The Limits of Post-marxism: The (dis)Function of Political Theory in Film and Cultural Studies: a Reply to Paul Bowman

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-350
Author(s):  
Andrew Rowcroft
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Ernesto Laclau

This reply set sets out to briefly evaluate the limits of post-Marxism in contemporary culture before turning to Paul Bowman's innovative use of the contributions of Ernesto Laclau for considering globally popular cultural discourses on martial arts. Building upon the critical and creative openings developed by Bowman, the reply focuses on distinctions between the particular and the universal, the concrete and the abstract, in relation to martial arts practices. The focus on these concepts opens up the ability to contemplate new concrete universals.

scholarly journals The Limits of Post-marxism: The (dis)Function of Political Theory in Film and Cultural Studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-345
Author(s):  
Paul Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Martial Arts ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Kung Fu ◽  
Bruce Lee ◽  
Political Dimensions

This article first sets out the value of the political discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe. It argues that this work was central to the development of cultural studies, in its theorisation of social and cultural practices as being part of 'political discourse'. This confers a dignity, status, value and political importance on cultural practices of all kinds. However, the article seeks to probe the limits of this approach to cultural politics, and it does so through a necessarily unusual exploration. First, it takes an example of something ostensibly trivial from the realms of film and popular culture and explores it in terms of Laclau and Mouffe's categories, in two different ways. The 'trivial'/pop cultural example is Bruce Lee. Could Bruce Lee be regarded as 'politically' significant or consequential? He was certainly an enormously influential film and popular cultural icon of the 1970s, one who arguably ignited a global 'kung fu craze'. Moreover, Bruce Lee also had his own 'hegemonic project', seeking to transform and unify martial arts practices. In this paper, Bruce Lee's own 'project' is first examined in the terms of Laclauian categories. These are shown to be extremely useful for grasping both the project and the reasons for its failure. Then the article moves into a wider consideration of the emergence of globally popular cultural discourses of martial arts. However, Laclau and Mouffe's approach is shown to be somewhat less than satisfactory for perceiving at least some of the 'political' dimensions entailed in the spread martial arts culture and practices, from contexts of the global south into affluent contexts such as Hollywood film and Euro-American cultural practices. The paper argues that this is because Laclau and Mouffe's approach is logocentric, which leads it to look for and to perceive a very limited range of factors: specifically, political identities formed through political demands. However, to more fully perceive the political dimensions of culture, the paper argues that different kinds of perspective, paradigms and analysis are required. Adopting or developing some of these would enrich the field of political studies.

Two regimes of the symbolic: radical democracy between Romanticism and structuralism

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-88
Author(s):  
Warren Breckman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Constructed Dialogue ◽  
History Of

The ‘symbolic’ has found its way into the heart of contemporary radical democratic theory. When one encounters this term in major theorists such as Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek, our first impulse is to trace its genealogy to the offspring of the linguistic turn, structuralism and poststructuralism. This paper seeks to expose the deeper history of the symbolic in the legacy of Romanticism. It argues that crucial to the concept of the symbolic is a polyvalence that was first theorized in German Romanticism. The linguistic turn that so marked the twentieth century tended to suppress this polyvalence, but it has returned as a crucial dimension of contemporary radical political theory and practice. At stake is more than a recovery of historical depth. Through a constructed dialogue between Romanticism and the thought of both Žižek and Laclau, the paper seeks to provide a sharper appreciation of the resources of the concept of the symbolic.

Eric Voegelin and Representation

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-96
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Dual System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
Eric Voegelin ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Electoral Representation

This chapter discusses the political theory of Eric Voegelin as the earliest example of anti-Schmittian political theology based on the rejection of sovereignty. The chapter shows how Voegelin adopts Schmitt’s suggestion that political theology turns on the idea of a non-electoral representation of political unity but rejects Schmitt’s identification of this representative with the sovereign. Voegelin instead argues that ‘democratic’ societies are characterized by a dual system of representation, where philosophical and theological representatives of the transcendent God stand above sovereign representatives. Conversely, ‘totalitarian’ societies are societies that ‘close’ themselves to divine transcendence because they see salvation as a function of enacting immanent social laws. The chapter ends with a discussion of the relation between Voegelin’s idea of non-sovereign representation and contemporary accounts of populism, especially that of Ernesto Laclau.

