Abstract
Jane Bennett’s neo-vitalism and Lynch’s strange materialism pose a problem for philosophy, namely what is to be done with the human subject? This chapter examines Twin Peaks: The Return for the purpose of locating and explicating the tension between subjectivity as espoused by psychoanalytic theory and the human–nonhuman assemblages of object-oriented ontology. The visual and narrative elements of The Return offer a conflicting discourse on both the potency and impotency of subjectivity, navigating the difficult terrain between human and non-human actants and the traditional correlationist subject/object model. By analyzing The Return, it is possible to articulate an object-oriented cinema that has hitherto been unidentified in film theory. However, rather than simply appealing to the object-oriented ontology, Lynch’s universe offers insight into its theoretical shortcomings.
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Ballas, A. (2019). ‘My Log Has a Message for You,’ or, Vibrant Matter and Twin Peaks: On Thing-Power and Subjectivity. In: Sanna, A. (eds) Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04798-6_8
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