scholarly journals Cartooning the Camp: Aesthetic Interruption and the Limits of Political Possibility

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alister Wedderburn
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Relational Understanding ◽  
Vichy France ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Do So

Over the last 30 years, post-structuralist, feminist and other IR theorists have asked questions of the ways in which discourses on sovereignty seek to foreclose political possibility. To do so, they have advanced a decentralised, contested, incomplete and relational understanding of politics that presupposes some sort of intersubjective agency, however fragmented. There is one site, however, that appears to confound this line of argument insofar as it is commonly understood to exemplify an entirely non-relational, anti-political ‘desolation’: the concentration camp. Drawing on feminist theory to establish the terms of an aesthetic mode of ‘interruption’, this article will identify a compelling challenge to this position in a comic book drawn by Horst Rosenthal, a German–Jewish detainee at Gurs in Vichy, France, who was later killed at Auschwitz–Birkenau. Rosenthal’s piece will be read as an ‘aesthetic interruption’ that mounts a powerful critique of the logic underpinning his concentrationary experience, and in so doing demonstrates one way in which (to however painfully limited a degree) the political might be ‘brought back in’ to discussions about sovereign power.

Simone Weil

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Marovich
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Intellectual Curiosity ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
Simone Weil

Few of Giorgio Agamben’s works are as mysterious as his unpublished dissertation, reportedly on the political thought of the French philosopher Simone Weil. If Weil was an early subject of Agamben’s intellectual curiosity, it would appear – judging from his published works – that her influence upon him has been neither central nor lasting.1 Leland de la Durantaye argues that Weil’s work has left a mark on Agamben’s philosophy of potentiality, largely in his discussion of the concept of decreation; but de la Durantaye does not make much of Weil’s influence here, determining that her theory of decreation is ‘essentially dialectical’ and still too bound up with creation theology. 2 Alessia Ricciardi, however, argues that de la Durantaye’s dismissal of Weil’s influence is hasty.3 Ricciardi analyses deeper resonances between Weil’s and Agamben’s philosophies, ultimately claiming that Agamben ‘seems to extend many of the implications and claims of Weil’s idea of force’,4 arguably spreading Weil’s influence into Agamben’s reflections on sovereign power and bare life.

Denmark-Norway as a Potential World Power in the Early Seventeenth Century

Itinerario ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Már Jónsson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
Northern Germany ◽  
Lower Saxony ◽  
One Year ◽  
Council Of State ◽  
Standing Army ◽  
Do So

On 2 January 1625, the English ambassador Robert Anstruther met with King Christian IV of Norway and Denmark and requested his participation in a union of Protestant states against Emperor Ferdinand II and the Catholic League in Germany. Within three days, King Christian proposed to contribute five thousand soldiers for one year, as part of an army of almost thirty thousand men. In early June, despite opposition from the Danish Council of State, reluctant to put a huge amount of money into foreign affairs, Christian decided to join what he called “the war for the defence of Lower Saxony”. He then headed an army of mercenaries southwards through Lower Saxony, secured all crossings over the river Weser and prepared to confront the Catholic forces. On 29 November, it was decided that Denmark would be in charge of military operations in Northern Germany, whereas England and the United Provinces would provide a monthly subsidy. The political and military prospects for Denmark were excellent, to say the least. It had the fourth strongest navy in Europe (after Spain and the two new allies), and only a few years before the Danish warships had been described by a French observer as “merveilles de l'océan”. A small standing army of two regiments had recently been established and Denmark was the fourth European state to do so after France, Spain and the neighbouring Sweden.

Is political engagement by constitutional monarchs compatible with democracy?

