Showing papers in "Thesis Eleven in 2013"
TL;DR: Gramsci's concept of hegemony has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including a theory of consent, of political unity, of anti-politics, and of geopolitical competition as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Gramsci’s concept of hegemony has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including a theory of consent, of political unity, of ‘anti-politics’, and of geopolitical competition. These interpretations are united in regarding hegemony as a general theory of political power and domination, and as deriving from a particular interpretation of the concept of passive revolution. Building upon the recent intense season of philological research on the Prison Notebooks, this article argues that the concept of hegemony is better understood as a ‘dialectical chain’ composed of four integrally related ‘moments’: hegemony as social and political leadership, as a political project, as a hegemonic apparatus, and as the social and political hegemony of the workers’ movement. This alternative typology of hegemony provides both a sophisticated analysis of the emergence of modern state power and a theory of political organization of the subaltern social groups. This project is encapsulated in Gramsci’s notion of the form...
63 citations
TL;DR: While working on an auto-ethnographic account of my deafness and concurrently offering a seminar on the philosophical dimensions of Pierre Bourdieu's work, this article was struck by how permeated my ethnogra...
Abstract: While working on an auto-ethnographic account of my deafness and concurrently offering a seminar on the philosophical dimensions of Pierre Bourdieu’s work, I was struck by how permeated my ethnogra...
43 citations
TL;DR: The paradoxical age in which our attempts to relate to each other are thwarted by the threat of being rel... as mentioned in this paper argues that liquid modernity is an age of both chances and dangers.
Abstract: Zygmunt Bauman tells us that liquid modernity is an age of both chances and dangers. It is a paradoxical age in which our attempts ‘to relate’ to each other are thwarted by the threat of ‘being rel...
28 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the changes promoted in European universities by the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) through an analysis of the main policy documents and mechanisms.
Abstract: This essay discusses the changes promoted in European universities by the ‘Bologna Process’ and the ‘European Higher Education Area’. Through an analysis of the main policy documents and mechanisms...
24 citations
TL;DR: In Purity and Danger, Douglas theorizes purity and impurity in terms of the instantiation and disruption of a shared symbolic order as discussed by the authors, and suggests that purity/impurity discourses act, according to Purity-and-Danger,...
Abstract: In Purity and Danger, Douglas theorizes purity and impurity in terms of the instantiation and disruption of a shared symbolic order. Purity/impurity discourses act, according to Purity and Danger, ...
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the tensions between the struggle for gender equality and cultural rights in the particular form championed by traditionalists within the ANC after 1994, and propose a solution to the conflict.
Abstract: This article addresses the tensions between the struggle for gender equality and the struggle for cultural rights in the particular form championed by traditionalists within the ANC after 1994. Whi...
15 citations
TL;DR: In South Africa, popular protest is occurring on a remarkable scale in South Africa as mentioned in this paper, and there is a significant degree to which it tends to be organized and articulated through the local.
Abstract: Popular protest is occurring on a remarkable scale in South Africa. Nonetheless, there is a significant degree to which it tends to be organized and articulated through the local. This contribution...
15 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine changing modalities of citizenship in a fast-moving, informationalized and connected world, and examine the interplay of space and time in contemporary citizenship, understood here in terms of civic and political engagement, identity and belonging.
Abstract: This article examines changing modalities of citizenship in a fast-moving, informationalized and connected world. The argument here is that, in an increasingly globalized economic, social and cultural environment, forms and practices of citizenship inevitably – and increasingly – fragment across space and time. While this tendency for citizenship to ‘shape-shift’ politically and socially is not new – and indeed while the spatial fragmentation of belonging has been frequently commented upon, particularly in relation to the claimed decline of the bordered nation-state – the dimension of time in relationship to citizenship has been rather less well explored. By examining the interplay of space and time in contemporary citizenship, understood here in terms of civic and political engagement, identity and belonging, it becomes possible to understand how citizenship practices operate differentially according to degrees of spatial embeddedness, on the one hand, and degrees of temporal ‘thickness’, on the other.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a genealogical, inter-subjective account of how the determination of needs and interests forms the basis of ascertaining, on a continuum, the extent to which relations of power generate states of domination is presented.
