Showing papers on "Critical theory published in 2004"

Leadership for Social Justice and Equity: Weaving a Transformative Framework and Pedagogy:

Abstract: Although many agree that theory, research, and practice should be intertwined to support the type of schooling (and society) that values rather than marginalizes, few scholars offer ground-breaking, pragmatic approaches to developing truly transformative leaders. From a critical theorist perspective, this article offers a practical, process-oriented model that is responsive to the challenges of preparing educational leaders committed to social justice and equity. By weaving a tripartite theoretical framework together in support of an alternative, transformative pedagogy, students learn “to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality”. The three theoretical perspectives of Adult Learning Theory, Transformative Learning Theory, and Critical Social Theory are interwoven with the three pedagogical strategies of critical reflection, rational discourse, and policy praxis to increase awareness, acknowledgment, and action within preparatio...

Sport: A Critical Sociology

Abstract: In this lively new book, Richard Giulianotti provides a critical sociological interpretation of modern sport. As global festivals such as the Olympic games and football’s World Cup demonstrate, sport’s social, political, economic and cultural significance is becoming increasingly apparent across the world. Its popularity alone means that sociologists cannot ignore sport. Chapter-by-chapter, Giulianotti offers a cogent examination of a range of widely taught sociological theories and issues that relate to sport. These include functionalism, Weberian sociology, Marxism, postmodern sociology, and globalisation. The author’s use of an international range of case studies and research, about a wide variety of sports, helps to make his account especially accessible to undergraduate readers. ‘Sport: a critical sociology’ will therefore have strong appeal to upper-level undergraduates on courses such as sport and leisure studies, cultural studies, and modern social theory.

A critical theory route to hegemony, world order and historical change: neo-Gramscian perspectives in International Relations:

Abstract: Situated within a historical materialist problematic of social transformation that deploys many of the insights of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, a crucial break emerged, in the 1980s, in the...

Whiteness and Critical Pedagogy.

Abstract: © 2004 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK EPAT ducational Philosophy and Theory 0013-1857 © 2004 Phi osophy of Education Society of Australasia April 2004 36 21 0 riginal Article Wh ten ss and Critical Ped g gy Ricky L e Allen Whiteness and Critical Pedagogy

These Deadly Times: Reconceptualizing School Violence by Using Critical Race Theory and Disability Studies

Abstract: Most pragmatic responses to school violence seek to assign individual blame and to instill individual responsibility in students. The authors of this article argue that school violence is the result of the structural violence of oppressive social conditions that force students (especially low-income, male African American and Latino students) to feel vulnerable, angry, and resistant to the normative expectations of prison-like school environments. From the vantage point of the intersection of critical race theory and materialist disability studies, the authors examine the impact of social, political, economic, and institutional structures on the social construction of the “deviant” student. They raise questions regarding violent “normalizing” structures and argue for more empowering alternatives.

Actions Following Words: Critical race theory connects to critical pedagogy

Abstract: (2004). Actions Following Words: Critical race theory connects to critical pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 167-182.

Recognition, Redistribution and Representation in Capitalist Global Society: An Interview with Nancy Fraser

