Doing ‘Social Practice’: Political Strategies of Truth Generation for the Friendly Neighbourhood Theatre Historian

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (02) ◽  
pp. 203-205
Author(s):  
PROMONA SENGUPTA
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Amateur Theatre ◽  
Political Act ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Rosa Luxemburg

To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize ‘how it really was.’ It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger.The last two years have seen some significant anniversaries being celebrated – one hundred years of the Bolshevik Revolution, fifty years since May 1968, two hundred years since the birth of Karl Marx and, most recently, the birth centenary of Rosa Luxemburg. As a student activist more or less masquerading as an amateur theatre historian, I have never felt more in need of the tools of my so-called trade than during these interesting times when I found myself assiduously attending conferences, memorials, re-enactments and commemorative performances earmarking moments of radical histories. David Wiles's article, charting the contours – often clear and sometimes obscure – of the field of theatre history as it stands at the moment brings into relief some of the questions that have been running in the background of the heady extended solidarity party that has been my engagement with the field in recent times, resonating with his conclusion of history-writing as ‘practice, not product’. I will attempt to glean from Wiles's reflections some points that I feel may be important for scholars for whom history writing is most certainly a ‘social practice’, if not also a deeply political act.

The Politics of Writing About Making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Bertucci
Keyword(s):  
Political Act ◽  
The Moment

This chapter argues that writing about their own art was a political act through which artistes presented themselves and their work as central to France's projects of improvement. They did so by discussing the features that distinguished them from other artisans and by articulating a theory of cognition based on sensorial intelligence. Artistes reacted to the conception of a slowly moving artisanal world, countering that in artisanal workshops, opportunities for improvement occurred frequently though they often went unnoticed because of the artisans' ignorance and attachment to routine. Artistes, by contrast, were able to improvise and be in the moment when serendipitous opportunities presented themselves.

scholarly journals Lithuanian nationhood theatre through post-colonial gaze

Menotyra ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasa Vasinauskaitė
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
History And Criticism ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Constant Friction ◽  
Amateur Theatre ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Professional Artists ◽  
The 19Th Century

In the development of Lithuanian theatre, we find a number of facts and phenomena that can only be understood from a post-colonial perspective. Especially during the first independence, Soviet and even early post-Soviet periods, the discourse of theatre history and criticism felt a constant friction between “alien” and “own” aesthetic and ideological doctrines, between cosmopolitan and national [theatre] narratives. In this article, the origins of the national theatre are associated with the movement of national liberation from the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century and the movement of amateur theatre (the Lithuanian evenings) as a process of ethnic, linguistic and cultural decolonization. Amateur theatre movement united cultural and secular intelligentsia and strengthened its role in shaping the idea of historical, cultural and linguistic identity, later realized in the national theatre model. However, the National/State Theatre, established in 1920/1922 as a representative institution of the statehood and cultural identity of independent Lithuania, seemed to be “stuck” from different cultural influences, schools, aesthetic currents and spoke badly Lithuanian. Sporadically created by amateurs and more or less professional artists who left Russian theatrical schools, the national Lithuanian theatre has formed from the beginning as a complex body combining imperial and popular models. Imperial – because with the experience and impressions of such theatre and with such understanding of its social and artistic value, its future directors returned to Lithuania from Moscow and St. Petersburg, and popular, democratic – because intended for various social and ethnic groups, but speaking Lithuanian, it had to develop both aesthetic and patriotic feelings of its audience. The politicization of the State Theatre as a representative institution (especially after the introduction of the authoritarian Antanas Smetona power in 1926 and the influence of the Nationalist Party in all areas of culture) influenced the “crucial collision” of these two models in both the performances and their public/ critical reception. At the same time, these two models and their friction can be understood as one of the specific features of the young Lithuanian national/nationhood theatre: the stage reflected a long, but unrealized, acculturation and assimilation of the nation, while the often infertile search for national scenic expression reflected not only an attempt to liberate from the colonial/imperial past, but also the complexity and contradiction of this process.

The Scope of the Conceptual

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Laurence ◽  
Eric Margolis
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Michael Dummett ◽  
Contemporary Philosopher ◽  
Conceptual Thought ◽  
The Moment

This article explains different views on concepts, which are among the most fundamental constructs in cognitive science. Michael Dummett argues that nonhuman animals are not capable of full-fledged conceptual thought but only a diminished form of thought, which he calls, proto-thought. Human beings can remove themselves from the moment and can rise above the confined world of current perceptions because of their linguistic abilities. Donald Davidson, a contemporary philosopher, denies that animals are capable of conceptual thought and claim that conceptual content requires a rich inferential network. Donald Davidson made an argument against animals having conceptual thought. Davidson's original formulation of the argument begins with the claim that having a belief requires having the concept of a belief but adds that having the concept of belief requires possession of a natural language. It follows, then, that to have a belief requires facility with natural language. The characterization of the conceptual/nonconceptual distinction that is implicit in Davidson's metacognitive argument is a complex one involving a capacity for belief about beliefs, a concept of belief, and concepts of truth and falsity. Both Robert Brandom and John McDowell argued that conceptual thought requires more than a capacity for detection. They claim that conceptual thought requires the ability to appreciate the reasons that would justify a given concept's application and use, and this, in turn, is inherently a social practice that is dependent on natural language

