Matthew Flisfeder
Title: Associate Professor
Phone: 204.786.9848
Office: 3G23
Building: Graham Hall
Email: m.flisfeder@uwinnipeg.ca
Degrees:
PhD (2010), Joint Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture, Toronto Metropolitan University and York University
MA (2005), Joint Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture, Toronto Metropolitan University and York University
Honours BA (2003), Double Major in Fine Arts Cultural Studies and Communication Studies, York University
Biography:
Dr. Matthew Flisfeder has research and teaching interests in rhetoric and ideology, aesthetic theory and ethics, digital and cyberpunk culture, critical studies of social media, populist rhetoric and antisemitism, popular culture, critical theory, and cultural studies.
Dr. Flisfeder is the author of Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media (Northwestern University Press, 2021), Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner (Bloomsbury 2017), The Symbolic, the Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film (Palgrave Macmillan 2012), and co-editor of Žižek and Media Studies: A Reader (Palgrave Macmillan 2014).
Dr. Flisfeder is currently working on a project called, “The Hysterical Sublime: A Critical Study of the Aesthetics, Rhetorics, and Ethics of New Materialist and Posthumanist Critical Theory.” Through a critical examination of New Materialist and Posthumanist critical theory, this project endeavours to produce a new theory of dialectical humanism for theorizing the twin dilemmas of anthropogenic climate change and the displacement of human agency by digital automation and artificial intelligence. Dialectical humanism aims to shift our critical gaze away from contradictory critiques of Anthropocentrism and the “Anthropocene,” and onto the structural contradictions of twenty-first century capitalism, or the “Capitalocene.”
Publications:
Sample Publications:
Books:
2021 Matthew Flisfeder, Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press).
2017 Matthew Flisfeder, Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner (New York: Bloomsbury).
2014 Matthew Flisfeder and Louis-Paul Willis, eds., Žižek and Media Studies: A Reader (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
2012 Matthew Flisfeder. The Symbolic, The Sublime and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Guest Edited Journal Issues:
2022 Matthew Flisfeder, ed. “What does the algorithm want? Psychoanalysis and the Critique of Digital Platforms.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature & Culture 24.4 http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol24/iss4/.
2020 Matthew Flisfeder, ed. “Roundtable Dossier: Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism – Ten Years On.” Mediations: Journal of the Marxist Literary Group 33.1-2: 139-188.https://mediationsjournal.org/toc/realism-reevaluated
Book Chapters:
2022 Matthew Flisfeder, “Are We Human? Or, Posthumanism and the Subject of Modernity.” In Understanding Žižek, Understanding Modernism, edited by Zahi Zalloua and Jeffrey Di Leo (New York: Bloomsbury).
2022 Robyn Flisfeder and Matthew Flisfeder, “Bionic Parenting: On the Enabling Possibilities and Practices for Parenting with Digital New Media.” Parenting/Internet/Kids, edited by Fiona Joy Green and Jaqueline McLeod Rogers (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press).
2021 Matthew Flisfeder, “From the Sublime to the Hysterical Sublime: Reading the End of the World Against the Singularity.” Lacan and the Environment, edited by Clint Burnham and Paul Kingsbury (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
2021 Matthew Flisfeder. “Object Oriented Subjectivity: Capitalism and Desire in Blade Runner 2049.” In Calum Neill, ed., Lacanian Perspectives on Blade Runner 2049 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles:
Forthcoming Matthew Flisfeder, “The Persistence of the Jewish Question in Socialist Struggle: Rethinking Global Antisemitism and Emancipatory Universality.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies.
2023 Matthew Flisfeder, “From Posthumanist Anaesthetics to Promethean Dialectics: Further Considerations on the Category of the Hysterical Sublime.” Rethinking Marxism vol. 35, no. 2: 158-179. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08935696.2023.2183682.
2023 Matthew Flisfeder, “There Is No Metalanguage; or, Truth Has the Structure of a Fiction: The Žižekian System, Between Post-Ideology and Post-Truth.” Enrahonar: An International Journal of Theoretical and Practical Reason no. 70: 171-185. https://revistes.uab.cat/enrahonar/article/view/v70-flisfeder.
2022 Matthew Flisfeder, “Freedom and Alienation; or, Humanism of the Non-All.” Problemi International no. 5/Problemi vol. 60, nos. 11-12: 135-170. https://problemi.si/issues/p2022-5/06_problemi_international_2022_5_flisfeder.pdf
2022 Matthew Flisfeder, “Is it Possible to Represent the Sexual Relation in Cinema.” Translated by Anthony Ballas. Language and Psychoanalysis vol. 11, no. 1: 4-15. Translation of Est-il possible de représenter le rapport sexuel au cinema?” http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/article/view/6455.
2021 Matthew Flisfeder, “Renewing Humanism Against the Anthropocene: Towards a Theory of the Hysterical Sublime.” Postmodern Culture (PMC) vol. 32, no. 1 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/841931.
2020 Matthew Flisfeder, “Defending Representation; or Thinking the Paradox to the Limit.” Crisis & Critique vol. 7, no. 2: 68-89. http://crisiscritique.org/2020/july/flisfeder.pdf
Non-Peer Reviewed Articles:
2022 Matthew Flisfeder, “Whither Symbolic Efficiency? Social Media, New Structuralism, and Algorithmic Desire.” Rethinking Marxism vol. 34, no. 3: 413-432. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08935696.2022.2111959.
2022 Matthew Flisfeder, “Severance, Alienation, and the Futility of Reintegration.” The Philosophical Salon. July 18th, 2022. https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/severance-alienation-and-the-futility-of-reintegration/.
2020 Matthew Flisfeder, “Renewing Universality: COVID-19 and Social Distancing Against the Biopolitical Critique.” Contours: E-Journal of the SFU Humanities Institute 10. http://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/humanities-institute/Images/contours/issue10/10.10.pdf
2020 Matthew Flisfeder, “Capitalism is the Parasite; Capitalism is the Virus.” The Bullet. July 26th. https://socialistproject.ca/2020/07/capitalism-is-the-parasite-capitalism-is-the-virus/
2020 Matthew Flisfeder, “Social Distancing and Its Discontents.” The Philosophical Salon. May 7th. https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/social-distancing-and-its-discontents/