This article draws on Foucault's concept of the exercise of power and Gramsci's concept of hegemony to examine how women used cosmetic surgery to exercise power over their bodies and lives. The analysis is rooted in two feminist perspectives on cosmetic surgery. The first argues that women who elect to have their bodies surgically altered are victims of false consciousness whose bodies are disciplined by the hegemonic male gaze. The second asserts that women who undergo elective cosmetic surgery exercise free (...) choice in controlling their bodies and lives. By examining sites wherein power is exercised by and over women, the authors argue for a synthesis of these two perspectives. They find that the women achieved greater power and control over their bodies and lives when they embodied hegemonic ideals of feminine beauty. Cosmetic surgery can be empowering for individual women while reinforcing the hegemonic ideals that oppress women as a group. (shrink)

Violence is a spectacle. Not because it is simply something that we observe but, more fundamentally, because it is a mechanism through which we observe and define other things. Violence has the capacity to shape the ways that we see, and thereby come to know, these things. In other words, violence is more than a practice that acts upon the bodies of individual subjects to inflict harm and injury. It is, metaphorically speaking, also a way of looking at these subjects.

Pensar un análisis crítico del discurso desde una perspectiva decolonial significa, ante todo, la puesta en cuestión de la historicidad de la colonialidad/imperialidad/modernidad en términos de rec...

Italian priest, essayist, and intellectual of the twentieth century, Ernesto Balducci identified the crucial turning points of the new millennium by advancing original perspectives capable of opening unusual future scenarios. Sensitive to emergences of society (pollution, wars, ecological collapse), he retraces the causes in the more general ?crisis of modernity,? proposing a new paideia and a new model of thought. He theorizes the construction of a novel planetary horizon that presupposes not only the building of new organizational structures, but also (...) the achieving of an authentic ?anthropological mutation? capable of inverting the course of history. While the old ethics were anthropocentric, founded on the supremacy of humankind over the world and nature, the new ethics is planetary, meaning that humankind must no longer be used as the parameter, but instead, the global horizon over which the effects of his or her actions extend. (shrink)

Naturalists seek continuity between epistemology and science. Critics argue this illegitimately expands science into epistemology and commits the fallacy of scientism. Must naturalists commit this fallacy? I defend a conception of naturalized epistemology which upholds the non-identity of epistemic ends, norms, and concepts with scientific evidential ends, norms, and concepts. I argue it enables naturalists to avoid three leading scientistic fallacies: dogmatism, one dimensionalism, and granting science an epistemic monopoly.

In this article, I bring Marx and Adorno into conversation with affect theory to establish three points: First, an affective reading of the concepts of alienation and exploitation via Marx’s metaphor of the “vampire capital” explains how capitalism depletes raced, gendered, and sexed working class of their bodily and mental powers. Second, discussing these thinkers’ ideas in the context of the larger mind and body opposition revives attention to the body in contemporary political theory and exposes how the mind and (...) body opposition covers the suffering caused by capitalism. Third, it shows that we must theorize the mind and body, feeling and thinking, as a mediated relation to grasping how particularly negative feelings can generate critical thinking, necessary to rebel against the vampire capital. (shrink)

Food is a powerful symbol in the struggle to transition to a more sustainable pathway since the food choices citizens make have deep environmental and social impacts within their communities and around the world. Using transformative learning theory, this research explored the learning that took place among individual adults who consumed goods directly from local organic producers, and how this behavior affected their worldview. Learning was classified as instrumental, communicative, or transformative. Ultimately, we considered if the learning created lasting change, (...) directed toward a more sustainable society, among learners. Three different models of producer/consumer interfaces located in Atlantic Canada were considered: a market-garden operation, an education and outreach center, and a community shared agriculture project. It was found that all participants experienced some form of learning, either instrumental or communicative, through their participation in organic agriculture. Closing the gap between producer and consumer through direct contact with the farmer at a market, visiting the farm, or participating in food production oneself is both a desirable step in reaching a more sustainable lifestyle and a powerful learning tool in linking the consumer to a host of other environmental and social issues. (shrink)

