Presentness

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex E. Chávez
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Commodity Fetishism ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Precise Moment ◽  
Real State

Typically, the structures of consciousness in how we experience time—or the broader phenomenological question of temporality—divide said experience into past, present, and future. These distinctions are not self-evident; rather, they are shaped by politics, institutions, society, economy, and so forth. Indeed, in his expressed engagement with historical materialism, Walter Benjamin claims that history—as one such structuring of temporality—is neither ideal nor causal, discrete nor universal, determined by the past nor exclusive to the future. Rather, it is a living process of present-future-pasts folding in on themselves. And a “real state of emergency”—recall that he wrote Theses on the Philosophy of History in early 1940 in France, where he was living in exile, having escaped Hitler’s Nazi regime—lays bare this fold of history, for its temporality is one that disrupts the anticipatory relation to the future as a type of progress and with it also the normalization of injustice as a necessity in history. The critical temporality Benjamin proposes resists the notion that the past can be understood exclusively in the precise moment in which it is recognized (frozen as an eternal image). In other words, historical moments are often naturalized, petrified as objective elements of our reality, and this reification—or estrangement from the totality—mirrors the logics of commodity fetishism. The task, in turn, is to illuminate how history is not a congealed “thing” and thus release its existence as process so that we may see ourselves in the totality of history rather than merely as its reified products. This critical temporality is an imperative that makes clear our agentive relation in creating the possible. This active sensing of the temporal, as it were, is where I turn my attention. I offer this meditation on presentness as an epistemological horizon, drawing on my work on both the ephemerality of performance and its politicized relationship to the US-Mexico border.

Acta Fluens – Generatives Handeln und Improvisation im Jazz

2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Davide Sparti
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

Obwohl jede menschliche Handlung mit einem gewissen Grad an Improvisation erfolgt, gibt es kulturelle Praktiken, bei denen Improvisation eine überwiegende Rolle spielt. Um das Risiko zu vermeiden, einen zu breiten Begriff von Improvisation zu übernehmen, konzentriere ich mich im vorliegenden Beitrag auf den Jazz. Meine zentrale Frage lautet, wie Improvisation verstanden werden muss. Mein Vorgehen ist folgendes: Ich beginne mit einem Vergleich von Improvisation und Komposition, damit die Spezifizität der Improvisation erklärt werden kann. Danach wende ich mich dem Thema der Originalität als Merkmal der Improvisation zu. Zum Schluss führe ich den Begriff affordance ein, um die kollektive und zirkuläre Logik eines Solos zu analysieren. Paradigmatisch wird der Jazzmusiker mit dem Engel der Geschichte verglichen, der nur auf das Vergangene blickt, während er der Zukunft den Rücken zugekehrt hat, und lediglich ihr zugetrieben wird. Weder kann der Improvisierende das Material der Vergangenheit vernachlässigen noch seine genuine Tätigkeit, das Improvisieren in der Gegenwart und für die Zukunft, aufgeben: Er visiert die Zukunft trotz ihrer Unvorhersehbarkeit über die Vermittlung der Vergangenheit an.<br><br>While improvised behavior is so much a part of human existence as to be one of its fundamental realities, in order to avoid the risk of defining the act of improvising too broadly, my focus here will be upon one of the activities most explicitly centered around improvisation – that is, upon jazz. My contribution, as Wittgenstein would say, has a »grammatical« design to it: it proposes to clarify the significance of the term »improvisation.« The task of clarifying the cases in which one may legitimately speak of improvisation consists first of all in reflecting upon the conditions that make the practice possible. This does not consist of calling forth mysterious, esoteric processes that take place in the unconscious, or in the minds of musicians, but rather in paying attention to the criteria that are satisfied when one ascribes to an act the concept of improvisation. In the second part of my contribution, I reflect upon the logic that governs the construction of an improvised performance. As I argue, in playing upon that which has already emerged in the music, in discovering the future as they go on (as a consequence of what they do), jazz players call to mind the angel in the famous painting by Klee that Walter Benjamin analyzed in his Theses on the History of Philosophy: while pulled towards the future, its eyes are turned back towards the past.