Abstract: Nancy Fraser is a Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Political Science of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, New York, USA, and is considered one of the leading theorists within the 1990s recognition theoretical turn. She works with analyses of contemporary societal developments from a normatively informed position. Her analytical framework is applicable to current, empirical studies of struggles about recognition and she relates them to classic struggles of redistribution. Her thinking is located in the intersection between feminist theory, critical theory and post-structuralism. In Justice Interruptus (1997a) Fraser identifies a shift in the grammar of political claimsmaking, where struggles for recognition are becoming the paradigmatic form of political conflict and struggles for egalitarian redistribution are declining. In her view, however, recognition and redistribution present two analytically distinct but empirically interrelated reasons for struggle in capitalist, post-Fordist societies, namely struggles about socio-economic (re)distribution, and struggles about cultural recognition such as identity politics. Based on this insight, she outlines a new dual theory of justice encompassing both redistribution and recognition in contrast to the liberal canon of, most notably, John Rawls (1971)1 and Charles Taylor (1994).2 Fraser's accomplishments include the prestigious Tanner Lectures at Stanford University and the Spinoza Lectures at the University of Amsterdam, as well as numerous books and articles, of which Unruly Practices (1989), Justice Interruptus (1997a) and Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (2003) are the most notable. This last book was written along with Axel Honneth, the successor of Jurgen Habermas at Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, and the director of the Institute for Social Research (Institut fur Sozialforschung) as the result of an ongoing debate on the concept of recognition its relation to justice, ethics and social theory. Fraser has also been involved in influential debates with several feminists concerning her theory of justice and the uses (and abuses) of post-structuralist theories (Benhabib et al., 1994; Butler 1997; Young, 1997; Fraser, 1997a, b, c). Expounding a feminist critique of critical theory and introducing the alternative concept of 'subaltern counter publics', she has discussed the male bias of the concept of the public sphere with several other representatives of critical theory, including Jiirgen Habermas (Fraser, 1997a). A lot more could be said about Fraser's work and her theoretical enquiries, but why not let her talk for herself. This interview was undertaken in May 2003 when Fraser visited the

Of the presence of the body : essays on dance and performance theory

Abstract: Of the Presence of the Body gathers nine original essays by eminent scholars in the fields of dance and performance studies. Its focus is the historical, cultural and political contexts that inform choreographic and dance practices and critical readings of dance - in other words, how dance operates as critical discourse. The question that runs throughout the essays is the theoretical and political problem of "how dances come to be seen," how the presence of the body leaves its mark on critical theories and performances. Focusing exclusively on 20th century dance, the interdisciplinary perspectives range from history to race studies, deconstruction, Marxist theory, feminist theory, literary studies and feminist ethnography. The anthology provides an overview of the current methodologies and theoretical developments in the field of dance studies. These essays expand our understanding of the performing body, and their organization around the epistemological problem in dance studies - the dynamics of seeing, remembering and writing - will make the collection useful for classes in dance criticism and theory, cultural theory, performance studies and aesthetics.

Adorno's negative dialectic : philosophy and the possibility of critical rationality

Abstract: The purely philosophical concerns of Theodor W. Adorno's negative dialectic would seem to be far removed from the concreteness of critical theory; Adorno's philosophy considers perhaps the most traditional subject of "pure" philosophy, the structure of experience, whereas critical theory examines specific aspects of society. But, as Brian O'Connor demonstrates in this highly original interpretation of Adorno's philosophy, the negative dialectic can be seen as the theoretical foundation of the reflexivity or critical rationality required by critical theory. Adorno, O'Connor argues, is committed to the "concretion" of philosophy: his thesis of nonidentity attempts to show that reality is not reducible to appearances. This lays the foundation for the applied "concrete" critique of appearances that is essential to the possibility of critical theory.To explicate the context in which Adorno's philosophy operates -- the tradition of modern German philosophy, from Kant to Heidegger -- O'Connor examines in detail the ideas of these philosophers as well as Adorno's self-defining differences with them. O'Connor discusses Georg LucA cs and the influence of his "protocritical theory" on Adorno's thought; the elements of Kant's and Hegel's German idealism appropriated by Adorno for his theory of subject-object mediation; the priority of the object and the agency of the subject in Adorno's epistemology; and Adorno's important critiques of Kant and the phenomenology of Heidegger and Husserl, critiques that both illuminate Adorno's key concepts and reveal his construction of critical theory through an engagement with the problems of philosophy.