2021 ◽  
pp. 205789112199169
Author(s):  
Kana Inata
Keyword(s):  
Political Engagement ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Public Approval ◽  
Do So

Constitutional monarchies have proved to be resilient, and some have made substantive political interventions even though their positions are mostly hereditary, without granted constitutional channels to do so. This article examines how constitutional monarchs can influence political affairs and what impact royal intervention can have on politics. I argue that constitutional monarchs affect politics indirectly by influencing the preferences of the public who have de jure power to influence political leaders. The analyses herein show that constitutional monarchs do not indiscriminately intervene in politics, but their decisions to intervene reflect the public’s preferences. First, constitutional monarchs with little public approval become self-restraining and do not attempt to assert their political preferences. Second, they are more likely to intervene in politics when the public is less satisfied about the incumbent government. These findings are illustrated with historical narratives regarding the political involvement of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand in the 2000s.

scholarly journals (In)coherent subjects? The politics of conceptualising resistance in the UK asylum system

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110338
Author(s):  
Sarah M Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Subject Formation ◽  
Grounding Resistance ◽  
Migration Control ◽  
The Uk

Many accounts of resistance within systems of migration control pivot upon a coherent migrant subject, one that is imbued with political agency and posited as oppositional to particular forms of sovereign power. Drawing upon ethnographic research into the role of creativity within the UK asylum system, I argue that grounding resistance with a stable, coherent and agentic subject, aligns with oppositional narratives (of power vs resistance), and thereby risks negating the entangled politics of the (in)coherence of subject formation, and how this can contain the potential to disrupt, disturb or interrupt the practices and premise of the UK asylum system. I suggest that charity groups and subjects should not be written out of narratives of resistance apriori because they engage with ‘the state’: firstly, because to argue that there is a particular form that resistance should take is to place limits around what counts as the political; and secondly, because to ‘remain oppositional’ is at odds with an (in)coherent subject. I show how accounts which highlight a messy and ambiguous subjectivity, could be bought into understandings of resistance. This is important because as academics, we too participate in the delineation of the political and what counts as resistance. In predetermining what subjects, and forms of political action count as resistance we risk denying recognition to those within this system.

scholarly journals Representing, commemorating, and memorizing terrorist attacks: Discussing the US and French experiences

2021 ◽  
pp. 263300242110244
Author(s):  
Alice M. Greenwald ◽  
Clifford Chanin ◽  
Henry Rousso ◽  
Michel Wieviorka ◽  
Mohamed-Ali Adraoui
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modes Of Operation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Places Of Memory ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Do So

How do societies and states represent the historical, moral, and political weight of the terrorist attacks they have had to face? Having suffered in recent years from numerous terrorist attacks on their soil originating from jihadist movements, and often led by actors who were also their own citizens, France and the United States have set up—or seek to do so—places of memory whose functions, conditions of creation, modes of operation, and nature of the messages sent may vary. Three of the main protagonists and initiators of two museum-memorial projects linked to terrorist attacks have agreed to deliver their visions of the role and of the political, social, and historical context in which these projects have emerged. Allowing to observe similarities and differences between the American and French approach, this interview sheds light on the place of memory and feeling in societies struck by tragic events and seeking to cure their ills through memory and commemoration.

The Distribution of Emotions: Affective Politics of Emancipation

Hypatia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Bargetz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social

Currently, affect and emotions are a widely discussed political topic. At least since the early 1990s, different disciplines—from the social sciences and humanities to science and technoscience—have increasingly engaged in studying and conceptualizing affect, emotion, feeling, and sensation, evoking yet another turn that is frequently framed as the “affective turn.” Within queer feminist affect theory, two positions have emerged: following Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's well‐known critique, there are either more “paranoid” or more “reparative” approaches toward affect. Whereas the latter emphasize the potentialities of affect, the former argue that one should question the mere idea of affect as liberation and promise. Here, I suggest moving beyond a critique or celebration of affect by embracing the political ambivalence of affect. For this queer feminist theorizing of affective politics, I adapt Jacques Rancière's theory of the political and particularly his understanding of emancipation. Rancière takes emancipation into account without, however, uncritically endorsing or celebrating a politics of liberation. I draw on his famous idea of the “distribution of the sensible” and reframe it as the “distribution of emotions,” by which I develop a multilayered approach toward a nonidentitarian, nondichotomous, and emancipatory queer feminist theory of affective politics.

