Showing papers in "Thesis Eleven in 2005"
TL;DR: The concept of liquid modernity proposed by Zygmunt Bauman suggests a rapidly changing order that undermines all notions of durability as mentioned in this paper and implies a sense of rootlessness to all forms of social construction.
Abstract: The concept of liquid modernity proposed by Zygmunt Bauman suggests a rapidly changing order that undermines all notions of durability. It implies a sense of rootlessness to all forms of social construction. In the field of development, such a concept challenges the meaning of modernization as an effort to establish long lasting structures. By applying this concept to development, it is possible to address the nuances of social change in terms of the interplay between the solid and liquid aspects of modernization.
67 citations
TL;DR: Theories of social capital are popular because they claim to insulate society against both the coercion of states and the individualism of markets, as well as to better explain social prosperity and economic performance.
Abstract: Theories of social capital are popular because they claim to insulate society against both the coercion of states and the individualism of markets, as well as to better explain social prosperity and economic performance. But in fact laws, citizenship rights, compulsory associations and political institutions do a much better job of the former, while large-scale civic movements, like Poland’s Solidarity, with demonstrable impacts on the configuration of political power, are the historic keys to democratic prosperity and social confidence.
43 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that one cannot understand modernity from the viewpoint of the technological imagination (the Heideggerian Gestell) alone, and that the role of the historical imagination is different in terms of force and magnitude but also in kind.
Abstract: This article distinguishes between two constituents of modernity which together stand for the essence of modernity. It also distinguishes between three logics or tendencies in modernity. In pursuit of these aims it concentrates on a single issue, arguing that one cannot understand modernity, particularly not its heterogeneous character, from the viewpoint of the technological imagination (the Heideggerian Gestell) alone. The article interprets modernity as a world that draws on two sources of imagination: the technological and the historical. Most of this article is devoted to discussing these two kinds of imagination, their conflicts, balances, and imbalances within each of the three logics of modernity. The article demonstrates that the balance between the two kinds of imagination is different in each of the three logics, and that the role of the historical imagination is different not only in terms of force and magnitude but also in kind.
25 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the approaches of Castoriadis and Touraine can inform a theoretical understanding of the history and current resonance of this public sphere of performance and highlight the role of fantasy, images, individualism, and other non-rational factors in late modern public life.
Abstract: Neither Habermas nor his communitarian and poststructuralist critics sufficiently explore the non-linguistic, playful, and performative dimensions of contemporary public spheres. I argue that the approaches of Castoriadis and Touraine can inform a theoretical understanding of the history and current resonance of this public sphere of performance. Their concepts of the social imaginary, the autonomous society, and subjectivation highlight the role of fantasy, images, individualism, and other non-rational factors in late modern public life.
19 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider Castoriadis' central concept of creation ex nihilo from a theoretical perspective and suggest that the historical inauguration of the project of autonomy in ancient Greece - in both its political and philosophical aspects - was more complex and contextually anchored than Castoradis acknowledges: it did not surge forth out of nothing.
Abstract: This article critically considers Castoriadis’ central concept of creation ex nihilo. It does so in two ways. It first draws on recent research to suggest that the historical inauguration of the project of autonomy in ancient Greece - in both its political and philosophical aspects - was more complex and contextually anchored than Castoriadis acknowledges: it did not surge forth out of nothing. Second, it considers the idea of creation from a theoretical perspective. Here the idea of creation as contextual rather than absolute is offered. Within this suggested qualification, two lines of discussion - drawn from the hermeneutical and phenomenological traditions - are broached.
19 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the normative self-understanding of the emerging polity of European modernity is analyzed in terms that address the normative coherence of the polity and its history.
Abstract: European integration needs to be analyzed in terms that address the normative self-understanding of the emerging polity or, in other words, the self-understanding of European modernity. While it is...
14 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that industrial capitalism, as conceptualized by a series of authors from Smith and Marx to Weber and Sombart, and then to Galbraith and Chandler, is outdated.
Abstract: The hypothesis of this article is that industrial capitalism, as conceptualized by a series of authors from Smith and Marx to Weber and Sombart, and then to Galbraith and Chandler, is outdated. We are entering a new era of information or ‘post-industrial capitalism’. The term used in the article is post-industrial capitalism. This is mainly because the notion of information capitalism does not define explicitly what is really new regarding the history of capitalism. Information capitalism can be either post-Fordist, or post-industrial, or even a transition period towards a post-capitalist society. The argument of the article is developed in two parts. The first offers a systematic comparison between the basic features of industrial and post-industrial capitalism. The second explores three main contradictions of post-industrial capitalism. The general idea behind this exploration is that the future of post-industrial capitalism remains open. It depends on how the contradictions of this new form of capitali...
