The Other Side of the Digital: The Sacrificial Economy of New Media

288 Pages·2021·1.688 MB·English

by  Andrea Righi

The Other Side of the Digital
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The Other Side
of the Digital
The Sacrificial Economy
of New Media
Andrea Righi
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Portions of chapter 3 are adapted from “From Targets to Matches: The Digital Anatomo- politics of
Neoliberal Sexuality,” Cultural Critique 98 (2018): 95– 121. Portions of chapter 4 are adapted from
“The Corpulence of Self- Tracking: The Quantified Self, Derrida, and Writing in the Age of Digital
Accountability,” Theory and Event 20 (2017): 679–98; copyright 2017 Johns Hopkins University
Press; published with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press. Portions of chapter 5 are
adapted from “The Mammoletta– Mammet Complex and the Sexed Truth of Neoliberal Digitality,”
Soft Power 4 (2017): 161–7 6.
Copyright 2021 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401– 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
ISBN 978-1-5179-1022-8 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-5179-1023-5 (pb)
A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
UMP BmB 2021
This book is dedicated to my wife, Simona,
and my daughter, Maya
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction The Sexed Truth of Neoliberal Digitality 1
Chapter 1. Transcendence 15
Moses, or The Other of the Other
Chapter 2. Knowledge 49
Online Fee- Ding as the Solution to Meno’s Paradox
Chapter 3. Desire 81
The Ballistic Sexuality of Drones and Tinder
Chapter 4. Writing 109
The Quantified Self and Digital Accountability
Chapter 5. Temporality 133
Turks, Mammets, and Digital Crowdworking Platforms
Chapter 6. Woman 161
Love and Automated Profit
Chapter 7. Hysteria 189
The Moses of Bernardo Bertolucci
Chapter 8. Passivity 215
The Other as Other
Notes 243
Index 269
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Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the generous support
of Miami University and Colorado College, which funded my research
through several grants. Special thanks also to the University of Macerata
for the 2017– 18 Matteo Ricci residential scholarship. For various inter-
ventions at different writing stages as well as insightful conversations
on these topics, I am grateful to Steve Carter, Cesare Casarino, Mary Jean
Corbett, Ida Dominijanni, Jeff Herlihy, Kiarina Kordela, Scott Krzych,
Matthew Roesch, Jonathan Strauss, and Angelo Ventrone. I would also
like to thank Josh Bradford and all the students of my New Media and
Psychoanalysis courses at Miami University.