A corpus-based investigation of techno-optimism and propositional certainty in the National Intelligence Council’s ‘Future Global Trends Reports’ (2010–2035)

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Jamie McKeown
Keyword(s):  
Global Trends ◽  
Future Role ◽  
Ideological Bias ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Discursive Representations

This article reports the findings from a study of discursive representations of the future role of technology in the work of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC). Specifically, it investigates the interplay of ‘techno-optimism’ (a form of ideological bias) and propositional certainty in the NIC’s ‘Future Global Trends Reports’. In doing so, it answers the following questions: To what extent was techno-optimism present in the discourse? What level of propositional certainty was expressed in the discourse? How did the discourse deal with the inherent uncertainty of the future? Overall, the discourse was pronouncedly techno-optimist in its stance towards the future role of technology: high-technological solutions were portrayed as solving a host of problems, despite the readily available presence of low-technology or no-technology solutions. In all, 75.1% of the representations were presented as future categorical certainties, meaning the future was predominantly presented as a known and closed inevitability. The discourse dealt with the inherent uncertainty of the subject matter, that is, the future, by projecting the past and present into the future. This was particularly the case in relation to the idea of technological military dominance as a guarantee of global peace, and the role of technology as an inevitable force free from societal censorship.

Kuntanshi yamikalile (The Future): speculative nonconformity in the works of Zambian visual artists

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Andrew Mukuka Mulenga
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
African Art ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Contemporary African Art ◽  
Freeze Time

In recent years, select African visual artists practising on the continent as well as in its diaspora have increasingly been attracted to themes that explore, portray or grapple with Africa’s future. Along with this increasing popularity of the ‘future’ or indeed ‘African futuristic’ themes by visual artists, such themes have also attracted academic consideration among various scholars, resulting primarily in topics described as ‘African Futurism’ or Afrofuturism. These are topics that may be used to disrupt what some scholars – across disciplines and in various contexts – have highlighted as the persistent presumptive notions that portray Africa as a hinterland (Hassan 1999; Sefa Dei, Hall and Goldin Rosenberg 2000; Simbao 2007; Soyinka-Airewele and Edozie 2010; Moyo 2013; Keita, L. 2014; Green 2014; Serpell 2016). This study makes an effort to critique certain aspects of ‘African Art History’ with regard to the representation of Africa, and raises the following question: How can an analysis of artistic portrayals of ‘the future’ portrayed in the works of select contemporary Zambian artists be used to critique the positioning of Africa as ‘backward’, an occurrence at the intersection of a dualistic framing of tradition versus modern. Furthermore, how can this be used to break down this dichotomy in order to challenge lingering perceptions of African belatedness? The study analyses ways in which this belatedness is challenged by the juxtaposition of traditional, contemporary and futuristic elements by discussing a series of topics and debates associated to African cultures and technology that may be deemed disconnected from the contemporary lived experiences of Africans based on the continent. The study acknowledges that there is no singular ‘African Art History’ that one can talk of and there have been various shifts in how it has been perceived. I argue that while currently the African art history that is written in the West does not simplistically position Africa as backward as it may have done in the past, there appear to be moments of a hangover of this perception (Lamp 1999:4). What started out as a largely Western scholarly discourse of African art history occurred in about the 1950s and the journal African Arts started in the 1960s. Even before contemporary African art became a big thing in the 1990s for the largely US- and Europe-based discourses there were many discussions in the US about how the ‘old’ art history tended to freeze time and that this was not appropriate (Drewal 1991 et al). In order to advance the discourse on contemporary African visual arts I present critical analyses of the select works of Zambian artists to develop interpretations of the broader uses of the aforementioned themes. The evidence that supports the core argument of this research is embedded in the images discussed throughout this dissertation. The artists featured in the study span several decades including artists who were active from the 1960s to the 1980s, such as Henry Tayali and Akwila Simpasa, as well as artists who have been practising since the 1980s, such as Chishimba Chansa and William Miko and those that are more current and have been producing work from the early 1990s and 2000s, such as Zenzele Chulu, Milumbe Haimbe, Stary Mwaba, Isaac Kalambata and Roy Jethro Phiri.

scholarly journals The Burden of the Past, the Dialectics of the Present: Notes on Virginia Woolf's and Walter Benjamin's Philosophies of History

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja Bahun
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face

