{"id":{"repo_id":"greenwich","oai_identifier":"oai:gala.gre.ac.uk:8547"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/greenwich/oai:gala.gre.ac.uk:8547","repository":{"repo_id":"greenwich","name":"University of Greenwich","base_url":"https://gala.gre.ac.uk/cgi/oai2"},"display":{"title":"The pornographical: a mimetic ethics of bodies","abstract":"This thesis is situated across the fields of contemporary political philosophy, critical theory and feminist/gender studies. It argues that the notion of an ‘ana-aesthetic’ is required in order to provide a fuller sense of the conceptual nuances regarding pornography. The ‘ana-aesthetic’ is suggested as the ground and surface economy for this ‘unsayable something’ that is so much a part of the everyday common senses of contemporary life and art. Distinct from the ‘anti-aesthetic’, the ‘ana-aesthetic’ utilises a discursive methodology, and in sidestepping the usual moral entanglements found in attempts to analyse sexually explicit and often misogynistic pornographies, this thesis shows how the ‘ana-aesthetic’ surface of ‘the pornographical’ generates a mimetic and bodily ethics. ‘The pornographical’ is discussed in terms of its techne of comic humour, as a way of creating substance without lapsing into abyssal logics of lack; and the manner in which sexual meaning of fantasy is pleasurable, forming compressed data. The comic is suggested as something found, a cultural ‘ready-made’ gesture, of pleasure, produced through an economic expenditure of ideational mimetics (upon cathexis). This thesis suggests that through the comic, ‘the pornographical’ creates mimetic economies of witnessing. ‘The pornographical’ occupies a strange cultural position in its relationship to both the body and to technology. It is this relationship that gives ‘the pornographical’ its paradoxical ‘ana-linguistic’/’a-radical’ (without a ‘root’) structure, that generates a way of thinking that is related to and also embodies and mediates the body, without positing sexuality as an essentialism.","abstract_html":"This thesis is situated across the fields of contemporary political philosophy, critical theory and feminist/gender studies. It argues that the notion of an ‘ana-aesthetic’ is required in order to provide a fuller sense of the conceptual nuances regarding pornography. The ‘ana-aesthetic’ is suggested as the ground and surface economy for this ‘unsayable something’ that is so much a part of the everyday common senses of contemporary life and art. Distinct from the ‘anti-aesthetic’, the ‘ana-aesthetic’ utilises a discursive methodology, and in sidestepping the usual moral entanglements found in attempts to analyse sexually explicit and often misogynistic pornographies, this thesis shows how the ‘ana-aesthetic’ surface of ‘the pornographical’ generates a mimetic and bodily ethics. ‘The pornographical’ is discussed in terms of its techne of comic humour, as a way of creating substance without lapsing into abyssal logics of lack; and the manner in which sexual meaning of fantasy is pleasurable, forming compressed data. The comic is suggested as something found, a cultural ‘ready-made’ gesture, of pleasure, produced through an economic expenditure of ideational mimetics (upon cathexis). This thesis suggests that through the comic, ‘the pornographical’ creates mimetic economies of witnessing. ‘The pornographical’ occupies a strange cultural position in its relationship to both the body and to technology. It is this relationship that gives ‘the pornographical’ its paradoxical ‘ana-linguistic’/’a-radical’ (without a ‘root’) structure, that generates a way of thinking that is related to and also embodies and mediates the body, without positing sexuality as an essentialism.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Mountain, Holly"],"institution":"University of Greenwich","degree_name":"phd","degree_level":"doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Golding, Sue","Kennedy, Stephen"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2007,"date_issued":"2007-06","date_published":"2007-06","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:25:42Z","subjects":["BJ Ethics","HQ The family. Marriage. 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It is this relationship that gives ‘the pornographical’ its paradoxical ‘ana-linguistic’/’a-radical’ (without a ‘root’) structure, that generates a way of thinking that is related to and also embodies and mediates the body, without positing sexuality as an essentialism."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The pornographical: a mimetic ethics of bodies"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Golding, Sue","Kennedy, Stephen"],"dc:creator":["Mountain, Holly"],"dc:date":["2007-06"],"dc:date.issued":["2007-06"],"dc:description.abstract":["This thesis is situated across the fields of contemporary political philosophy, critical theory and feminist/gender studies. It argues that the notion of an ‘ana-aesthetic’ is required in order to provide a fuller sense of the conceptual nuances regarding pornography. 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