scholarly journals Architecture, space and ideology: Between Adorno and Lefebvre

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-46
Author(s):  
Mateja Kurir
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Total System ◽  
Cultural Industries ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
The Status ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
A Site

Can architecture become a site of resistance to the machinery of estrangement and alienation? The German philosopher Theodor Adorno found art, where he included specific forms of architecture, to be the only exit from the dominance of machinery of the total system. If architecture in Adorno's philosophy could, with its negative position, step behind the screens into an autonomous art, the French philosopher and sociologist, Henri Lefebvre, developed a more radical notion: the distinctive scenery of architecture, everyday life, is intensely subjected to alienation. As much as Lefebvre puts focus on abstract and social space as a specific production of social relations, he also argued that every architecture is a priori ideological. Introducing the status architecture was given by Adorno and Lefebvre in the age of the birth of neoliberalism, thus paralleling the concepts of cultural industries with arts, social with abstract space, the paper outlines the basic entry point of two distinctive representatives of NEO-Marxism into architecture, in order to suggest an epistemology of architecture, which starts at a foremost critical point.

Reframing postmodern planning with feminist social theory: Toward “anti-essentialist norms”

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ihnji Jon
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
Third Wave Feminism ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Solidarity

This article is concerned with the current developments in planning theory literature, with regard to its extensive focus on flexibility and process. When emphasizing the open-endedness and procedural validity of planning, planning theorists do not seem to consider ethical considerations about the results of planning outcomes. This is understandable given that postmodernism and its ardent defense of “open-endedness” is often considered to contradict any prescriptive nuances. However, I argue that normativity of planning is possible within the postmodern paradigm and that postmodern concepts and theoretical standpoints can propose a basis for normativity. To demonstrate this, I adopt the works of political theorists who have addressed normativity and political solidarity within the postmodern paradigm (anti-essentialist, anti-Cartesian), most of whom are inspired by the future paths of feminism. To be clear, what I refer as “feminism” is about not only defending the status of women as a legal category, but also how to construct political solidarity against inequalities—without essentialist categorizations or a priori conceptualizations. Using the ideas of Young (second-/third-wave feminism), Laclau and Mouffe (post-Marxism), Mouffe (post-Marxism/third-wave feminism), and Butler (third-wave feminism/body politics), I outline what could be considered “anti-essentialist norms.” Based on these norms, a planner can judge which people and whose voices—which social groups or “serial collectives”—should be prioritized and heard first, in order to promote a more inclusive and just urban space. The three anti-essentialist norms that I propose are (1) taking into account the historicity of social relations, (2) having a modest attitude toward what we claim as the representation of “the public,” and (3) recognizing a human interdependency that leads to pursuing future-orientedness in a political project.

Strangers in the Land: Social Relations in the Status Gap

1958 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irwin D. Rinder
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
The Status

The Social Specificity of Societal Nature Relations in a Flexible Capitalist Society

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Eversberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Mutual Dependency ◽  
The Social ◽  
People’S Perceptions

Based on analyses of a 2016 German survey, this article contributes to debates on ‘societal nature relations’ by investigating the systematic differences between socially specific types of social relations with nature in a flexible capitalist society. It presents a typology of ten different ‘syndromes’ of attitudes toward social and environmental issues, which are then grouped to distinguish between four ideal types of social relationships with nature: dominance, conscious mutual dependency, alienation and contradiction. These are located in Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) social space to illustrate how social relationships with nature correspond to people’s positions within the totality of social relations. Understanding how people’s perceptions of and actions pertaining to nature are shaped by their positions in these intersecting relations of domination – both within social space and between society and nature – is an important precondition for developing transformative strategies that will be capable of gaining majority support in flexible capitalist societies.

Self and Selves

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph C.S. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Synthetic A Priori

Kant is committed to the reality of a subject self, outside time but active in forming experience. Timeless activity is problematic, but that can be dealt with. But he holds that the subject of experience is not an object of experience, so nothing can be known about it; this raises a problem about the status of his own theory. But he ought to allow that we can know of its existence and activity, as preconditions of experience: the Critique allows that synthetic a priori truths can be known in this way. However, its identity conditions remain unknowable. Kant’s unity of apperception shares much with Locke’s continuity of consciousness, but does not determine the identity of a thing. Personal identity is bodily identity. Only Kant’s moral philosophy justifies recognizing other selves; it could warrant ascribing a similar status to animals.

Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 6

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
Ethics Of Belief ◽  
Naturalized Epistemology ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The Status ◽  
Important Field ◽  
Belief Justification

Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publication offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading epistemologists in North America, Europe and Australasia, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include: (a) traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of skepticism, the nature of the a priori, etc.; (b) new developments in epistemology, including movements such as naturalized epistemology, feminist epistemology, social epistemology, and virtue epistemology, and approaches such as contextualism; (c) foundational questions in decision-theory; (d) confirmation theory and other branches of philosophy of science that bear on traditional issues in epistemology; (e) topics in the philosophy of perception relevant to epistemology; (f) topics in cognitive science, computer science, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology that bear directly on traditional epistemological questions; and (g) work that examines connections between epistemology and other branches of philosophy, including work on testimony, the ethics of belief, etc. Topics addressed in volume 6 include the nature of perceptual justification, intentionality, modal knowledge, credences, epistemic supererogation, epistemic and rational norms, expressivism, skepticism, and pragmatic encroachment. The various writers make use of a variety of different tools and insights, including those of formal epistemology and decision theory, as well as traditional philosophical analysis and argumentation.

THE POLITICS OF DANCE: EUNOMIA AND THE EXCEPTION OF DIONYSUS IN PLATO'S LAWS

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Yu
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Entire Class ◽  
A Site

How to inculcate virtue in the citizens of Magnesia by means of the dance component of choreia constitutes one of the principal concerns in the Laws (= Leg.), revealing Plato's evolving ideas about the expediency of music and paideia for the construction of his ideal city since the Republic. Indeed, a steady stream of monographs and articles on the Laws has enriched our understanding of how Plato theorizes the body as a site of intervention and choral dance as instrumental in solidifying social relations and in conditioning the ethical and political self. As one scholar has aptly put it: ‘a city and its sociopolitical character [are] effectively danced into existence.’ Drawing on this recent work, I focus on an enigmatic passage in Laws Book 7 that merits more attention than it has received, in which Plato curiously singles out Bacchic dances from those that are ‘without controversy’ (815b7–d4): τὴν τοίνυν ἀμφισβητουμένην ὄρχησιν δεῖ πρῶτον χωρὶς τῆς ἀναμφισβητήτου διατεμεῖν. τίς οὖν αὕτη, καὶ πῇ δεῖ χωρὶς τέμνειν ἑκατέραν; ὅση μὲν βακχεία τ᾽ ἐστὶν καὶ τῶν ταύταις ἑπομένων, ἃς Νύμφας τε καὶ Πᾶνας καὶ Σειληνοὺς καὶ Σατύρους ἐπονομάζοντες, ὥς φασιν, μιμοῦνται κατῳνωμένους, περὶ καθαρμούς τε καὶ τελετάς τινας ἀποτελούντων, σύμπαν τοῦτο τῆς ὀρχήσεως τὸ γένος οὔθ᾽ ὡς εἰρηνικὸν οὔθ᾽ ὡς πολεμικὸν οὔθ᾽ ὅτι ποτὲ βούλεται ῥᾴδιον ἀφορίσασθαι: διορίσασθαι μήν μοι ταύτῃ δοκεῖ σχεδὸν ὀρθότατον αὐτὸ εἶναι, χωρὶς μὲν πολεμικοῦ, χωρὶς δὲ εἰρηνικοῦ θέντας, εἰπεῖν ὡς οὐκ ἔστι πολιτικὸν τοῦτο τῆς ὀρχήσεως τὸ γένος, ἐνταῦθα δὲ κείμενον ἐάσαντας κεῖσθαι, νῦν ἐπὶ τὸ πολεμικὸν ἅμα καὶ εἰρηνικὸν ὡς ἀναμφισβητήτως ἡμέτερον ὂν ἐπανιέναι. So, first of all, we should separate questionable dancing far from dancing that is without controversy. Which is the controversial kind, and how are the two to be distinguished? All the dancing that is of a Bacchic kind and cultivated by those who indulge in intoxicated imitations of Nymphs, Pans, Sileni and Satyrs (as they name them), when performing certain rites of expiation and initiation—this entire class of dancing cannot easily be marked off either as pacific or as warlike, nor as of any one particular kind. The most correct way of defining it appears to me to be this—to place it away from both pacific and warlike dancing, and to pronounce that this type of dancing is οὐ πολιτικόν; having thus set aside and dismissed it, we will now return to the warlike and pacific types, which without controversy belong to us.

scholarly journals Critique and Renewal in the Sociology of Music: Bourdieu and Beyond

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Prior
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
New Work ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Sociology Of Music ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Status Position

This paper reviews the status, position and legacy of Bourdieu in the sociology of music, the waxing and waning of his influence and the recent move away from Bourdieu towards something like a post-critical engagement with musical forms and practices. The idea is to show the reaction to and treatment of Bourdieu’s ideas as a gauge of where we are in the sociology of culture, the various strands of influence that emanate from his work, and to assess what is at stake in a ‘post-Bourdieu’ moment when a position once considered progressive and critical now acts as the foil against which new work is being conducted. The article engages with some recent contributions to the music/society debate from figures in the UK and France, and points to the ways these contributions move debates on musico-social relations into territories more sensitive to the complex mediating qualities of music. Such work is better placed, it is argued, to represent music as an animating force in everyday life, including its specific mediating qualities ‘in action’. At the same time, however, the construction of a new sociology of music is not without its perils. The article will conclude with some potential problems with these approaches, and take stock of what might be lost as well as gained by adherence to them.

