A New Sujet/Subject for Art Education

For some years now, fundamental ideas of newer theoretical trends in the context of Actor Network Theory have been leaking into the minds of that generation of (post-internet) artists who no longer regard the radical change in the socio-technical conditions of digital media cultures as something special or new. These trends are also leaking into the theories of the subject and thus also into the theory(s) of art education. This coincides with the assumption that the humanistic conception of the human individual as a subject, and the associated understanding of education in modernity, no longer matches neither with the artistic practices based on collaborative networked socio-technical processes that can be observed in the post-internet culture. Therefore, changing mediality leads to changing subjectivity.

"El poder no es el suelo natal del sujeto". Conversación con Jorge Alemán / “Power is not the native soil of the subject” Conversation with Jorge Alemán

Resumen: En esta conversación se aborda un tema de especial interés en el marco del pensamiento contemporáneo: la biopolítica y su relación con lo que se puede considerar como las nuevas teorías de la subjetividad o el sujeto. El psicoanálisis se encuentra en la actualidad entre los discursos que han renovado la perspectiva modera de la concepción del sujeto. Lacan se ha convertido en un autor subversivo de estas concepciones clásicas acerca de lo subjetivo. En ese marco conceptual, Jorge Alemán se ha erigido en los últimos años como un autor relevante para entender las posibles articulaciones entre política y psicoanálisis. Fundamentalmente sus desarrollos e innovación teórica permite un diálogo con los pensadores que luego de Foucault continúan pensando y produciendo en torno a la biopolítica. Esta conversación aborda puntos cruciales de los planteamiento más álgidos y complejos de ese debate actual. Palabras clave: Jorge Alemán, psicoanálisis, poder, sujeto, biopolítica. Abstract: This conversation deals with a topic of special interest for contemporary thought: biopolitics and its relationship with the new theories of the subject. Psychoanalysis is currently among the discourses that have renewed the moderate perspective of the conception of the subject. Lacan has become a subversive author of the classic conceptions about it. In this conceptual framework, Jorge Alemán has emerged as a relevant author to understand the possible links between politics and psychoanalysis. Fundamentally, his theoretical innovation allow a dialogue with the thinkers that after Foucault continue to think about biopolitics. This conversation addresses crucial points of the most critical and complex approach to this current debate. Keywords: Jorge Alemán, Psychoanalysis, Power, Subject, Biopolitics.

Encuentros y desencuentros filosóficos y políticos entre Badiou y Rancière

RESUMENEl objetivo de este artículo es contrastar las posturas filosóficas y políticas de Alain Badiou y Jacques Rancière, y aplicar los resultados de ese análisis al ámbito educativo. Para ello abordamos inicialmente las diferencias entre ambos autores respecto de sus teorías del sujeto, sus relaciones con Platón y sus propuestas ontológicas. A continuación consideramos, en primer lugar, una coincidencia acerca del carácter prescriptivo del concepto de «igualdad», y en segundo lugar, una divergencia respecto del «sujeto» y de las consecuencias disruptivas acontecidas a partir de la declaración igualitaria en la educación. PALABRAS CLAVESABER Y PODER –EDUCACIÓN POR VERDADES –IGUALDAD–SUJETO EDUCATIVO. ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to contrast the philosophical and political positions of Alain Badiou and Jacques Rancière, and apply the results of this review to education. For this, we initially regard the differences between the two authors about their theories of the subject, its relations with Plato and their ontological proposals. Next, we considered, firstly, a coincidence about the prescriptive concept of «equality», and secondly, a difference with respect to the «subject» and the disruptive consequences from the equalitarian statement in education. KEYWORDSKNOWLEDGE AND POWER –EDUCATION BY TRUTHS –EQUALITY–SUBJECT OF EDUCATION

Alienation After Derrida

Simon Skempton’s book re-reads Marx’s concept of alienation, and its roots in Hegel, through Derrida’s critique of the metaphysics of presence. In a wide-ranging study that engages with Heidegger, Kant and Lukács, as well as with a large proportion of Derrida’s work, both early and late, Skempton argues that, contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy in critical theory, it is possible to account for a kind of political ‘disalienation’, provided that one first accepts that the metaphysical account of the self-present subject is itself a product of alienation. ‘Disalienation’, on this model, would be a recognition of the inherently differential condition of humankind, with both Marxian and post-Kantian theories of the subject enlisted to support the Derridean thesis of an originary différance. Skempton’s thesis is attractively original, but it risks artificially reducing Kant, Hegel and Marx to mere avatars of Derrideanism avant la lettre, while simultaneously denying the force of Derrida’s critique of post-Kantian philosophy.

Spaces of Contention

Spatial organization interacts significantly with contentious politics, but figures uncertainly in current theories of the subject. A review of writing on the subject permits a rough distinction among bare space analyses using location and time-distance for non-spatial effects, textured space analyses introducing location and time-distance as explicit causes and effects, and place analyses treating interaction among location, time-distance, and representations of spaces as explicit causes and effects. Drawing chiefly on examples from England and France between 1750 and 1900, observations on four varieties of space-contention interaction—the geography of policing, safe spaces, spatial claim making, and control of places as stakes of contention—illustrate the promise of place analyses for new investigations. An ample bibliography displays the range of resources available to students of contention.