Non-Linear Pathways to Social Transformation: Rosa Luxemburg and The Post-Colonial Condition

2018 ◽  
Vol 94 (94) ◽  
pp. 62-81
Author(s):  
Peter Hudis
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private Space ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg's The Accumulation of Capital, which spurred intense discussion and debate from the moment of its publication in 1913, has taken on new resonance in light of the global expansion of capitalism, the destruction of indigenous cultures and habitats, and capital's reconfiguration of public and private space. No less important is a series of additional works by Luxemburg that address these themes, but which have received far less attention. These include her notes and lectures on pre-capitalist society that were composed as part of her work as a teacher at the German Social Democratic Party's school in Berlin from 1907-14 and her Introduction to Political Economy, which first led her to confront the problem delineated in The Accumulation of Capital. These writings shed new light on the contributions as well as the limitations of her understanding of the internal and external limits to capital accumulation, especially insofar as the ability of non-capitalist formations and practices to survive the domination of capital is concerned. Luxemburg's understanding of the impact of capitalism in undermining noncapitalist strata has crucial ramifications for working out a viable alternative to capitalism today.

Primitivism and Philo-primitivism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Etherington
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
World System ◽  
John Dryden ◽  
Robert Louis Stevenson ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Rosa Luxemburg

Chapter 2 advances the historical side of the argument by drawing a distinction between “philo-primitivism” and “emphatic primitivism.” It finds that the philo-primitivist ideal of the “noble savage” was the product of earlier periods of European colonial expansion when there yet existed social worlds beyond the perimeter of the capitalist world-system. As the “primitive accumulation” of noncapitalist societies accelerated, so the ideal of the primitive became entirely speculative and utopian. Emphatic primitivism’s emergence coincides with the period that political economists at the time labeled “Imperialism,” a concept explored with reference to the work of Rosa Luxemburg in particular. The chapter ends with a discussion of the notion prevalent at this time that the “primitive” was in fact the product of “civilized” sublimation. Other writers and artists discussed include John Dryden, George Catlin, Charles Darwin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robert Louis Stevenson, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

scholarly journals A pedagogia histórico-crítica e a defesa da transmissão do saber elaborado: apontamentos acerca do método pedagógico

Perspectiva ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 345
Author(s):  
Tiago Nicola Lavoura ◽  
Ana Carolina Galvão Marsiglia
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Student Development ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
School Education ◽  
Educational Work ◽  
Dialectical Logic ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
Starting Point

<p>http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-795X.2015v33n1p345</p><p>Este artigo possui como objetivo realizar uma discussão acerca do método pedagógico da pedagogia histórico-crítica, notadamente elucidando as bases de sua fundamentação referenciadas no Método da Economia Política elaborado por Marx na famosa Introdução de 1857. Desta feita, explicita-se o movimento do conhecimento como a passagem do empírico ao concreto pela mediação do abstrato, evidenciando o caráter mediador da educação na prática social, tomando esta como ponto de partida e ponto de chegada do trabalho educativo, tendo-se como momentos intermediários do método pedagógico a problematização desta prática social, a instrumentalização por meio da transmissão dos conhecimentos nas suas formas mais elaboradas e a catarse enquanto síntese de desenvolvimento do aluno e, consequentemente, a possibilidade de alteração da prática social humano-genérica. Assim, busca-se evidenciar a lógica dialética desta proposta pedagógica que defende a atividade de ensino na educação escolar como aquela responsável pela reprodução ideal do movimento real dos conteúdos escolares, permitindo o alcance da riqueza categorial dos objetos de ensino enquanto síntese de múltiplas determinações e relações numerosas. Nesse sentido, compreender o método pedagógico dessa teoria em consonância com os fundamentos do materialismo histórico-dialético é essencial para sua realização bem sucedida e coerente com sua proposição.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p><p><strong>Historical-critical pedagogy and the defense of elaborate knowledge transmission: notes on pedagogical method</strong></p><p><strong> </strong><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>This article aims to carry out a discussion about pedagogical method of historical-critical pedagogy, clearly highlighting its fundaments on Political Economy Method, created by Karl Marx in his famous 1857. Thus, the study seeks to make clear the dialectical logic of this pedagogical  proposal that speaks up for the teaching activity in school education as that responsible by the ideal reproduction of the real school subjects movement, enabling the reach of categorical wealth of teaching objects as synthesis of multiple determinations and numerous relationship. So, it is made explicit the movement of knowledge as the passage from the empirical to the concrete by abstract mediation, highlighting the mediating character of education in social practice, taking this as a starting point and end point of the educational work, taking the questioning of this social practice as intermediate moments of pedagogical method , the manipulation through the transmission of knowledge in its most elaborate forms and catharsis as student development synthesis and consequently the possibility of changing human-generic social practice. In this sense, understanding the pedagogical method of this theory founded on Historical-Dialectical Materialism is essential to successfully and coherently carry out its proposition.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> School Education. Historical-critical Pedagogy. Dialectical Method.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>La pedagogía histórica-crítica y la defensa de la transmisión del saber elaborado: anotaciones sobre el método pedagógico</strong></p><p> <strong>Resumen</strong></p><p>El objetivo del artículo es realizar una discusión sobre el método pedagógico de la pedagogía histórica-crítica, explicado en las bases de su fundamentación referenciada en el Método de la Economía Política elaborado por Marx en la famosa Introducción de 1857. De este modo, se explicita el movimiento del conocimiento como el paso de lo empírico a lo concreto a través de la mediación de lo abstracto, resaltando el carácter mediador de la educación en la práctica social, tomándola como punto de partida y punto de llegada del trabajo educativo, teniendo como momentos intermedios del método pedagógico el problematizar esta práctica social, la instrumentalización a través de la transmisión de los conocimientos en sus formas más elaboradas y la catarsis, como síntesis de desarrollo del alumno y, como consecuencia, la posibilidad de alteración de la práctica social humana-genérica. De este modo, se busca mostrar la lógica dialéctica de esta propuesta pedagógica que aboga la actividad de enseñanza en la educación escolar como aquella responsable por la reproducción ideal del movimiento real de los contenidos escolares, lo que permite el alcance de la riqueza categórica de los objetos de enseñanza, como síntesis de múltiples determinaciones y relaciones numerosas. En este sentido, comprender el método pedagógico de esta teoría en consonancia con los fundamentos del materialismo histórico-dialéctico es esencial para su éxito y coherencia con su proposición.</p><p><strong>Palabras claves:</strong> Educación Escolar. Pedagogía histórica-crítica. Método Dialéctico.</p>