Writing in a Paris rife with war-anxieties, refugees and political plots, a stateless individual by the name of Walter Benjamin recorded on 11 January 1940: “Every line that we succeed in publishing today - given the uncertainty of the future to which we consign it - is a victory wrested from the power of darkness.” The fusion of desperation and mystical activism in the face of historical horror, expressed in Benjamin's last letter to Gershom Scholem, was echoed across the Channel. Only ten days later, Virginia Woolf - assailed by a mixture of historical, financial, creative and publishing worries - responded to a commission to write about peace by stating that the “views on peace […] spring from views on war.”

scholarly journals Border Militias

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
John Parsons
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
The Past ◽  
Southern Us ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
The Us ◽  
States Government ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Us Mexico Border

Narratives of security and threat are continually used to justify morally contentious activities. In the past three years, the United States’ government has increasingly promoted narratives of “criminal migrants” and “immigrant invasions.” In response to perceived threats, the US-Mexico border has undergone a process of militarization. During this time, various border militias have continued to operate along the southern US border. My research was conducted over 11 months with two militias operating on the US-Mexico border I have labeled Border Watch. This militia provides a snippet of how morality is operationalized in the legitimization of actions and how morality is intrinsically linked to security in the lived experiences of its volunteers. In this article, I argue that the volunteers make sense of their experiences away from the border through the narrative espoused by the US government. The resonance between experience and narrative defines the latter as truth and the ability to dismiss counter-narratives. For the volunteers of Border Watch who adhere to a notion of citizenship through the lens of the citizen-soldier ideal, the narrative delivers a moral imperative to act in defense of the nation. Within the nexus of danger, security, and morality, the volunteers of Border Watch conceptualize their project as one in which moral citizens protect the nation and its citizens from an evil Other.

Beware of Chinese Bearing Gifts

2019 ◽  
pp. 345-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Meunier
Keyword(s):  
Direct Investment ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
Chinese Investment ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Labour Standards

The exponential growth of Chinese direct investment has been accompanied in some cases by controversy and even resistance, both in developing and in developed economies. Around the world, critics have expressed fears and denounced some of the potential dangers of this investment, such as lowering of local labour standards, hollowing out of industrial core through repatriation of assets, and acquisition of dual use technology. Alarmist media headlines have warned against a Chinese takeover of national economies one controversial investment deal at a time. The ensuing political backlash has often received considerable media attention and increased scrutiny over subsequent deals. What explains the political challenges posed by the spectacular explosion of Chinese direct investment over the past few years in the United States (US) and the European Union (EU)? How and why have attitudes and policies in the West changed over the past decade towards Chinese FDI? This chapter considers two alternative explanations for the political challenges triggered by Chinese investment in Western countries. The first is that Chinese FDI causes political unease because of its novelty. The second is the perception that there is something inherently different about the nature of Chinese FDI and therefore it should not be treated politically like any other foreign investment. These two explanations lead to a different set of predictions for the future of Chinese FDI in Europe and the US. The first section analyses how the novelty of Chinese FDI may pose political challenges to Western politicians and publics and compares the current phenomenon with past instances of political problematic sources of FDI. Section II examines the argument that there is something inherently different about Chinese FDI, notably as stemming from an emerging economy, a unique political system, and a non-ally in the security dimension. The third section explores the domestic political context in which these challenges are raised: in Europe, the euro crisis and the rise of populism; in the US, the focus on geopolitical competition and the rise of economic nationalism. The conclusion raises some implications of these political challenges on the future of Chinese outward investment.

The future of emergency management

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane A. Bullock ◽  
George D. Haddow
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Organizational Changes ◽  
Department Of Homeland Security ◽  
The Past ◽  
Emergency Managers ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Us Federal Government

The discipline of emergency management (EM) is at a critical crossroads. Emergency managers around the world are faced with new threats, new responsibilities, and new opportunities. This paper examines the organizational changes made by the US federal government in shaping the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and presents three key lessons learned during the past decade that could guide emergency planners as they design and manage EM organizations of the future.

scholarly journals Glancing at the past and course-setting for the future: lessons from the last decade of research on medication abortion in high-income countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annik M. Sorhaindo
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
High Income ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Medication Abortion ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Quality Evidence