‘MOT Your Life’: Critical Management Studies and the Management of Everyday Life

Abstract: This article attempts to reflect critically on the extent to which the discourses, techniques and imperatives associated with the management of work organizations are increasingly colonizing the everyday sphere of human communication and sense-making. Drawing on critical social theory and particularly Habermas’s account of ‘the rational organization of everyday life’, as well as what has come to be known as critical management studies (CMS), the article begins by locating itself within contemporary debates on management and everyday life. It then proceeds, drawing on recent research involving a critical analysis of post-Excellence management books, to map out the discourse commonly encountered in such texts before going on to explore the presence of a notably similar discourse appearing within contemporary cultural resources such as self-help manuals and, more notably, lifestyle magazines. It is then argued that such texts constitute a material signifier of what is an ongoing managerialist colonization of...

Interview with Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Abstract: Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology, School of Economics, University of Coimbra and Distinguished Legal Scholar, Law School, University of Wisconsin‐Madison. He is also director of...

Resisting Rationalisation in the Natural and Academic Life-world: Critical Tourism Research or Hermeneutic Charity?

Abstract: This paper encourages and challenges tourism researchers struggling in the liminal zones between traditional modernist and critical or postmodernist (non-traditional) research. Using natural area destinations and concepts from critical theory (e.g. Habermas, 1978), it is argued that paralleling the instrumental use and rationalisation of natural areas and everyday life is the rationalisation of the academic research world by (post)positivistic paradigms. These rationalisations are resisted by critical and 'postmodern' paradigms that, ironically, can also contribute to placing the life-world of natural destinations 'under erasure'. So a more diversified and reflexive research praxis is called for, particularly, (1) critical approaches to complement functionalist research orientations, (2) understanding one's own ontological and epistemological assumptions regarding the natural world, and (3) hermeneutic charity that softens the emancipatory gaze of the critical researcher. Yellowstone National Park is used...

Adorno: A Biography

Abstract: List of Figures. List of Plates. Preface. Acknowledgements. Illustration Acknowledgements. Part I. Origins: Family, Childhood and Youth: School and University in Frankfurt am Main. Family Inheritance: A Picture of Contracts. 1. Adorno's Corsican Grandfather: Jean Francois, alias Giovanni Francesco. 2. Wiesengrund: The Jewish Heritage of his Father's Romantic Name. 3. Between Oberrad and Amorbach. 4. Education Sentimentale. Part II. A Change of Scene: Between Frankfurt, Vienna and Berlin: A Profusion of Intellectual Interests. Commuting Between Philosophy and Music. 5. Against the Stream: The City of Frankfurt and its University. 6. A Man with Philosophical Qualities in the World of Viennese Music: The Danube Metropolis. 7. In Search of Career. 8. Music Criticism and Compositional Practice. 9. Towards a Theory of Aesthetics. 10. A Second Anomaly in Frankfurt: The Institute of Social Research. Part III. Emigration Years: An Itellectual in Foreign Land. A Twofold Exile: Intellectual Homelessness as Personal Fate. 11. The 'Coordination" of the National Socialist Nation and Adorno's Reluctant Emigration. 12. Between Academic and Authentic Concerns: From Philosophy Lecturer to Advanced Students in Oxford. 13. Writing Letters as an aid to Philosophical. 14. Learning by Doing: Adorno's Path to Social Research. 15. Happiness in Misfortune: Adorno's Years in California. Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional and Enduring the Conditional. The Explosive Power of Saying No. 16. Change of Scene: Surveying the Ruins. 17. Gaining Recognition for Critical Theory: Adorno's Activities in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s. 18. Eating Bread: A Theory Devoured by Thought. 19. With his Back to the Wall. Epilogue: Thinking Against Oneself. Notes. References and Bibliography. Index.

