scholarly journals Disjecta Membra: Althusser’s Aestethics Reconsidered

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Banu William Bargu S Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Art Criticism ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Independent Contribution ◽  
The Core ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Political Project

This essay takes a synthetic and critical approach to the scattered pieces of art criticism and aesthetic theory authored by Louis Althusser. Connecting these texts to his larger philosophical and political project, we argue that these reflections make an independent contribution to its worth and that they offer different perspectives on lingering theoretical problems. We piece together the insights that form the core of the Althusserian approach to aesthetics and show how these are formulated (in connection with the work of Pierre Macherey as well as the dominant controversies of the time) and trace how their formulations take shape in relation to the work of different authors and artists. In addition to helping us better understand his overall project, Althusser’s aesthetic theory is, we argue, a powerful and original contribution to Marxist aesthetics. Specifically, it points us to the idea that we need to take aesthetic production seriously as a practice with its own specificity – one that has its own logics of determination, rituals of production, circulation, and consumption, one that commands effects that need to be theorized on their own terms.

scholarly journals The Core of Resistance: Recognising Intersectional Struggle in the Kurdish Women’s Movement

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-500
Author(s):  
Bruna Ferreira ◽  
Vinícius Santiago
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Core ◽  
Political Project ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Modern Imaginary ◽  
Modern Nation State

Abstract The paper addresses the women’s movement in the Northern Syrian region known by Kurds as Rojava, a movement whose central role in building an autonomous political project has its roots in the Kurdish nationalist struggle, specifically that organised by the Kurdish Worker’s Party, also known as the PKK, in Turkey. This study brings to the fore reflections on the power relations that cross the struggle carried out by these women, who, for their part, are crossed by the intersection of gender, ethnicity and class, which feeds and composes the critical praxis of this organised struggle. The Kurdish women’s political path is approached through the contradictions and ambiguities they encounter when they face the challenge of becoming aware of their own place in a political project, which at first had a nationalist character and is now beginning to gain new contours. The presence of the female figure in a political context of armed conflict endows these women with the role of challenging the boundaries on which the foundational elements of international politics rely, namely, the boundary between public and private spheres and gender roles played socially and politically. The Kurdish women’s movement in Rojava disturbs the foundational boundaries of the modern nation-state alongside the hegemonic constructions of masculinity and femininity, and the militarised character of politics, which are constitutive of the modern imaginary of political community.

Review: Claudio Celis Bueno, The Attention Economy: Labour, Time and Power in Cognitive Capitalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 331-337
Author(s):  
Ben Turner
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Unanswered Question ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
The Core ◽  
Attention Economy ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Immanent Critique ◽  
Political Project ◽  
Labour Time

How should we conceptualise the turn to attention as a means of producing surplus value? Claudio Celis Bueno answers this question through a consideration of the attention economy in the context of a rethinking of Marxist political economy. Bueno accounts for the development of the economisation of attention through the concepts of value, labour and time, but also investigates how the shift to attention requires us to rethink the basis of these terms. Using the attention economy as an example, he develops a method of immanent critique which rejects a-historical understandings of labour, in order to show how the core concepts of Marxist political economy transform across different economic systems. Despite the clarity of this argument, Bueno opens an interesting but unanswered question as to how one transitions from this insight to a positive political project that may not be compatible with immanent critique.

A Profitable Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 359-381
Author(s):  
Rohit Mehta ◽  
Edwin Creely ◽  
Danah Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
21St Century Skills ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Political Influences ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social

In this chapter, the authors take a multifaceted critical approach to understanding and deconstructing the term 21st century skills, especially in regard to technology and the role of corporations in the discourses about education. They also consider a range of cultural and political influences in our exploration of the social and academic meanings of the term, including its history and politics. The application of the term in present-day educational contexts is considered as well as possible futures implied through the term. The goal in this chapter is to counter ideas that might diminish a humanized educational practice. Specifically, the authors offer a critique of neoliberal discourses in education, particularly the neoliberal and corporate narrative around 21st century teaching and learning. They raise concerns about what an undue emphasis on industry-oriented educational systems can mean for the core purposes of education.