Sociospatial Transformations in the ‘Postsocialist’ Periphery: The Case of Maputo, Mozambique

1995 ◽  
Vol 27 (9) ◽  
pp. 1463-1491 ◽  
Author(s):  
J D Sidaway ◽  
M Power
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Third World ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Capital City ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Portuguese Colonialism ◽  
Do So

As Mozambique was one of a number of Third World states that embraced Marxism-Leninism during the 1970s, the establishment and subsequent collapse of a socialist development project since independence in 1975 has had profound social, political, and economic consequences. Against these contexts, and through a chronological account which begins with the impacts of Portuguese colonialism and Mozambican nationalist responses, we analyse the contradictory impact of political and economic changes accompanying colonialism, independence, attempted socialist transformation, and the end of socialism in Mozambique as they are mediated through the built environment of the Mozambican capital city of Maputo. The combined political, social, and cultural facets within these transformations and continuities are evident throughout the account and we specify some of the ways in which these are intertwined with the political economy of urbanization. In the conclusion we reconsider what the changing trajectory of Maputo represents in global and comparative terms. We do so with reference to debates about the changing forms of international capitalist regulation and the reconfiguration of dependency.

Presidential Statesmanship and the Constitution: The Limits of Presidential Studies

1982 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Engeman
Keyword(s):  
Primary Task ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Sufficient Energy ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
The Government ◽  
Presidential Studies ◽  
Do So

According to Publius (the nom de plume of The Federalist's authors), a primary task of the Convention was to create an executive of sufficient energy and independence. As he says in Federalist, No. 70: “There is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government. The enlightened well-wishers to this species of government must at least hope that the supposition is destitute of foundation.” The president must be able to administer the government and defend the nation but he must do so without destroying or being destroyed by constitutional limitations or the political independence of Congress.

scholarly journals Homo Sacer sebagai Figur Politis dan Kaitannya dengan Dunia Pendidikan Tinggi

Humaniora ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 335
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Indrajaya
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
General View ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
The Third

Article is an outcome from writer’s reflection from his reading on Homo Sacer, Sovereign Power and Bare Life, a book by Giorgio Agamben, an Italian 20th century philosopher. The reading concerns with the three chapters which are Homo Sacer, The Ambivalence of The Sacred, and The Sacred Life, and also the preface of chapters. Generally, this article proposes two main things. First, Agamben’s description on Western modern political practice, developed from the Greek until today. Second, writer’s reflection on educational system in Indonesia, especially the higher education level in nowadays, through Agamben’s perspective. Structurally, article is divided into three parts. First, the Preface, is a general view to Agamben’s political thought which will stand as a background to the second part from this article, Homo Sacer. On the third part, Education as Bare Life, is writer’s reflection on higher education system in Indonesia borrowing the political perspectives from Agamben.    

scholarly journals Online Life Writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-150
Author(s):  
Silvia Schultermandl
Keyword(s):  
Life Style ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Online Media ◽  
The Past ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Literary Market ◽  
Do So

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of this contribution to this forum: The advent of Facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Tumblr in 2007, Instagram and Pinterest in 2010, and Snapchat and Google+ in 2011 facilitated the emergence of “everyday” autobiographies out of keeping with memoir practices of the past.[1] These “quick media” enable constant, instantaneous, and seemingly organic expressions of everyday lives.[2] To read quick media as “autobiographical acts” allows us to analyze how people mobilize online media as representations of their lives and the lives of others.[3] They do so through a wide range of topics including YouTube testimonials posted by asylum seekers (Whitlock 2015) and the life-style oriented content on Pinterest.[4] To be sure, the political content of these different quick media life writing varies greatly. Nevertheless, in line with the feminist credo that the personal is political, these expressions of selfhood are indicative of specific societal and political contexts and thus contribute to the memoir boom long noticed on the literary market.[5]

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