How to Conceive of Critical Educational Theory Today

Abstract: This paper starts from a brief sketch of the ‘classical’ figure of critical educational theory or science (Kritische Erziehungswissenshaft). ‘Critical educational theory’ presents itself as the privileged guardian of the critical principle of education (Bildung) and its emancipatory promise. It involves the possibility of saying ‘I’ in order to speak and think in one's own name, to be critical, self-reflective and independent, to determine dependence from the present power relations and existing social order. Actual social and educational reality and relations are approached as a limitation, threat, alienation, re/oppression or negation of ultimate human principles or potential. The task of critical educational theory becomes one of enabling an autonomous, critical, self-reflective life. While ‘critique’ and ‘autonomy’ have meanwhile become commonplace, and ‘critique’ and ‘autonomy’ are reclaimed and required from everybody, we should also consider the question of the relation between an institutional or ideological framework as that which claims to question this frame and to constitute its opposite. The trivialisation of critique is taken as occasion to recall Michel Foucault's analysis of power relations and especially his thesis according to which the ‘government of individualisation’ is the actual figure of power. Starting from the framework offered by Foucault, it can be made clear that the autonomous, critical, self-reflective life does not represent an ultimate principle but refers to a very specific form of subjectification operating as a transmission belt for power. The autonomous, critical, self-reflective person appears as an historical model of self-conduct whereby power operates precisely through the intensification of reflectiveness and critique rather than through their repression, alienation or negation. This brings us back then to the question of how to conceive of the task of a critical educational theory at a time in which critique, autonomy and self-determination have become an essential modus operandi of the existing order.

The Future of Social Theory

Abstract: The basic concept of society has come under attack - political acts, critical theory, new media and even history itself have undermined what we think of as the social. The Future of Social Theory brings together new interviews with the world's leading social theorists on what society means today: Zygmunt Bauman, John Urry, Saska Sassen, Bruno Latour, Scott Lash, Nikolas Rose, Judith Butler and Francoise Verges. The topics covered include: liquid modernization and the individualization of the society; the shift towards global forms of chaos and complexity; the displacement of the social into global city networks; the shift away from a theory of the social to a theory of space; the transformation of society with the rise of new technology; the continuing influence of historical forms of political power; society as a gendered idea; and society as a product of Empire.

The Cambridge companion to critical theory

Abstract: Introduction Fred Rush 1. Conceptual foundations of early Critical Theory Fred Rush 2. Benjamin, Adorno, and the decline of the aura Michael Rosen 3. The dialectic of enlightenment Julian Roberts 4. The marriage of Marx and Freud: Critical Theory and psychoanalysis Joel Whitebook 5. Dialectics and the revolutionary impulse Raymond Geuss 6. 'The dead speaking of stones and stars': an introduction to Adorno's Aesthetic Theory J. M. Bernstein 7. Critique, state, and economy Moishe Postone 8. The transcendental turn: Habermas's 'Kantian pragmatism' Kenneth Baynes 9. The politics of Critical Theory Simone Chambers 10. Critical Theory and the analysis of contemporary mass society Hauke Brunkhorst 11. Critical Theory and poststructuralism: Habermas and Foucault Beatrice Hanssen 12. The very idea of critical social science Stephen White 13. A social pathology of reason: on the intellectual legacy of Critical Theory Axel Honneth.

Critical Social Theory in Public Administration

Abstract: Introduction 1. Critical Imagination in a Postmodern Environment 2. Contradiction, Utopia, and Public Administration 3. The "T"ruth is Elsewhere: Critical History 4. Critical Theory and the Paradox of Discourse 5. Pragmatic Discourse and Administrative Legitimacy 6. Private Lives and Anti-Administration 7. Critical Practice and the Problem of Finding a Public

Revolutionary ecologies: Ecosocialism and critical pedagogy

Abstract: In this article, we argue that critical and revolutionary educational praxis is increasingly shaped by and through ecological politics and imaginaries. Indeed, given the pervasiveness of environmental crisis in our everyday lives and vocabularies, we argue that critical educators can no longer ignore questions of ecojustice. In keeping with a growing interdisciplinary field of green Marxist scholarship, we argue that "greening" critical pedagogy ought not diminish its radical intent or its goal of transforming oppressive social and economic conditions. Drawing on the field of political ecology, we argue for critical revolutionary pedagogy to be informed by a dialectics of ecological and environmental justice that highlights the situatedness of environmental conflict and injustice toward nonhuman nature without obscuring its historical production under capitalist value forms. In particular, we explore schooling as one site of environmental injustice before embarking on a broader discussion of how justice t...