Abstract Objective Although medication abortion has become more common in high-income countries, the procedure has not yet met early expectations for widening access to abortion. High-quality evidence can serve as a catalyst for changes in policy and practice. To direct research priorities, it is important to understand where quality evidence is concentrated and where gaps remain. High-income countries have developed a body of evidence that may have implications for the future of medication abortion. This literature review assesses the characteristics and quality of published studies on medication abortion conducted in the last 10 years in high-income countries and indicates future areas for research to advance policy and practice, and broaden access. Study design A structured search for literature resulted in 207 included studies. A framework based upon the World Health Organization definition of sub-tasks for medication abortion was developed to categorize research by recognized stages of the medication abortion process. Using an iterative and inductive approach, additional sub-themes were created under each of these categories. Established quality assessment frameworks were drawn upon to gauge the internal and external validity of the included research. Results Studies in the US and the UK have dominated research on MA in high-income countries. The political and social contexts of these countries will have shaped of this body of research. The past decade of research has focused largely on clinical aspects of medication abortion. Conclusion Researchers should consider refocusing energies toward testing service delivery approaches demonstrating promise and prioritizing research that has broader generalizability and relevance outside of narrow clinical contexts. Plain English summary Although medication abortion is more commonly available worldwide, it is not being used as often as people thought it would be, particularly in high income countries. In order to encourage changes in policy and practice that would allow greater use, we need good quality evidence. If we can understand where we do not have enough research and where we have good amounts of research, we can determine where to invest energies in further studies. Many high-income countries have produced research on medication abortion that could influence policy and practice in similarly resourced contexts. I conducted a literature review to be able to understand the type and quality of research on medication abortion conducted in high-income countries in the past 10 years. I conducted the review in an organized way to make sure that the papers reviewed discussed studies that I thought would be important for answering this question. The literature review found 207 papers. Each of these papers were reviewed and organized them by theme. I also used existing methods to determinine the quality of each study. Most of the research came from the US and the UK. Furthermore, most of the research conducted in the past 10 years was focused on clinical studies of medication abortion. In future studies, researchers should focus more on new ways of providing medication abortion to women that offers greater access. Also, the studies should be designed so that the results have meaning for a broader group of people or situations beyond where the study was done.

Avionics extrapolations(A foray into the future of avionics)

2001 ◽  
Vol 105 (1047) ◽  
pp. 241-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. FitzPatrick
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Step Change ◽  
Damage Effect ◽  
Trend Line ◽  
The Past ◽  
Defence Budget ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Subsequent Step

The past has been interesting, but what of the future? As Fig. 1 shows, extrapolation is an attractive tool, with pitfalls for the incautious - most often exemplified in aerospace by the prediction that by 2015 the entire US defence budget would fund one aeroplane, or more recently by the belief that avionics will expand into infallibility and reduce costs to invisibility. The first extrapolation is premature, and the latter two as near as makes no difference wrong. In the case of the single affordable US defence aircraft the extrapolation probably correctly estimated the 2015 US defence budget, but erred in expressing the US Department of Defence requirement in terms of aircraft rather than damage-effects on target. The subsequent step change in avionics miniaturisation undermined the extrapolation and now looks likely to enable the DoD’s damage-effect requirements to be attained using products that lie on a different cost-effectiveness trend line.

Ghostly pasts and postponed futures: The disorder of time during the corona pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 175069802110540
Author(s):  
Siobhan Kattago
Keyword(s):  
Linear Time ◽  
The State ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Ordinary Time ◽  
Chronological Time

Since the first lockdown in March 2020, time seems to have slowed to a continuous present tense. The Greek language has three words to express different experiences of time: aion, chronos and kairos. If aion is the boundless and limbo-like time of eternity, chronos represents chronological, sequential, and linear time. Kairos, however, signifies the rupture of ordinary time with the opportune moment, epiphany and redemption, revolution, and most broadly, crisis and emergency. This paper argues that the pandemic is impacting how individuals perceive time in two ways: first, as a distortion of time in which individuals are caught between linear time ( chronos) and rupture ( kairos) invoking the state of emergency and second, as an extended present that blurs the passing of chronological time with its seeming eternity ( aion). As a result of the perceived suspension of ordinary time, temporal understandings of the future are postponed, while the past hovers like a ghost over the present.

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