The Discussion of the Concept of Sustainable Development of Ecological Architectural Aesthetics

2012 ◽  
Vol 598 ◽  
pp. 8-11
Author(s):  
Shen Qi Gan ◽  
Hong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
The Core ◽  
Natural Beauty ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Environment Perception ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Ecological Architecture ◽  
The Aesthetic

This paper introduces the basic concepts of ecological aesthetic, pointing out that the ecological aesthetic comes from population, resources, environment and other factors, understanding the natural beauty from the harmonious compatibility between man and nature, the environment, perception, greatly improving the aesthetic value of taste. This paper introduces the core categories、aesthetic standards and the three characteristics of ecological architectural aesthetics in detail, interpret the ecological architecture and its aesthetic theory.

The History and Afterlife of Soviet Demography: The Socialist Roots of Post-Soviet Neoliberalism

Slavic Review ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (01) ◽  
pp. 149-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inna Leykin
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Individual Behavior ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Soviet Science ◽  
Population Problem ◽  
The Core ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Population Policies ◽  
Demographic Behavior ◽  
Political Project

The discourse on the demographic crisis in contemporary Russia resonates with a neoliberal political project that attempts to govern populations through the market logic of optimization, responsibilization, and efficacy. Yet, as this article argues, the basic categories of the discourse, although evocative of a new neoliberal rationality, were in fact born of epistemological changes that took place in the Soviet science of population in the last decades of the USSR. Specifically, the analytical shift from Marxist-Leninist demography, which stressed a strong economic determinism, to the concept of demographic behavior, which became central to the discipline's analytical toolkit in the late Soviet period, produced political ideas in which individual behavior became both the core of the population problem and its solution. The article follows these institutional and conceptual transformations and shows how knowledge produced by Soviet demographers in that period continues to provide the foundation for neoliberal state efforts to solve the population problem. When seen from a historical perspective, the neoliberal character of the new population policies loses its apparent ideological and political coherence.

scholarly journals How images are the making of the Women’s Art Library/Make

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Althea Greenan
Keyword(s):  
Women Artists ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Feminist Art ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Work In Progress ◽  
The Core ◽  
Women's Art ◽  
Special Collection ◽  
Significant Research

When a group of women artists decided to organise their slides to inspire others to document themselves and raise the visibility of women’s art, they could not have known that several decades later those slides would still be together, forming the core of an internationally significant research resource. How did this idea of gathering together images transform a women’s art group – in the 1980s these were almost as common as book groups are today – into the Women’s Art Library/Make collection? Historically rooted in gender politics and the subsequent emergence of a radicalised women’s art practice and feminist art criticism, WAL/Make is an exciting ‘work in progress’. Now based in Goldsmiths, University of London it is being developed as a key special collection by the Library.

scholarly journals ¿PROLETARIADO SIN CABEZA O CUERPO SOCIAL DOMESTICADO? NOTAS PARA UNA LECTURA CRÍTICA DEL ENSAYO DE JOSÉ REVUELTAS

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Jaime Ortega
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
The State ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Social Body ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Jose Revueltas ◽  
History Of

El presente texto es una aproximación crítica al Ensayo sobre un proletariado sin cabeza de José Revueltas. A partir de las indicaciones metodológicas heredadas por Louis Althusser en su tratamiento de El Capital y de las nociones de posición idealista y posición materialista, se reconstruye el contenido del Ensayo. En el interior de este, se denota la coexistencia de estas dos posiciones: la idealista que remite a una filosofía de la historia y la materialista, que aborda los problemas específicos de una coyuntura. Finalmente, se apuntala una lectura crítica, en donde la noción de “proletariado de cabeza” debe ser repensada en el conjunto de la historia del movimiento obrero en México y de su relación con el Estado. Las breves conclusiones sólo son pie para pensar el entramado en el que se juega la historia del marxismo.   Palabras clave: Revueltas, proletariado, idealismo, materialismo, El Capital.   PROLETARIATE WITHOUT HEAD OR DOMESTICATED SOCIAL BODY? NOTES FOR A CRITICAL READING OF ESSAY DE JOSÉ REVUELTAS   This text is a critical approach to José Revuelta's Essay on a headless proletariat. From the methodological indications inherited from Louis Althusser in his treatment of Das Kapital and the notions of idealist  and materialist position, this paper reconstructs the content of the Essay. In his interior, the coexistence of these two positions is denoted: the idealist that refers to a philosophy of history and the materialistic one, which addresses the specific problems of a conjuncture. Finally, underpinned in his critical reading, the notion of “head of the proletariat” rethink the history of the labour movement in Mexico and its relationship with the State. The brief conclusions are only foot to think about the framework, which played the history of Marxism.   Keywords: Revueltas, proletariat, idealism, materialism, The Capital.  