Reading Bourdieu with Adorno: The Limits of Critical Theory and Reflexive Sociology

Abstract: Scholarly activity presupposes a certain distance from the concerns of everyday life, which has both liberating and crippling effects. Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology hopes to undo these crippling e...

Adorno, Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society

Abstract: Introduction Chapter One: Society 1. State Capitalist or Late Capitalist Society? 2. Habermas on Late Capitalist Society 3. Preliminary Remarks on Domination 4. Concluding Reflections on Habermas' Concept of the Lifeworld Chapter Two: Reification 1. Damaged Life 2. Colonized Lifeworld 3. The Problem of Mediation 4. Reification and the Global Economy Chapter Three: Reason 1. The Evolution of Reason 2. The Rational Animal 3. Nature, Reason, and History 4. The Partiality for Reason Chapter Four: Critique 1. Ideology: End or Transformation? 2. The Critical Power of Critical Theory 3. Habermas Against Himself Chapter Five: Emancipation 1. Obstacles to Emancipation 2. Adorno, and the Idea of a Rational Society 3. Habermas, and the Idea of a Rational Society 4. The Utopian Gambit Conclusion

"Gender" for a marxist dictionary: the sexual politics of a word

Abstract: In 1983, Nora Rathzel from the autonomous women’s collective of the West German independent Marxist journal, Das Argument, wrote to ask me to write a “keyword” entry for a new Marxist dictionary An editorial group from Das Argument had undertaken an ambitious project to translate the multi-volume Dictionnaire Critique du Marxism (Labica and Benussen, 1985) into German and also to prepare a separate German supplement that brought in especially the new social movements that were not treated in the French edition.1 These movements have produced a revolution in critical social theory internationally in the last twenty years. They have also produced—and been partly produced by—revolutions in political language in the same period. As Rathzel expressed it, “We, that is the women’s editorial group, are going to suggest some keywords which are missing, and we want some others rewritten because the women do not appear where they should” (personal communication, 2 December 1983). This gentle understatement identified a major arena of feminist struggle—the canonization of language, politics, and historical narratives in publishing practices, including standard reference works.

Breaking the cult of rationality: Mindful awareness of emotion in the critical theory classroom

Abstract: Emotions play a more significant part in the process of critique than many acknowledge, and we must take them into account when thinking about adult education practices.

A social pathology of reason

Abstract: With the turn of the new century, Critical Theory appears to have become an intellectual artifact. This superficial dividing point alone seems to increase the intellectual gap separating us from the theoretical beginnings of the Frankfurt School. Just as the names of authors who were for its founders vividly present suddenly sound from afar, so too the theoretical challenges from which the members of the school had won their insights threaten to fall into oblivion. Today a younger generation carries on the work of social criticism without having much more than a nostalgic memory of the heroic years of western Marxism. Indeed, already over thirty years have passed since the writings of Marcuse and Horkheimer were last read as contemporary works. There is an atmosphere of the outdated and antiquated, of the irretrievably lost, that surrounds the grand historical-philosophical ideas of Critical Theory, ideas for which there no longer seems to be any kind of resonance within the experience of the accelerating present. The deep chasm that separates us from our predecessors must be comparable to that which separated the first generation of the telephone and movie theatre from the last representatives of German idealism. The same vexed astonishment with which a Benjamin or a Kracauer may have observed a photo of the late Schelling must today come over a young student who, on her computer, stumbles across a photo of the young Horkheimer posing in a bourgeois Wilhelmian interior.