This essay explores the original political significance of the posters of May ’68 as a critique of capitalism, as well as extending this approach to a critique of contemporary capitalism in 2020. The slogans of ’68 are deceptively simple and we look to the importance of the political ideas expressed aesthetically as having immediate impact in the late 1960s, but also the underlying Situationist philosophy which influenced them.We also explore the contemporary significance of Situationist theory, especially in the context of (...) the renewal of Marxist thought in the 21st century. This renewed Leftist critique of capitalism emerges as articulated through newer social and political movements of the current times, particularly through the political philosophy of Slavoj Žižek and his auto-critique of the former Yugoslavia. (shrink)

The specific nuances of what Gramsci names ‘the new dialectic’ are explored in this paper. The dialectic was Marx's specific ‘mode of thought’ or ‘method of logic’ as it has been variously called, by which he analyzed the world and man's relationship to that world. As well as constituting a theory of knowledge (epistemology), what arises out of the dialectic is also an ontology or portrait of humankind that is based on the complete historicization of humanity; its ‘absolute “historicism”’ or (...) ‘the absolute secularisation and earthliness of thought’, as Gramsci worded it (, p. 465). Embracing a fully secular and historical view of humanity, it provides a vantage point that allows the multiple and complex effects of our own conceptual heritage to be interrogated in relation to our developing ‘nature’ or ‘being’. The argument presented in this paper is that the legacy of both Hegel and Marx is manifest in the depth of Gramsci's comprehension of what he termed the ‘educative‐formative’ problem of hegemony. It is precisely the legacy of this Hegelian‐Marxist radical philosophical critique that is signified in his continuing commitment to the ‘philosophy of praxis’ and the historical‐dialectical principles that underpin this worldview. (shrink)

As educators we are haunted. This haunting takes place on several levels, through our personal histories, through key theoretical ideas we have encountered on our journeys, and by those significant educators who have gone before. This paper highlights how Elwyn S. Richardson continues to haunt education in New Zealand. Also how Elwyn, in turn, was haunted by ‘Wal’ and John Dewey. Rubbing up against neo-liberal reform, philosophers such as Elwyn, give us permission to develop our own personal educational philosophy. Through (...) employing an arts-based autoethnography, we explore how our educational journeys have been haunted by Elwyn. And by drawing on Jacques Derrida’s directive, ‘speak to the ghost’, we summon up Elwyn. To do this we write a series of fictional letters which enable us to reflect on one author’s memories. Through analysis of these letters we demonstrate the importance of the Arts as a method to critically reflect upon, and rise above, the dominant neo-liberal ideology we work within. We speculate here that a strong personal philosophy has the potential to disrupt and engage educators critically with an institutional philosophy that continues to dominate much of mainstream education in New Zealand. (shrink)

From the point of view of the development of Chinese Marxist philosophy, this paper comprehensively analyzes the current phenomenon of “Return to Marx” by pointing out: (1) the phenomenon of “Return to Marx” meets the need to reconstruct ideology during the time of social change in China and it is a theoretical manifestation of the shift from planned economy to market economy in China; (2) the phenomenon of “Return to Marx” embodies the academic path of the past ten years of (...) Chinese Marxist philosophy; (3) the phenomenon of “Return to Marx” places too much emphasis on logic while too little emphasis on history. This understanding, the epistemological root of “Return to Marx”, has caused the negative effect and is also worth our attention and further study. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years or so, theoretical work in such fields as legal semiotics and law and literature has argued that the legal process is profoundly rhetorical. At the same time, a number of communication-based disciplines such as semiotics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology have provided, particularly in interdisciplinary combination with law, a wealth of empirical evidence on, and insight into, the micro-contexts of language and communication in the legal process. However, while these invaluable nitty-gritty analyses provide empirical support for (...) a rhetorical thesis, work in these areas has tended to ignore rhetoric as an explanatory principle. This article introduces an overarching rhetorical framework for the discursive construction and management of cases in contemporary Anglo-American legal processes. Taking ‘forensic’ as relating to the conduct of cases and ‘discourse’ as semiosis-in-practice, I argue that the practices within which forensic discourse is embedded are not, as the received legal view would have it, aimed at revealing an impartial truth but are deeply rhetorical practices aimed at persuading decision-makers to provide a remedy for a claimed wrong. By looking across forensic texts and contexts, I identify common elements of forensic discourse that can be found both in classical forensic orations and throughout the modern legal process and consider how these intersect with critical forces of agency and structure and the particularities of semiosis in situated context. An awareness of commonalities across forensic discourse can help sharpen our focus on the critical causes and consequences of individual and structural difference and point to consequential suggestions for reform. (shrink)

