hand, are the most important factor in the way plants extract the minerals from the soil. Bacteria on your tongue prevent you being poisoned by foods containing nitrates, such as salad or meat. At the same time, bacteria and algae are able to perform photosynthesis, another essential process factor in the existence of life on Earth, and an ability they share with plants. In short, these microorganisms are a vital components in the balance of life on Earth. On occasion, some of these microscopic living things also give rise to sickness. The immune and defense systems in your body exist in order to combat these organisms. Some spread through your body at great speed, employing methods that medical science has still not uncovered, while others may put an end to someone's life in mere moments, or only gradually. Some may benefit for a living creature in return for making use of its structures, in other words, living in a symbiotic (shared life) manner. Other microorganisms are able to combine together, making decisions and plans, organizing, and carrying out the most delicate processes. All these functions are performed by microorganisms, which generally consist of a single cell, and which cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Canadian Theatre Review, 2019

PLoS Biology, 2005

New manifestations from the creation and thought of the fantastic, 2024

The article explores the collaboration between William S. Burroughs and David Cronenberg in adapting Burroughs’ novel "Naked Lunch" into a film. Cronenberg’s approach involved a departure from traditional adaptation methods, aiming to capture Burroughs’ literary essence and creative process rather than faithfully reproducing the narrative. The film interweaves elements from Burroughs’ life, his literary works, and biographical fragments, reflecting the writer's belief that all his books constitute a singular narrative. Cronenberg’s interest in literature and writing is central to his filmmaking career, evident in his adaptations of novels and graphic novels. He identifies with Burroughs’ sensibility despite their biographical and cultural differences. The film’s narrative revolves around writing and creativity, portraying the challenges and dangers of the creative process. The article delves into the symbolic creatures depicted in "Naked Lunch," such as insects and mutants, which serve as metaphors for addiction, desire, and control. Insects, particularly cockroaches and centipedes, are significant symbols representing decay, adaptation, and primal power. The narrative blurs the boundaries between organic and mechanical, reflecting Cronenberg’s recurring theme of bodily transformation and fusion with technology. The film’s imagery includes grotesque creatures like Mugwumps, embodying a blend of human and monstrous characteristics. These creatures symbolize the intersection of desire, control, and the subconscious. The narrative explores themes of trauma, sexuality, and the transformative power of writing, culminating in a complex and symbolic portrayal of Burroughs’ literary universe.

Style, 2021

This article traces the stylistic consequences of the attempt to map seemingly infinitely expanding networks of trade and value in Frank Norris's The Octopus (1901). It focuses on the rehearsal at the level of the sentence of characters' grappling with the 'terror of sheer bigness', and the complex interrelation of public and private, political and personal, local and global inaugurated by the railroad's management of the distribution of wheat. The textures of Norris's style-his grammar, syntax, and diction-are implicated in the novel's interrogation and negotiation of these dislocations. From the failures of mimetic phrasing spiralling across

Hyper-Annotation, 2023

Nekama Neofung: Journeying into the Fungal Womb of Self-Discovery Kenji Siratori Nekama / Neofung Peach Spore Press When considering metaphorical identities, unexpected individuals explore through various forms, enticing power through glimpses and declining the game through captivating self-hypnosis. Provocative descriptions of our typical microbes collapse the self-identity of posthumanism into the uterus and fungi. Uniqueness begins with remnants on the back and, through biology, reveals itself between the essence of our identity, encouraging and influencing interpretations from us and the uterus, collapsing diversity as a viewpoint. Neofung in our reality can represent genetic contemplation; they have shown that the identity of life and nekama is born through intimacy on the journey, and discoveries integrate into the reimagined, revealed actions, providing acceptance to humans. Pleasure's collapse in fictional physics, understanding the entire network power of physical individuals, exploring evolution, neofung become technical acceptance. As readers, we are becoming sensual and pleasurable self-identities. The birth of readers' exploration and complex experimental emergence, the fusion of neofung, posthuman pornography, newness and ourselves. Self-existence contributes to society, contributing to one's own world, and parallel to the project's natural birth of technology. Trees born through neofung and surreal ideas, interconnectedness of self, the end of alienation colliding with the complexity of genetic individuality in the intertwined world. The beginning of text humans, hatching challenges about how technology can be helpful in transition, the birth of sensual concepts through fungi, internal collapsed repeated interconnectedness, and the newly discovered superimposed intelligence of humans, the purpose of interconnected theories through connections, embracing embrace through connections, deconstructed challenges, the evolution of ideas.

Brasiliana- Journal for Brazilian Studies, 2017

Lovecraft and the monster figure: this seems a rather obvious association, since the writer is primarily famous as the creator of a Pantheon of extraterrestrial deities, whom he calls the Great Old Ones, and who according to his fictions are supposed to have trodden the earth before mankind, and are still about to reappear. The monster acts here as the return of the repressed as it were, and Lovecraft is often suggested as the repressed subject by critics who insist on the evidence of sexual neurosis amply provided in his biography 1 . Yet the writer himself will not constitute the primary object of this essay in relation to the topic of monstrosity, because this dimension has been examined in a detailed way by S.T Joshi notably. It seems more promising to focus our study on a middle term between Lovecraft's imaginary world and the topic of monstrosity-this term will be the adaptation of Lovecraft's universe (rather than the adaptation of a specific text by Lovecraft 2 ) in Moore's and Burrows' album Neonomicon. This study of the comic book adaptation will enable us to examine the iconic representation of monstrosity through two main issues, namely: the way monstrosity is represented and the related issue of the discourse on the monster that underlies representation.

Life: The Excitement of Biology, 2017

Beyond the blueness of most of our planet and the brownish hues of land, there is green, a celebration of plant life in Green Universe: A Microscopic Voyage into the Plant Cell by Stephen Blackmore. This book touched me because, back in 1987, when I was pursuing my doctorate, I became interested in herbivory and that meant learning about plants. Although I met professors in my "home" department who were unhappy about my decision to pursue two degrees simultaneously, the kind and knowledgeable botany professors and classmates I met in my other department gave me a broader perspective of life that changed me forever. I do not regret that major choice in life! Green Universe deliberately uses botanical lingo with a phrase about what each term means, further defined in the Glossary, accompanied by a useful Index. Blackmore's book appeals both to botanists and to those interested in plants. Like any human creation, there are occasional mistakes, in my opinion, they are not distracting. Although it is impossible to do justice to this book in a few paragraphs, I want to emphasize all the good in this precious botanical work. In The Journey Begins, the author communicates his love for plants at the scale of the tiny things, like cells. While our senses give us the opportunity to detect the universe, they are limited. Many tools, such as the microscope, give us greater abilities to detect what we cannot typically see with our unaided eyes. The History of Microscopy is both lucid and beautifully illustrated. Although magnifying lenses have been known for millennia, the English naturalist, Robert Hooke (1635-1703), and the Dutch businessman and scientist, Antonj van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), began giving us legacies of the tiny objects they observed using their newly crafted microscopes. Anyone who has properly illuminated, cut, polished, and/or stained objects knows how important each of those skillful and artistic steps are to patiently create beautiful images. Many years ago, a memorable US professor of ecology at the University of Puerto Rico said to me about my being accepted in an intensive marine biology course, "Jorge, the sea is another world". His words (and the numerous incredible-and at times hilarious-experiences related to his course) resonate whenever I use any of the