14 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that Australia is an unhappy country because its modernity is caught between at least two different types of modernity, i.e., "the Australian modernity in Australia or in the Antipodes".
Abstract: What is the nature of modernity in Australia, or in the Antipodes? This article presents the view that Australia is an unhappy country because its modernity is caught between at least two different...
12 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors tried to show the universality of Bauman's concept of modernity and ambivalence, and tried to explain the new feeling of insecurity and fear after the end of World War II.
Abstract: This contribution attempts to show the ‘universality’ of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘modernity and ambivalence’. First it tries to explain the new feeling of insecurity and fear after the end of t...
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that despite the undeniable radicality of Slavoj Žižek's theoretical approach, his politics offers little in the way of inspiration for the progressive left, and suggest that a genuinely transformative politics should stress the necessity for the prefiguration of alternatives, of linking and radicalizing "petty" resistances, of encouraging critical and utopian forms of thought an...
Abstract: The work of Slavoj Žižek has become an essential reference point for debates concerning the future of left radical thought and practice. His attacks on identity politics, multiculturalism and ‘radical democracy’ have established him as a leading figure amongst those looking to renew the link between socialist discourse and a transformative politics. However, we contend that despite the undeniable radicality of Žižek’s theoretical approach, his politics offers little in the way of inspiration for the progressive left. On the contrary, his commitment to Lacanian categories reasserts the primordial character of alienation, hierarchy and domination, and his proposed schema for confronting the status quo, the model of the Act, serves to reaffirm rather than contest the given. We suggest that a genuinely transformative politics should (contra Žižek) stress the necessity for the prefiguration of alternatives, of linking and radicalizing ‘petty’ resistances, of encouraging critical and utopian forms of thought an...
11 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the discourse of popular sovereignty and the modern principles of representative government entail one another, and present a reinterpretation of political representation and of the idea of popular sovereign in order to show how they can be made compatible.
Abstract: This article discusses the work of Cornelius Castoriadis, an important political thinker and theorist of democracy. Castoriadis developed not one but two theories of democracy based on two distinct understandings of autonomy. The first is compatible with the key features of representative government; the second is not. Unfortunately, Castoriadis models his interpretation of the idea of popular sovereignty on the second view, thereby concluding, like Rousseau before him, that it is incompatible with representative government. This article discusses both approaches and presents a reinterpretation of political representation and of the idea of popular sovereignty in order to show how they can be made compatible. I argue that the discourse of popular sovereignty and the modern principles of representative government entail one another.
TL;DR: Gauchet as mentioned in this paper argues that the unformed psyche enters the world with a primordial openness to being formed and transformed, and that psychic tension does not arise from the immersion of the closed monad in a hostile world, but from within the psyche itself, for the psyche must form itself and be formed by the world.
Abstract: Castoriadis portrays the psyche in its originary state as a ‘psychic monad’ - an infantile psyche that experiences itself as omnipotent, omnipresent, undifferentiated and sufficient unto itself. According to Castoriadis, this totality is fragmented in a ‘triadic phase’ through the experience of desire, which brings to the fore the encounter with the Other. In contrast, Marcel Gauchet rejects the concept of the psychic monad, arguing that the unformed psyche enters the world with a primordial openness to being formed and transformed. Psychic tension does not arise from the immersion of the closed monad in a hostile world, but from within the psyche itself, for the psyche must form itself and be formed by the world. Gauchet’s understanding of an inherent psychic tension provides an important corrective to Castoriadis’s theory of the monad that nevertheless remains consistent with Castoriadis’s anthropology.
TL;DR: This paper argued for the utility of using the connections between Australia and New Zealand as a means of exploring aspects of settler state and national relations within a local, meso-regional and global perspective.
Abstract: This article, drawing on Peter Beilharz’s account of Bernard Smith’s conception of the Antipodes, argues for the utility of using the connections between Australia and New Zealand as a means of exploring aspects of settler state and national relations within a local, meso-regional and global perspective. The historical development of British imperial and settler state citizenship provides the setting for demonstrating how an Antipodean viewpoint could be pursued. Emphasis is placed on the creation and reproduction of aboriginal and immigrant minorities, the establishment of strategic cross-Tasman regional relations, and shifts in the reconstruction of majority ethnic and national imaginings.
TL;DR: The Second Annual Thesis Eleven Centre Lecture in 2003 as discussed by the authors discussed the practice of writing art history in, and about, Australia and Europe, and argued that art history can be traced back to the early 20th century.
Abstract: In this article, presented as the Second Annual Thesis Eleven Centre Lecture in 2003, Bernard Smith discusses the practice of writing art history in, and about, Australia and Europe. Smith defends ...
TL;DR: In this paper, a post-print of an article published in Thesis Eleven 2005, 82(1), 62-72, is presented, along with a summary of the paper.
