Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl by Tiqqun

Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl by Tiqqun

A theoretical dissection of capitalism's ultimate form of merchandise: the living spectacle of the Young-Girl.

The Young-Girl is not always young; more and more frequently, she is not even female. She is the figure of total integration in a disintegrating social totality.
--from Theory of the Young-Girl

First published in France in 1999, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl dissects the impossibility of love under Empire. The Young-Girl is consumer society's total product and model citizen: whatever "type" of Young-Girl she may embody, whether by whim or concerted performance, she can only seduce by consuming. Filled with the language of French women's magazines, rooted in Proust's figure of Albertine and the amusing misery of (teenage) romance in Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, and informed by Pierre Klossowski's notion of "living currency" and libidinal economy, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl diagnoses--and makes visible--a phenomenon that is so ubiquitous as to have become transparent.

In the years since the book's first publication in French, the worlds of fashion, shopping, seduction plans, makeover projects, and eating disorders have moved beyond the comparatively tame domain of paper magazines into the perpetual accessibility of Internet culture. Here the Young-Girl can seek her own reflection in corporate universals and social media exchanges of "personalities" within the impersonal realm of the marketplace. Tracing consumer society's colonization of youth and sexuality through the Young-Girl's "freedom" (in magazine terms) to do whatever she wants with her body, Tiqqun exposes the rapaciously competitive and psychically ruinous landscape of modern love.

Tiqqun is a French collective of authors and activists formed in 1999. The group published two journal volumes in 1999 and 2001 (in which the collective author The Invisible Committee first appeared) as well as the books Introduction to Civil War, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, and This Is Not a Program (all published by Semiotext(e)).

Alexander R. Galloway is Assistant Professor of Media Ecology at New York University.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781584351085
ISBN 10	158435108X
Title	Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl
Author	Tiqqun
Series	Preliminary Materials For A Theory Of The Young-Girl
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Autonomedia
Year published	2012-06-22
Number of pages	144
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.