The continuity and contiguity between animal and human beings in Beckett's work has been the subject of sustained critical attention. The recurring dehumanisation or degeneration of his characters' mental faculties and behaviours has largely been analysed as an 'ostensible animalization' of human nature - following a reading of the 'creaturely' spectrum as a regression from the human to the animal. In contrast, this article considers the creaturely level in Beckett's narrative as occupied by undeveloped human cognisers as opposed to (and sometimes rancorously opposing) fully fledged Humans. If Beckett's formal minimalism has been extensively foregrounded, this essay draws on contemporary cognitive science and phenomenology in order to define and examine what the author calls Beckett's cognitive liminalism - his literary exploration of liminal states of cognition and experience, of which the concept of the 'creature' constitutes a foundational element.
Scientists at the University of Houston have shattered a long-standing superconductivity record, creating a material that can conduct electricity with zero resistance at the highest temperature ever achieved under normal pressure conditions。 Their breakthrough pushes superconductivity to 151 Kelvin (minus 122°C), beating a record that stood for mor
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