Maus y la ética de la representación después del Holocausto Narrativas post-traumáticas, elaboración y post-memoria. / Maus and the Ethics of Representation After the Holocaust Post-traumatic narratives, elaboration and post-memory.

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (01) ◽  
pp. 71-113
Author(s):  
Silvana Vetö
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
High Culture ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Face ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Medios De Comunicacion

En este trabajo se examinarán algunos de los problemas éticos que el Holocausto ha planteado a los medios de representación de la historia, para luego ligar las distintas narrativas que resultan de dichas representaciones, con las posibilidades de duelo y elaboración. Se abordarán primero los planteamientos de Theodor Adorno respecto de las posibilidades del arte frente al sufrimiento. Luego se expondrán algunos aspectos del debate surgido al final de la década del 70 a propósito de la representación del Holocausto en medios de comunicación de masa y en la “alta” cultura. Se mostrará como persiste en ese debate una perspectiva dicotómica respecto del trauma, de la cual surgen dos tipos de narrativas post-traumáticas supuestamente irreconciliables, que no permiten una adecuada elaboración y un duelo satisfactorio respecto de las pérdidas implicadas en el acontecimiento traumático. Finalmente, analizaremos en detalle la novela gráfica Maus. Relato de un superviviente, cuya narrativa experimental permite cuestionar y deconstruir la dicotomía redención/aporía de manera novedosa, planteando nuevos problemas vinculados a la memoria del Holocausto y a la posibilidades de duelo. In this work, we will focus on some of the ethical problems that the Holocaust has posed to the representation of historical limit-events. We will then link the different narratives emerging from these representations to the possibilities of mourning and elaboration. First, we will examine the German philosopher Theodor Adorno’s propositions concerning the possibilities of art in the face of suffering. Then, we will present some aspects of the debate that arose in the late 70s regarding the representation of the Holocaust in mass media and in ‘high’ culture. It will be shown how in this debate there persists a dichotomist perspective of trauma, which creates two supposedly irreconcilable types of post-traumatic narratives that do not permit an appropriate elaboration and mourning of losses caused by the traumatic event. Finally, we will analyze the graphic novel Maus. A Survivor’s Tale, whose experimental and open narrative allows an original questioning and deconstruction of the redemption/aporia dichotomy, putting forward new problems related to the memory of the Holocaust and the possibilities of mourning.

scholarly journals Office Setting as Organizational Structure in “Bartleby the Scrivener”

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401769043
Author(s):  
Lori Duin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Institutional Ethnography ◽  
Interpersonal Dynamics ◽  
Office Setting ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener ◽  
A Site

This article uses a methodology from the social sciences known as institutional ethnography to analyze the office setting in Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a site of social organization. This approach contributes to an understanding of how that office came to adopt specific structures as crucial to its functioning and how, as a consequence of those structures, individuals’ roles within the organization’s hierarchies became constituted. As fieldwork occurs inside of organizations, institutional ethnography also provides a tool for identifying and evaluating linguistic markers for an individual’s placement within a larger organizational structure. This approach to the story seems particularly useful for understanding the interpersonal dynamics at the heart of “Bartleby.” At the same time, it provides a method for identifying the larger institutional process at work in Melville’s story, one that contributes to the reproduction of a system of social relations in the workplace that requires subordination and compliance to insure its success.

scholarly journals Narrating technonatures: discourses of biotechnology in a neoliberal era

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
Myles Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Economic

This article considers the role played by discourses of nature in structuring the cultural politics of anti-GMO activism. It argues that such discourses have been successful rhetorical tools for activists because they mobilize widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural and human worlds. However, these discourses hold dubious political implications. In valorizing the natural as a source of essential truth, natural purity discourses fail to challenge how naturalizations have been used to legitimize sexist, racist and colonial systems of injustice and oppression. Rather, they revitalize the discursive purchase of appeals to nature as a justification for the status quo, indirectly reinforcing existing power relations. Moreover, these discourses fail to challenge the critical though contingent reality of GMOs' location within the wider framework of neoliberal social relations. Fortunately, appeals to natural purity have not been the only effective strategy for opposing GMOs. Activist campaigns that directly target the political economic implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature. The successes of these campaigns suggest that while nature-culture dualisms remain politically effective normative groundings, concerns over equity, farmers' rights, and democracy retain potential as ideological terrains in the struggle for social justice.

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