: Gail Mason's Spectacle of Violence undertakes an important project in confronting a number of serious questions about definitions of violence and power, and about the nature of experience, subjectivity, and mind/body dualisms. Hartsock's comments on the book focus on issues of experience, embodiment, and standpoint theories.

Sociologists of risk tend to presume that populations have static perceptions of risk that can be correlated with their degree of technical expertise or their structural relation to society. Such commentators show little interest in human agency unless it is the agency of professional risk communicators educating the public. This analysis of the conflict over a radioactive incinerator in Livermore, California, emphasizes the fluidity of public perceptions of the incinerator and the agency of activists in shaping those perceptions in a (...) battle for rhetorical position with the U.S. Department of Energy. At a historical moment when the media was publicizing decades of environmental problems in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, activists were able to defeat the incinerator by creating a transitory alliance with local developers and by using rhetorical strategies that slyly undermined the official discourse on risk. (shrink)

This article explores the 'second chance' myth that surrounds the role of adult education in society. This myth apparently offers all citizens an equal chance to access educational opportunities to improve their life chances. I argue that recent developments in educational policy-making are increasingly shaped by neoliberal discourses that adapt adult education principles, such as lifelong learning and emancipation, for its own economic and political logic. This has important implications for adult education, especially equality of opportunity and social inclusion.

With the celebratory view of globalization comes the charge that it represents a kind of empire. But power works in voluntary processes, such as learning English or joining the World Trade Organization. “Network power” may explain the dynamic that drives aspects of globalization.

This review examines a collection of essays that engage with the thought of Antonio Gramsci in relation to the postcolonial. I argue that some of the chapters display a symptomatic tendency to read into Gramsci’s concepts a moral charge that detracts from their theoretical value, and that on the whole here Gramsci is either read in a post-Marxist key or dismissed as inoperable for the globalised postcolony of the present.

In the last decade, we have witnessed the return of one of the most controversial terms in the political lexicon: totalitarianism. What are we talking about when we define a totalitarian political and social situation? When did we start using the word as both adjective and noun? And, what totalitarian ghosts haunt the present? Philosopher Simona Forti seeks to answer these questions by reconstructing not only the genealogy of the concept, but also by clarifying its motives, misunderstandings, and the controversies (...) that have animated its current resurgence. Taking into account political theories and historical discussions, Totalitarianism especially focuses on philosophical reflections, from the question of totalitarian biopolitics to the alleged totalitarian drifts of neoliberalism. The work invites the relentless formulation of a radical question about democratic age: the possibilities it has opened up, the voids it leaves behind, the mechanisms it activates, and the "voluntary servitude" it produces. Forti argues that totalitarianism cannot be considered an external threat to democracy, but rather, one of the possible answers to those questions posed by modernity which democracies have not been able to solve. Her investigation of the uses and abuses of totalitarianism as one of the fundamental categories of 20th and 21st centuries promises to provoke much-needed discussion and debate among those in philosophy, politics, ethics, and beyond. (shrink)

This article deploys sadomasochism as a framework for understanding medical practice on an institutional level. By examining the case of the factitious illness Munchausen syndrome, this article analyzes the operations of power in the doctor-patient relationship through the trope of role-playing. Because Munchausen syndrome causes a disruption to the dyadic relationship between physicians and patients, a lens of sadomasochism highlights dynamics of power in medical practice that are often obscured in everyday practice. Specifically, this article illustrates how classification and diagnosis (...) are concrete manifestations of the mobilization of medical power. (shrink)

