Saturday, November 24, 2007

thoughts on a thesis

ponderances stemming from a MA thesis by donald jones from georgetown
university on gender/sexuality and identity formation in second life.

- refers to lacanian theory of the self, a postmodern re-imagining of
identity as no longer unitary, but also questions if it exists at all
when it is constantly in flux.

"To Turkle, in virtual space the imago is shattered into multiple
shards, each of which reflect aspects of Self that can be explored by
the user in question for their (theoretical) betterment. To her this
validates Lacan?s thinking as ?Lacan insisted that ego is an illusion.
In this he joins psychoanalysis to the postmodern
attempt to portray the self as a realm of discourse rather than as a
real thing or a permanent structure of the mind? (Turkle 178).
Multiple online persona are simply parts of the signifying chain." p. 76

"the avatar functions as Other, the idealized Other of the mirror in
which the user derives pleasure in the looking", p. 79

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