My academic musings.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Remaining Questions from Wendy Chun's Control and Freedom:

*Chun implicitly pairs pornography with the internet in her second chapter. I am wondering if this pairing is significant to the rest of her argument, and what else she will do with it. Am I correct in understanding that using the internet itself is akin to, or a form of, pornography? Does it stem from the same impulse?

*How does the "twinning" of control and freedom continue to gain significance, and why is it a productive way to think of freedom? What kind of freedom(s) require control in order to be "true" freedom, especially given her assertion in the Preface that "freedom is a fact we all share"?

*What needs to change, for Chun? Is she posing the twinning of freedom and control as a problem in need of correction (I think she does), or is she explaining this because she wants the internet to open up a different kind of freedom? Further, will she offer solutions to the problem? What does she want us to do or change as a result of understanding freedom as necessarily tied to control?

*Does the internet offer any possibility, then, especially given the contexts in which she describes it: control, pornography, desire, and paranoia?

*Finally, what is her understanding of paranoia, and how does this relate to our internet usage/consumption/understanding of it? How does technology itself play a role in paranoia? And then what?

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