Culture & Media Book Release Party

6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Look at The Bunny by Dominic Pettman
Are totems merely a thing of the distant past? Or might it be that our sleek new machines are producing totemic forces which we are only beginning to recognize? This book asks to what degree today's media technologies are haunted by a Freudian ghost, functioning as totems or taboos (or both). By isolating five case-studies (rabbits in popular culture, animated creatures that go "off-program," virtual lovers, jealous animal spirit guides, and electronic paradises), Look at the Bunny highlights and explores today's techno-totemic environment. In doing so, it explores how nonhuman avatars are increasingly expected to shepherd us beyond our land-locked identities, into a risky - sometimes ecstatic - relationship with the Other.

"Reading Dominic Pettman doesn't change what one thinks. It changes HOW one thinks. What starts out as counter-intuitive ends up as so true and right that one can no longer recall ever thinking otherwise. This book is only for those courageous enough to venture down the rabbit-hole." ~ Jodi Dean, author of Blog Theory and Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies.
Location:

55 W. 13th Street, The Hirshon Suite, 2nd Floor

Admission:
Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served



 
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