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Women, Consumption and Popular Culture (Vol. 4 No. 1); Life, Community, and Ethics (Vol. 4. No. 2)

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Transatlantic Literary and Cultural Relations, 1776 to the Present (Vol. 11 No. 2). 

ABSTRACT

“Silent” and “immobile” comics are in fact saturated with trans-sensual movements such as onomatopoeia, affective signs and juxtapositional montages (as opposed to temporal montages in cinema). The unique phenomenon of such medium cannot be seen as a “metonymy,” where images and texts simply substitute for the absence of sound and movement. Rather, comics provide exemplary performances of the nature of art in its capacity for rhizomatic implosion and simultaneity in the invocation of affects. We should read supra-visual mappings in comics as non-linear folding of trans-sensual events. Furthermore, fujoshi imaginary in comics, similar to the function of intermezzo in music, enfolds desires and bodies in ever-evolving and constantly deterritorializing milieus. In its original meanings, symphony (συμφωνία) may refer to the “sounding together” of contrapuntal multiplicities or the temperament and heterogenesis of sounds and senses. This essay explores the inter-actions of multivalent signs and hybridizing senses (transcoding in a Deleuzian sense) in Japanese music-themed comics such as Nodame Cantabile and Hallelujah. It also tries to show how BL (Boys’ Love) homoerotics and musical becoming provoke the deterritorialization of affective refrains. The rendition of BL’s vibratory “symphonic” desire helps us re-imagine a Battaillean community of lovers that restructures inner experiences and ruptures repressive norms. In this particular reading, love and intimacy, in their excessive “symphonic” movement, in the mutual deterritorialization of lovers, ironically point to the formlessness of such community and the aleatory, involuntary nature of the flow of desires.

KEYWORDS: affective transcoding, community of lovers, Deleuze, BL comics, Nodame CantabileHallelujah 

摘 要

「無聲」與「非運動性」的漫畫文本中,實質上充滿了 擬聲字、情感圖示、與並列式蒙太奇(有別於電影中存有時 間差的連動蒙太奇)之類的聲像轉碼。此一獨特的媒介現象, 並非只是視覺或文字符碼「代替」填補聲音與運動之不在場 的一種轉喻(metonymy),根本上實為根莖式共時情感之拉 扯爆發的運作。我們應當將漫畫中的超視覺圖構 (supra-visual mapping)視為共感官間連動的非線性褶皺, 而漫畫中的腐女想像縫合,則進一步像音樂運動中的間奏一 般,將慾望與身體摺疊於持續生長且不斷溢出疆界的中介地 帶。「交響」(συμφωνία, “symphony”)的原意,指涉不同器 樂聲部間對位的一種混交行進中的和諧,以及聲音與感官間 的「異質共生/聲」的調律。本文將探究的重點在於,《交響 情人夢》與《樂壇爭霸》這類以音樂為主要題材的漫畫當中, 感官交雜的、多義符號的互相牽動,如何體現某種德勒茲式 的情感轉碼(affective transcoding)與變形,以及 BL(Boys’ Love)同性慾投射與音樂流動如何促成情感疊韻的再疆域化。 交響的腐人之夢提供了重新想像內在經驗、不斷衝撞規範禁 忌的巴塔耶式戀人共同體(community of lovers)的可能性。 「愛」與親密,不管是在「交響」或情慾的運動上,在戀人 的互解疆域之間,都反諷地指向共同體的「形式散失」 (formlessness),以及臣服欲望流動在指向與對象上的隨機不定。

關鍵詞:情感轉碼、戀人共同體、德勒茲、BL 漫畫、《交響 情人夢》、《樂壇爭霸》