scholarly journals How to become a Brahman: The construction of varṇa as social place in the Mahābhārata’s legends of Viśvāmitra

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-67
Author(s):  
Adheesh Sathaye
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Textual Performance

University of British ColumbiaThis article investigates varṇa as an embodied and spatialized social practice in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata, with a focus on the epic subnarratives of Viśvāmitra, the legendary king who became a Brahman. Adopting a post-Dumontian position that the articulation of social status is always a political act, the Mahābhārata’s treatment of Viśvāmitra is analyzed as a literary attempt to secure the social place of Brahmanhood in post-Mauryan India. Two specific narratives are taken up for comparative study: first the kāmadhenu legend—the squabble with Vasiṣṭha that led to Viśvāmitra’s Brahmanhood—and then an altogether different story in which a mixup by Viśvāmitra’s sister Satyavatī meant that he had always been a Brahman by birth. Two distinct interpretive voices are heard in the same epic—one extolling Viśvāmitra’s extraordinary ascetic power, and another, louder one minimizing his realworld impact by insisting that his varṇa change never actually happened. Developing the concept of ‘textual performance’ to explain how fluid legendary material was embedded into the fixed epic corpus, this article argues that the Mahābhārata utilized counter-normative figures like Viśvāmitra to articulate alternative voices and possibilities, but within a carefully regulated epic storyworld that naturalized varṇa as an everyday social practice.

scholarly journals Karl Marx

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 729-741
Author(s):  
Rosa Luxemburg
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
German Original ◽  
Rosa Luxemburg

Marx died on March 14, 1883. Exactly twenty years later, on March 14, 1903, Rosa Luxemburg’s reflections on Karl Marx were published in German in Vorwärts, the newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. tripleC publishes an English translation of Luxemburg’s essay on the occasion of Marx’s bicentenary. Christian Fuchs’ postface “Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg” asks the question of how we can make sense of Rosa Luxemburg’s reading of Marx in 2018. Source of the German original: Luxemburg, Rosa. 1903. Karl Marx. Vorwärts 62: 1-2.

RethinkingDas Adam Smith Problem

1981 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Teichgraeber
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Steady Growth ◽  
Shadow Cast ◽  
Dark Shadow ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The One ◽  
Psychological Principle

During the last decade, there has been a steady growth in scholarship concerning the moral and philosophical dimensions of Adam Smith's economic theory. The reasons are various: a determination to take Smith out of the dark shadow cast on him by Karl Marx, the perceived intellectual impoverishment of socialism, and an historical concern for tracing the peculiarly Scottish dimensions of theWealth of Nations(1776). This renewed interest in Smith appears to be more than a sudden intellectual fashion. The now completed publication of the “Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith” provides the basis for the work of systematically reconstructing Smith's intellectual career. Most students of Smith would agree that at the moment this work of reconstruction has just begun.One of the curious features of recent Adam Smith scholarship has been its perfunctory treatment of “das Adam Smith Problem,” a problem that once seemed at the very center of understanding the moral and philosophical dimensions of Smith's work. In the last decades of the nineteenth century a group of German scholars coined that phrase to describe what they saw as a possibly fundamental break between the assumptions that guided Smith's first work,The Theory of Moral Sentiments(1759), and those that supported the economic theory of his later work, theWealth of Nations. On the one hand, Smith's explanation of moral judgment was based upon the psychological principle of “sympathy,” a capacity inherent in every individual which allows a person to “enter into” the situation of another and thereby bring his own “sentiments” into accord with those of his fellow.

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