Abstract: I elicit some of Foucault’s insights to provide a more realistic picture than is the norm in social and political theory of how best to identify and overcome domination. Foucault’s vision is realized best, I argue, by combining his account with two related conceptions of domination based on human needs and realistic accounts of politics that focus on agency, power and interests. I defend a genealogical, inter-subjective account of how the determination of needs and interests forms the basis of ascertaining, on a continuum, the extent to which relations of power generate states of domination. To that end I propose institutional changes that would empower citizens in positive and negative ways: power over legislation in district assemblies and via veto and repeal; real control over representatives through various means; and decennial constitutional plebiscites.
14 citations
TL;DR: One of the most striking features of the South African polity, as the 20th anniversary of democratization draws closer, is the intensity of public arguments about race that show no signs of abating as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: One of the most striking features of the South African polity, as the 20th anniversary of democratization draws closer, is the intensity of public arguments about race that show no signs of abating...
13 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the emergent social phenomena need to be understood in relation to, but not reduced to, their biological and psychological substrates, and explore a number of terminological and conceptual parallels that may inform our understanding of the relation of social theory to these and other disciplines.
Abstract: This article argues that Durkheim’s founding insight – uniquely social phenomena – presents us with both a foundation for the discipline of sociology and the risk that the discipline will become isolated. This, we argue, has happened. Our contention is that the emergent social phenomena need to be understood in relation to, but not reduced to, their biological and psychological substrates. Similarly, there are a number of other characteristics, notably of self-organization, which are distinguishing properties of social phenomena but also of quite different phenomena. The comparison is instructive. We therefore argue for an ecological approach to sociological theory, which has important relationships to the general theories and philosophy of ecology and biology. We explore a number of terminological and conceptual parallels that may inform our understanding of the relation of social theory to these and other disciplines.
TL;DR: The authors explore Ranciere's "politics of equals" as an alternative conception of the political and propose a division between instances of political contestation that add to the political process, which they call the politics of equals.
Abstract: In this essay we explore Ranciere’s ‘politics of equals’ as an alternative conception of the political. Central to this conception is a division between instances of political contestation that add...
TL;DR: Time has been central to Zygmunt Bauman's theory of modernity and his subsequent account of its solid and liquid variants as mentioned in this paper, and the experience of time in these accounts announces the coming of new opp...
Abstract: ‘Time’ has been central to Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of modernity and his subsequent account of its solid and liquid variants. The experience of time in these accounts announces the coming of new opp...
TL;DR: In this paper, the specific relations of belonging within the biopolitical paradigms of four key works (Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Girard's Violence and the Sacred, Agamben's Homo Sacer, and Esposito's Bios) are examined.
Abstract: Relations of belonging are at the heart of biopolitical analysis. They determine, at the biological level, who is included in the polis and who is excluded from it. More abstractly, belonging is the conceptual mechanism of classification. By examining the specific relations of belonging within the biopolitical paradigms of four key works – Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Girard’s Violence and the Sacred, Agamben’s Homo Sacer, and Esposito’s Bios – this article will highlight the dynamic of classification at the heart of each. Doing so will make the question of belonging explicit and render the dialectic of inclusion/exclusion visible. More than simply emphasizing the centrality of belonging to biopolitical analysis, this article will demonstrate that any politic over life must ignore and deny an originary politic of life. Returning biopolitics to the question of belonging thus entails the affirmation of relation and the positive association of life itself.
TL;DR: The authors take as its starting point the fact that Bourdieu's views on sociology as a science have not been sufficiently and adequately understood and discussed and trace the links between his c...
Abstract: This paper takes as its starting point the fact that Bourdieu’s views on sociology as a science have not been sufficiently and adequately understood and discussed. It traces the links between his c...
TL;DR: In his Sociology, Rosenstock-Huessy had argued that the translatio imperii was an important, but forgotten, Medieval Christian formulation which grasped that with the Church the aspiration of empire had entered onto a new historical path; the extinction that is the fate of all earthly empires need not be repeated if the powers of human endeavour are incorporated within a spiritual body (Augustine's "heavenly city" for whom "love is stronger than death".