The article brings Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory into the empirical context of contemporary Russia to analyse the complex relationships between the state and alternative media. In contrast to the mainstream narrative that paints the picture of a strong authoritarian state with a grip over democratic liberties and civil society, we suggest a more nuanced perspective on the subject that focuses on the struggle over the articulation of the identity of the state. Through an ethnography (combined with interviews and textual (...) analysis) of three Russian alternative media outlets – Avtonom, Discours and DOXA – this article demonstrates how they critique the hegemonic state discourse, how they evade it through their practices, and how they perform counter-hegemonic alternatives. Even if their resistance is severely countered by the state, their practices are seen to de-naturalise the nodal points of centrality and unity which constitute the hegemonic state discourse. As these practices contain alternative articulations of the state discourse, the importance of alternative media for rethinking the state (and resisting it) should not be underestimated. (shrink)

Research into the sociology of intellectual life reveals numerous appeals to the public conscience of intellectuals. The way in which concepts such as ‘the public intellectual’ or ‘intellectual life’ are discussed, however, conceals a long history of biased thinking about thinking as an elite endeavour with prohibitive requirements for entry. This article argues that this tendency prioritizes the intellectual realm over the public sphere, and betrays any claims to public relevance unless a broader definition of what counts as intellectual life (...) is introduced. By calling for a shift from the notion of public intellectuals to Jane Jacobs’ (1961) idea of the ‘public character’, a publicly situated and affect-laden conception of intellectual life is articulated with the aim of redefining intellectual life as an ordinary, collective pursuit, rather than the prerogative of a few extraordinary individuals, as well as restoring the role of the senses in theoretical discussions on the life of the mind. The theoretical scope of this article therefore is to cast the net wider in the search for meanings of what public intellectual life is, can or may be in a larger context than ‘intellectualist’ discussions currently allow. (shrink)

In 2010, the Eurozone became the epicentre of the world crisis. The vulnerability of Europe appears to be linked to the specific institutional arrangement which organises monetary, financial and budgetary policies within the Eurozone. This article tries to understand the evolution of theeuduring a short but decisive historical sequence in a theoretical framework that puts elements of Gramsci’s reflections on the theme of crisis, and especially his notion of ‘Caesarism’, at its centre. It addresses the current debate concerning the relationships (...) between democratic politics and neoliberalism, while focusing on how the radicalisation of the crisis put at stake the co-construction of capitalism and representative democracy in the Western world sincewwii. (shrink)

In this paper I explore how citizenship education might position students as always/everywhere political to diminish the pervasive belief that one either is or is not a “political person.” By focusing on how liberal and radical democracy are both necessary frameworks for engaging with issues of power, I address how we might reframe citizenship education to highlight the ubiquity of politics, offering a deepened sense of democracy. This reframing of citizenship education entails highlighting how liberalism and radical democracy are mutually (...) reinforcing when it comes to illustrating political life as entangled in power relations. My argument centers on Sigal Ben-Porath’s :381–395, 2012) concept of shared fate as a frame for citizenship education. In this model, students are habituated into thinking of democracy as an “enduring pluralism” in which their fates are connected to that of their fellow citizens. In this paper I recast shared fate education in the singular to an education of shared fates in the plural. By doing so I theorize how citizenship education might construct citizenship as relational, emotional, embedded in power, and uncomfortable. (shrink)

The 2006 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, traced to bagged spinach from California, illustrates a number of contradictions. The solutions sought by many politicians and popular food analysts have been to create a centralized federal agency and a uniform set of production standards modeled after those of the animal industry. Such an approach would disproportionately harm smaller-scale producers, whose operations were not responsible for the epidemic, as well as reduce the agroecological diversity that is essential for maintaining healthy human beings (...) and ecosystems. Why should responses that only reinforce the problem be proffered? We use the framework of accumulation and legitimation to suggest corporate and government motives for concealing underlying problems and reinforcing powerful ideologies of individualism, scientism, and centralizing authority. Food safety (or the illusion of safety) is being positioned to secure capital rather than public welfare. We propose implementing the principle of subsidiarity as a more democratic and decentralized alternative. Because full implementation of this principle will be resisted by powerful interests, some promising intermediate steps include peer production or mass collaboration as currently applied to disease prevention and surveillance, as well as studying nascent movements resisting current food safety regulations. (shrink)