Freud and Monotheism

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
New Research

Freud and Monotheism: Moses and the Violent Origins of Religion brings together fundamental new contributions to discourses on Freud and Moses, as well as new research on the intersections of theology, political theory, and history in Freud’s psychoanalytic work. Highlighting the broad impact of Moses and Monotheism across the humanities, the contributors hail from such diverse disciplines as philosophy, comparative literature, cultural studies, German literature, Jewish studies and psychoanalysis.

Ideology as the Ethos of the Nation State

1996 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynette Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Transnational Corporations ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual

Abstract: Ideology can be considered the ethos of the modern, liberal, democratic, capitalist nation state. Working from the descriptions of political ethos in Aristotle's Rhetoric, Tapies, and Politics, the differences from and similarities to post-Renaissance political structures underline the modern insistence on ways to stabilise the representation of the group in power, giving it its veil of authority, as well as ways to stabilise the description or definition of the individual within the nation. Looking at a number of contemporary commentaries from both political theory and cultural studies, the essay elaborates the rhetoric necessary to constitute ideology as the ethos of the nation state, and goes on to detail some of the constraints on the individual who, in gaining access to power, becomes subject to that state. The rhetoric of ideology provides not only an ethos for the character of the group in power, but also a set of guidelines for establishing a spedfic responsive state in the audience, an ethics of pathos. Its ethos is a strategy that imposes a strategy. The circularity of this ethos marks many of the analyses undertaken by current theory, and it has only recently been challenged by, among others, feminist historians of rhetoric. The discussion moves to a point where it asks: given that multinational and transnational corporations now share with the nation state the regularisation of capitalist exploitation, is ideology effective as a political rhetoric any more? Who is the wife of the nation state? And, what is the ethos of the multinational?

scholarly journals Cognitive and Ethical Bases of Discourse and Discourse Analysis

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-25
Author(s):  
Anna Mikhailovna Oleshkova
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Complex Method ◽  
Mental Phenomenon

The definitions of discourse are varied, bearing both philosophical and philological features. Discourse is a means to establish social relationships as well as their result. Discourse analysis (including its varie-ties) presents new empirical opportunities for schol-ars, who are seeking understanding of social reality. Discourse analysis is a complex method that has a potential to be applied to various studies: sociology, political theory, philosophy, linguistics, cultural studies, history, etc. The capacity of discourse to constitute everyday life gives us an opportunity to interpret social reality, our experiences and mean-ings that are created within it. In social-constructionist epistemology the major role is given to these two perspectives: cognitive (where dis-course is viewed as a mental phenomenon, repre-sented in texts) and ethical (where discourse is viewed as a condition for social action). These are the aspects of understanding of discourse and the methods for its examination.

scholarly journals Ciało w procesie konstruowania tożsamości

1970 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarosław Marzec
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The Body ◽  
Integral Approach ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Late Modernity ◽  
Cultural Forces

The main intention of my text is to describe the specific of the somatic turn of cultural studies and, to follow Chris Barker’s proposition, “the desire to understand the ways in which the body becomes the object of shaping and disciplining by social and cultural forces – i.e. how the body acquires meaning in contemporary culture”. The above problem provokes the consideration of the mutual relationships between the culture of late modernity and the category of identity (especially the body in the process of identity construction). The goal outlined in this way aims to present contexts and space for the manifestation of the issues of the body in contemporary culture, The aim of the proposed deliberations is to present the problem of the body from the perspective of reflexive identity (A. Giddens), constructivism perspective (Z. Melosik, A. Gromkowska, M. Bogunia-Borowska), in selected therapeutic systems (J. Kabat-Zinn, A. Lowen, S.&C. Block) and in the final section I present the category of the body in the integral approach to development (K. Wilber). Also, I shortly summarize my analysis and I point to the dangers of the presented approaches especially in the dominant instant culture practices.

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