The Viability of the Philosophical Novel: The Case of Simone de Beauvoir's She Came to Stay

Hypatia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 791-809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley King Scheu
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Philosophical Novel

This article begins by asking if the project to write a philosophical novel is not inherently flawed; it would seem that the novelist must either write an ambiguous text, which would not create a strong enough argument to count as philosophy, or she must write a text with a clear argument, which would not be ambiguous enough to count as good fiction. The only other option available would be to exemplify a preexisting abstract philosophical system in the concrete literary world. To move beyond such an impasse, this article turns to the work of Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir's unique aesthetic theory in “Literature and Metaphysics” envisions philosophy as an integral part of the literary text and sees the novel not as an argument but as something called a “philosophical appeal” (Beauvoir 2004b). In her first novel, She Came to Stay, such a concept of the philosophical novel allows Beauvoir to make an original contribution to the philosophical tradition—one in which Beauvoir rethinks the problem of solipsism—while still creating a stunning literary work (Beauvoir 1954). A study of the theory and the novel together thus provides a solid understanding of what philosophers stand to gain from the philosophical novel.

Neoliberal co-optation, power relations and informality in the Balkan International Relations profession

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-104
Author(s):  
Nemanja Džuverović ◽  
Goran Tepšić
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Academic Standards ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
The Core ◽  
The University ◽  
Stimulation Of

The article attempts to assess the importance of informal networks in achieving internationally recognised academic standards set in four Balkan countries by the reform of higher education institutions and the International Relations (IR) profession in particular. Starting from the core-periphery division of the Global IR, the authors are examining the results of these reforms by focusing on the neoliberalisation of the university and the professional subordination of peripheral IR communities to the Western-dominated epistemic community (including ‘brain drain’ and recruitment of ‘organic’ intellectuals). Based on the interviews conducted with Balkan IR scholars, the authors conclude that informality is viewed as social capital, that is, a means of acquiring benefits by virtue of personal ties with the ‘gatekeepers’ of core IR. In that respect, interviewees suggest three possible solutions for overcoming the epistemic dependence of the Balkan IR community: development of local standards, stimulation of critical approach and better preparation for international standards, while the authors of the article also propose the fourth possibility: abandoning the core-periphery division, and thinking beyond geopolitical and geocultural divisions – the main idea behind the Global IR project.

The National Governance Programme (2006—10) and the modernization of the administration: Cameroon and New Public Management

2008 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raoul Tamekou
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The Core ◽  
The North ◽  
New Public ◽  
Underlying Causes

New Public Management (NPM) emerged in the 1980s as the recognized instrument of public administration modernization. It has been introduced into African countries through National Governance Programmes (NGPs), programmes that set out to reform and improve the action of the State. It is only natural that we should study the impacts, whether concrete or planned, of their application. That is the core purpose of this document, which looks into the mutation of Cameroon's public administration from the perspective of NPM on the basis of the reform planned by the latest NGP straddling 2006—10. It also analyses the reasons that prompted Cameroon to adopt NPM, as well as its political and, in particular, administrative consequences. Points for practitioners The article examines the administrative reform planned by the National Governance Programme (2006—10) in Cameroon. Given that this reform can be interpreted as a consecration of New Public Management (NPM) as the principle behind the modernization of public administration in this country, it sets out to analyse the process involved. Moreover, the author also looks at the underlying causes of this reform and at its political and administrative implications. The article adopts a critical approach and raises the fundamental issue of institutional transfer from the countries of the North towards those of the South, and the consequences for African reform projects.

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