The public can influence animal welfare law and regulation. However what constitutes ‘the public’ is not a straightforward matter. A variety of different publics have an interest in animal use and this has implications for the governance of animal welfare. This article presents an ethnographic content analysis of how the concept of a public is mobilized in animal welfare journals from 2003 to 2012. The study was undertaken to explore how experts in the discipline define and regard the role of (...) the public in determining animal welfare standards. Analysis indicates that experts in animal welfare constitute different types of citizen and consumer publics around specific types of animal use, framed by different theories of value. These results suggest a need for greater clarity about the roles and responsibilities of experts and publics in animal welfare reform processes. Clearly citizens and consumers can both contribute to promoting higher welfare standards, but an over-reliance on market mechanisms and consumer behaviour to assign value is beset by moral hazards, foremost being the risk of disarticulating the concept of animal welfare from the public good. (shrink)

Reconstructing the evolution of Gramsci’s judgement about the Russian Revolution implies an overall rethinking of his own relation to Marx as well as to Kant. Already in the spring of 1917, Gramsci foresaw that the February Revolution could become a proletarian revolution and that this would realise in fact Kant’s moral: only a society completely freed from oppression and exploitation would allow people to be free and autonomous. After the fall of the Winter Palace, Gramsci wrote that the revolution happened (...) “against Marx’s Capital”, or better, against its literal interpretation as spread by the positivistic Marxism of the Second International. Between the end of the 1910s and the beginning of the 1920s, Gramsci thought it possible for Italy and the whole of Europe “to do as in Russia”; yet, from 1924, he started elaborating a different vision of the revolution in the Western World, which in the Prison Notebooks became a contraposition between a war of movement and a war of position. At the same time, he developed the concepts of caesarism/bonapartism and passive revolution which allowed the analysis of phenomena such as americanism and fascism from the perspective of a conservative modernisation, or revolution without a revolution. Still, and most of all, Gramsci developed the concept of hegemony, highlighting the importance of the moment of consensus in the fight for gaining and maintaining power. This drew Gramsci quite far from the marxism-leninism of his time, both from the political and theoretical point of view; for instance, he rejected the “ingenuous realism” of Lenin’s Materialism and Empiriocriticism in favour of a phenomenalism explicitly drawn by Kant. (shrink)

This essay aims to introduce Giovanni Gentile to scholars of Gramsci studies broadly and Gramsci‐education studies more specifically. The largest part of the essay explores Gentile's academic life, his philosophical agenda, and his political career. Having established a basis for understanding the educational reform Gentile enacted as Mussolini's first Minister of Public Instruction, the essay then surveys the substantial contemporaneous and contemporary English‐language material about it. The essay engages this literature only lightly and briefly in conclusion, for the primary purpose (...) of illustrating the danger of eschewing it. (shrink)

Based on ethnographic research, this study investigates the meaning and impact of women’s involvement in South Korean evangelicalism. While recent works addressing the “paradox” of women’s participation in conservative religions have highlighted the significance of these religions as unexpected vehicles of gender empowerment and contestation, this study finds that the experiences and consequences of Korean evangelical women’s religiosity are highly contradictory; although crucial in women’s efforts to negotiate the injuries of the modern Confucian-patriarchal family, conversion, for many women, also signifies (...) their effective redomestication to this family/gender regime, which helps maintain current gender arrangements. To address this tension, the article explores the meaning of religious submission in the Korean context, focusing on the motivations behind women’s consent to patriarchy, which are rooted in women’s contradictory desires regarding the family system and the ambivalent subjectivities that they evoke. (shrink)

It has been argued that globalization assists the USA to gain a hegemonic position, allowing it to export its culture. Because this exportation leads to the domination by American culture of the local cultures of importing countries, which are the key element in sustaining their citizens’ national identity, citizens of these countries are unable to protect state sovereignty from this cultural invasion. In order to prevent a political crisis arising from such an invasion, these countries will adopt the strategy of (...) cultural localization. However, this top-down approach overestimates the influence of hegemonic cultures and, thus, overlooks the dynamic nature of cultural development that is generated by people’s agency. This essay rejects this top-down model by arguing that texts cannot dominate people, and that people influence their existence and value. (shrink)