Abstract: This paper is a post-print of an article published in Thesis Eleven 2005, 82(1), 62-72. The definitive version is available at http://the.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/82/1/62
TL;DR: In the 1970s Australian New Left theorists used the Technocratic Labor thesis to criticize the ALP as mentioned in this paper, arguing that middle-class university educated people were taking over the ALP and moving it to the right.
Abstract: In the 1970s Australian New Left theorists used the Technocratic Labor thesis to criticize the ALP. This held that middle-class university educated people were taking over the ALP and moving it to the right. Thirty years later there appears to be much substance to their argument. The ALP has increasingly been led by middle-class people and has moved to the right. It has also narrowed the recruiting base for its national parliamentarians, most of who are now groomed within the party and its affiliates rather than being drawn from the wider community. Nonetheless, the political utility of the argument may be questioned since most of the Australian workforce is now in the services sector and many are also middle class and university educated.
TL;DR: In this article, the hermeneutical dimension inherent to Castoriadis's work is exposed, and the authors explore some of the problems which his work opens up, such as the relationship between the stratification of Being and its exploration, the nature of ensemblization and the ensidic dimension of Being, and their importance in the human and particularly the social-historical realm.
Abstract: Despite Castoriadis’s animosity towards the idea that his work has anything to do with hermeneutics, it does. In this article I endeavor to expose the hermeneutical dimension inherent to Castoriadis’s work and to explore some of the hermeneutical problems which his work opens up. This leads me into discussions of such matters as the relationship between the stratification of Being and its exploration, the nature of ensemblization and the ensidic dimension of Being, and the nature and significance of determination in the human and particularly the social-historical realm.
TL;DR: This paper unpacked the meaning of Smith's claim that "it is the business of the art historian to reveal tendencies" and argued that Smith was practising a type of genealogy rather than teleology, something more Darwinian than metaphysical, philosophical or ideological.
Abstract: Tracing the relationship between Marxism and Darwinism in Bernard Smith’s writing, the article unpacks the meaning of Smith’s claim that ‘it is the business of the art historian to reveal tendencies’. While Smith tended towards Marxism his writing is not about Marxist tendencies in art. Smith was practising a type of genealogy rather than teleology, something, that is, more Darwinian than metaphysical, philosophical or ideological. I argue that Smith’s claim is more than methodological: it also shaped the content of his historiography and particularly his interpretation of Australian art.
TL;DR: Smith's Place, Taste and Tradition: A Study of Australian Art since 1788, first published in 1945, would likely emerge as an Ur-text of the genre as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In a systematic investigation of national art histories, Bernard Smith’s Place, Taste and Tradition: A Study of Australian Art since 1788, first published in 1945, would likely emerge as an Ur-text of the genre. The book’s rewriting of Australian art history within a Marxist tradition of ‘culturalist’ criticism was a major advance on the available models. Its success stems in no small part from its judicious and balanced account of how social forces intersect. The book privileges economic production as a primary force, as does any Marxian text deserving of the name, but no more than it privileges cultural production and reception as primary forces.
TL;DR: The European Vision and the South Pacific, first published in 1960, is the most acclaimed of all Bernard Smith's many texts on art history and cultural theory as discussed by the authors, and has been widely cited as one of the most influential texts in art history.
Abstract: European Vision and the South Pacific, first published in 1960, is the most acclaimed of all Bernard Smith’s many texts on art history and cultural theory. In conjunction with its 1992 companion-pi...
TL;DR: The authors investigates the possibility and potential of a critical theory of nature and technology, and asks what criteria offer themselves for determining what would be reasonable in our relations both to nature that we ourselves are, the body, as well as to the nature that our ourselves are not.
Abstract: This article investigates the possibility and potential of a critical theory of nature and technology. A blind acceptance of the uninhibited development of the forces of production led traditional critical theory to neglect these areas, which it assigned to the domain of the natural sciences. The recognition that nature is socially constituted compels a reformulation of the interest in reasonable conditions that guided the older critical theory. The article asks what criteria offer themselves for determining what would be reasonable in our relations both to the nature that we ourselves are, the body, as well as to the nature that we ourselves are not. Such questions might revitalize critical theory in the very moment it threatens to become historically obsolete.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss aesthetic counter-politics in the early 20th century through an examination of the idea of tragedy in culture and metaphysics, and present a set of examples.
Abstract: This article discusses aesthetic counter-politics in the early 20th century through an examination of the idea of tragedy in culture and metaphysics.
TL;DR: In this article, a post-print of an article published in Thesis Eleven 82(1) 20053:38-53 was published, and the definitive version is available at http://the.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/82/1/38
Abstract: This paper is a post-print of an article published in Thesis Eleven 82(1) 20053:38-53. The definitive version is available at http://the.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/82/1/38