MAPPING ADDICTED SUBJECTION

摘要

Conceptions of the subject have been a critical site of intervention for cultural studies, especially where such studies concern those processes by which meanings, practices, and institutions and relations of power are articulated in the constitution and control of social life. This article considers the analytic potential of re-thinking the subject, as Deleuze suggests, not in terms of 'a subject' but as a force-field of intensities. Following the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this article develops a cartographic approach to the study of such force-fields and applies this approach to one uniquely potent mode of modern subjection: that associated with addiction. In addition to intervening in those discourses and practices which produce contemporary addictions, this article offers a potentially useful approach to the study of such cultural epidemics, as well as further exploration of Deleuze and Guattari's significance for cultural studies.