'We're the mob you should be listening to': aboriginal elders talk about community school relationships on Mornington Island

Abstract: The thesis explores the relationships the Elders of Mornington Island, a 'closed', geographically-remote Aboriginal community, perceive as prevailing between the school and the community, and the relationships that they believe should exist between the community and the local school and its teachers. The Elders, or Lawmen, a body of Aboriginal senior men, see themselves as the repositories and teachers of tribal Aboriginal Law that has been handed down from their Creation Ancestors for thousands of years and is still being handed down. The thesis documents and explores their accounts of the relationships they have had with non-Aboriginal people in the past and, in particular, the relationships they prefer to have with the teachers and school respectively. This thesis does not explore the perspectives or cultural narratives of the schoolteachers or administrators. The thesis draws on critical theory, seeing both the wider society and the local society of Mornington Island as dynamic structures in which some sectors of society, in this case Aboriginal people, are oppressed, with dire consequences in many aspects of their individual and collective lives. It also draws on critical theory in adopting an ethical position of solidarity with, and compassion for, those whose lives are thus impaired. It shares with the Elders this sense that Aboriginal people have been, and continue to be oppressed, and explores individual and institutional dimensions of race relations, manifested in ideology, physical coercion, personal attitude and interpersonal relations. The main body of data comprises an extended series of open-ended conversational interviews with twenty-five Lawmen and eleven other senior Mornington Islanders. Initially conversations were tape-recorded, but at the request of participants, this practice was abandoned in favour of handwritten notes of interviews. All records of interviews were returned to the respective contributors (and read to them, where appropriate or necessary) for approval or amendment. In practice, these readings became the stimulus and occasion for further conversations. The thesis treats the material thus provided as reflecting and constructing a particular knowledge and understanding of the world; it makes no judgements about its ontological status or its epistemological foundations, but takes it at face value as an account of the world as the Elders encounter it. In analysing the material, the thesis identifies several key dimensions of their understandings of relations between community and school, and explores emergent themes within each of these dimensions, with a view to recognising both the commonalities and multiplicities of views across interviews. In doing so, the thesis seeks to represent the Elders’ views as fully as possible and to give pride of place to their understandings. The Elders perceive that the secular past affects the present and that the sacred past is permanently present. In describing and accounting for the present and in constructing a proper future, they recurrently draw on the past. They construct the present and accounts of what should be, on the basis of both the eternal spiritual Law and the secular past. The secular past they recount is full of racism, inequality, loss and oppression. The normative present and future are fundamentally grounded in traditional Law: all relationships should be based on Law. The Elders are disappointed that the young people in the community do not know their relationship categories according traditional Law and that the community is characterised by disorder, collectively and individually. They attribute this disordered present to colonialism, past and present. The Elders want better relations with school staff, but they see the teachers standing outside the structure of kin relations and as ‘standoffish’ and selfsegregating. The Elders believe the teachers should be open, personally, and available to be incorporated by the community into its kin-based social structure. The Elders consider that the school gives them no voice in curriculum and pedagogy. They insist that they should be heard on such matters. They perceive the teachers as having a coercive pedagogy, and see their interest in the children as confined to the school. They insist that pedagogy ought to be caring and inclusive, that teachers should recognise, and extend their interest to, the wider context of students’ lives, and that their pedagogy should reflect this. The Elders see the curriculum as a bastardised version of a mainstream, urban curriculum. The Elders insist that the curriculum should provide significant space for themselves to teach Law and culture and to able to educate the young people in traditional ways. Equally, they insist that the Western component of the curriculum should be of the highest standard, by mainstream, urban criteria. This study shows that the Elders have severe misgivings about both the prevailing relations and the contribution of the school to what they insistently refer to as their tribal community. It argues that the fact that the school appears this way to the Elders, as the senior figures of the community, is itself a problem, and that in so far as their views might be more widely shared, the problem is even more critical.

Slavoj Žižek: A Little Piece of the Real

Abstract: Contents: Introduction : locating Zizek as critical theorist -- 1. On Zizek's expanded notion of ideology -- 2. Western (European) modernity and its discontents -- 3. Lack in the other -- 4. Zizek's ticklish subject -- 5. Does Zizek have a critical social theory of contemporary capitalism? -- 6. Taking sides : what is left in Zizek? (the abyss of freedom?)