Abstract: In his Sociology, Rosenstock-Huessy had argued that the translatio imperii was an important, but forgotten, Medieval Christian formulation which grasped that with the Church the aspiration of empire had entered onto a new historical path; the extinction that is the fate of all earthly empires need not be repeated if the powers of human endeavour are incorporated within a spiritual body (Augustine’s ‘heavenly city’) for whom ‘love is stronger than death’. This radical faith in the future has been retained in, and is indeed intrinsic to, the secular Western revolutionary consciousness. This faith also provides the discipline of History with an eschatological mission far beyond merely chronicling of the past. History inevitably shares the same theological and philosophical roots not only of Europe but the entire world. For the ‘world’ we now inhabit is what it is because of the outgrowths of revolutions and world wars that were initiated in Europe.
TL;DR: Bell's The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism lies at the intersection of the three main theoretical currents of sociological thought, those of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Daniel Bell’s The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism lies at the intersection of the three main theoretical currents of sociological thought, those of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Hi...
TL;DR: The authors examines the critical potential of Honneth's theory or ethics of recognition by raising two concerns as regards the success of such a project, and argues that it may not be worth the effort.
Abstract: This article examines the critical potential of Honneth’s theory or ethics of recognition by raising two concerns as regards the success of such a project. Firstly, this article argues that Honneth...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors embark upon a journey of exploration and discovery of the relationship between time and technology in liquid modernity, and are concerned with the divide between the online and offline segments of the world we currently inhabit, and what this might mean for life, love and happiness.
Abstract: The four studies in this issue embark upon a journey of exploration and discovery of the relationship between time and technology in liquid modernity. This introduction seeks to help that journey and is concerned with the divide between the online and offline segments of the world we currently inhabit, and what this might mean for life, love and happiness.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss attempts to think historicity in the work of the theologian Rudolf Bultmann and the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg and draw on the works of the Jesuit theologian Robert Doran in order to suggest how an historical pragmatics without historicism might be relevant to a future theology with social import.
Abstract: This paper discusses attempts to think historicity in the work of the theologian Rudolf Bultmann and the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg. It then draws on the work of the Jesuit theologian Robert Doran in order to suggest how an historical pragmatics without historicism might be relevant to a future theology with social import.
TL;DR: The political writings of three Polish Marxists from the early 20th century, Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, Stanislaw Brzozowski and Rosa Luxemburg, are analyzed in this paper.
Abstract: This article appraises the political writings of three Polish Marxists from the early 20th century, Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, Stanislaw Brzozowski and Rosa Luxemburg. In the specific peripheral conditions and because of the entanglement of different struggles in the Polish Kingdom under Tsarist rule around the 1905 Revolution, it was no longer possible for Marxists and political theorists to refer to any firm political ground: whether the organic unity of the nation, class antagonisms, or laws of history. The construction of revolutionary subjects in Luxemburg, the political rethinking of national community and the realistic ‘agonistic’ conception of democracy in Kelles-Krauz, and Brzozowski’s anti-essentialist Marxism, with its mobilizing power and politically constructed subjects of social change, are peculiar, peripheral forms of political Marxism, today worth looking at one more time.
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TL;DR: Explaining the seizure of power by the National Socialist Party and the totalitarian workings of the Nazi regime in the Third Reich is still difficult not only with respect to the atrocities commit by the Nazis, but also with respect the atrocities committed by their collaborators as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Explaining the seizure of power by the National Socialist Party and the totalitarian workings of the Nazi regime in the Third Reich is still difficult not only with respect to the atrocities commit...
TL;DR: The authors analyzes the lectures and texts from the last period of Czech philosopher Jan Patocka, one of the last disciples of Edmund Husserl, the founding father of phenomenology.
Abstract: This article analyzes the lectures and texts from the last period of Czech philosopher Jan Patocka, one of the last disciples of Edmund Husserl, the founding father of phenomenology. The point of departure is Patocka’s critical reception of Husserl’s concept of the crisis of European mankind. There are, however, two other elements distinctive of Patocka’s thought essential for this interpretation. First, he was a classical philosopher aiming at Socratic ‘care for the soul’. Second, he approached the theme of universal human history from his own unique historic position: as a Czech philosopher, involved in the Socratic manner primarily with his own Czech national community, for whom the big question of the future of European mankind and its legacy at the end of its golden modern age is inseparably connected with a ‘small’ one: the question of Czech national existence – the question of the future of his nation in a changing world and the issue of its freedom.
TL;DR: A way of understanding the impact of the internet and digital culture on identity and social forms is suggested through a consideration of the relationship between controls exercised through the internet, new subjectivities constituted through its use and new labour practices enabled by it.
Abstract: Drawing on critical analyses of the internet inspired by Gilles Deleuze and the Marxist autonomia movement, this paper suggests a way of understanding the impact of the internet and digital culture...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the result of this current revolution of the intimate sphere is mixed, and that there is still love, and in ways that enable it to be expressed beyond traditional forms.
Abstract: Current changes in the intimate sphere are denoted by an expansion of emotional vocabularies, of freedom in sex and sexual preference, and the extension of sexual life with neither inhibition, nor obligation, nor marriage for both women and men. This reading of the works of Jean-Claude Kaufmann and Niklas Luhmann suggests that the result of this current revolution of the intimate sphere is mixed. A new differentiated form of the intimate sphere has developed with an internal distinction between sex qua leisure and committed love-relationality. Although sex qua leisure is mediated by the new communications technology, this technological mediation is not what is important here. Rather, the actions are configured and mediated by the neo-liberal paradigm by all participants. Leisure-sex is simply a game that combines autonomy, leisure, power and rational choice – a combination that is open to men and women alike. But there is still love, and in ways that enable it to be expressed beyond traditional forms. Fro...
TL;DR: The authors analyzes psychoanalytic explanations from an interpretive perspective, building upon Jessica Benjamin's psychoanallytic feminism, to contest the tactics of immanent criticism and to revitalize the project of a less dystopic collective psychology.
Abstract: This article demonstrates how Adorno and Horkheimer’s turn to psychoanalytic concepts like sublimation and intra-psychic conflict strengthened critical theory. The piecemeal collective psychology they produced was used to understand fascism and anti-Semitism. But the full significance of these psychoanalytic explanations was concealed by Adorno, who elsewhere denied the possibility of psychology proper after the death of the individual. Adorno and Horkheimer’s underhanded borrowing from psychoanalysis for social analysis had the effect of filtering collective psychology through the lens of regression. To amend this, the article analyzes psychoanalytic explanations from an interpretive perspective, building upon Jessica Benjamin’s psychoanalytic feminism, to contest the tactics of immanent criticism and to revitalize the project of a less dystopic collective psychology.
TL;DR: The authors provides a critical analysis of Marxist literature on South Africa since the 1970s, drawing out its relevance for contemporary analyses of the post-apartheid state and for radical politics today.
Abstract: Marxism was central to the understanding of South Africa’s struggle for freedom. This article provides a critical analysis of Marxist literature on South Africa since the 1970s, drawing out its relevance for contemporary analyses of the post-apartheid state and for radical politics today. It suggests that while the literature offered important insights into the character of the apartheid state, it failed to provide a critical appraisal of the state per se. Moreover, the capturing of state power by the liberation movement was not grounded in an understanding of the oppressive character of the state-form. The undermining of mainstream Marxism under neo-liberalizing conditions in post-apartheid South Africa has opened up the prospects for anti-statist radical libertarian thinking (including autonomist Marxism), and this thinking is consistent with the practices of certain autonomist popular politics currently emerging. Social theorizing on South Africa has had a complex relationship with Marxism. This articl...
TL;DR: Bernard Smith (1916-2011) was a giant on the Australian intellectual scene, and a major analyst of and contributor to the processes of cultural traffic between the antipodes and the centres of the...
Abstract: Bernard Smith (1916–2011) was a giant on the Australian intellectual scene, and a major analyst of and contributor to the processes of cultural traffic between the antipodes and the centres of the ...