Throughout their history, symbolic interactionism and critical perspective have been viewed as divergent theoretical perspectives with different philosophical underpinnings. A review of their historical and philosophical origins reveals both points of divergence and areas of convergence. Their underlying philosophies of science and views of human freedom are different as is their level of focus with symbolic interactionism having a micro perspective and critical perspective using a macro perspective. This micro/macro difference is reflected in the divergence of their major concepts, goals (...) and basic tenets. While their underlying philosophies are different, however, they are not necessarily contradictory and areas of convergence may include the concepts of reference groups and looking glass self within symbolic interactionism and ideological hegemony within critical perspective. By using a pragmatic approach and combining symbolic interactionism and critical perspectives, both micro and macro levels come into focus and strategies for change across individual and societal levels can be developed and applied. Application of both symbolic interactionism and critical perspective to nursing research and scholarship offers exciting new opportunities for theory development and research methodologies. In nursing education, these two perspectives can give students added insight into patients' and families' problems at the micro level while, at the same time, giving them a lens to see and tools to apply to problems at the macro level in health care. In nursing practice, a combined symbolic interactionism/critical perspective approach assists nurses to give high-quality care at the individual level while also working at the macro level to address the manufacturers of illness. New research questions emerge from this combination of perspectives with new possibilities for theory development, a transformation in nursing education, and the potential for new practice strategies that can address individual client and larger system problems through empowerment of clients and nurses. (shrink)

The influence of liberal political ideology on nursing sciencePrevious notions of science as impartial and value-neutral have been refuted by contemporary views of science as influenced by social, political and ideological values. By locating nursing science in the dominant political ideology of liberalism, the author examines how nursing knowledge is influenced by liberal philosophical assumptions. The central tenets of liberal political philosophy — individualism, egalitarianism, freedom, tolerance, neutrality, and a free-market economy — are primarily manifested in relation to: (i) the (...) individualistic focus of our science; (ii) our view of society as essentially egalitarian and equitable; (iii) our preference for politically neutral knowledge development, and (iv) an economy of knowledge development that supports rather than challenges the status quo. I argue that exposing, rather than ignoring, the liberal ideological values inherent in nursing science will render these assumptions open to debate, stimulate ongoing development of critically oriented knowledge, and increase our capacity to influence the social, political and economic determinants of health. (shrink)

Oriented, descriptively, by recent liberal definitions of populism, this essay pursues a historical-materialist definition that grounds populist antagonisms in class struggles as ‘crystallised’ in the capitalist state. A critical assessment of Laclau’s early equation of populism and socialism inaugurates the reading of Poulantzas’s relational account of class and state as a nascent framework for a theory of populism, centred on the state and its ideological crystallisation of individualisation, the mental/manual-labour division and the ‘people-nation’. This framework is then expanded to articulate (...) the political-economic core of populist antagonisms, the specific character of ‘neoliberal populism’ today, and the potential, in relation to theories of ‘popular politics’ and a ‘communist people’, that left-wing populism might hold as a process of new political productions of class. This reading provides for a more expansive account of such movements’ potentials, beyond a threat to or correction of pre-determined democratic or Marxist schemas. (shrink)

Re-working the Gramscian idea of the ‘organic’ intellectual from the cultural-political sphere to Higher Education (HE), suggests the need to develop critical and questioning ‘counter hegemonic’ ideas and behaviour in community education students. Connecting this reworking to the Habermasian theory of communicative action, suggests that these students also need to learn how to be constructive in developing such knowledge. Working towards critical and constructive capacities is particularly relevant for students who learn through acting in practice settings where general principles and (...) purposes acquired in the academy need to be interpreted in response to the unique demands of specific situations. From a Gramscian perspective, enabling students to develop the qualities of organic intellectuals means that lecturers have a duty to teach critical knowledges which the student will be unfamiliar with and unlikely to possess. If teaching is not to become simply didactic, however, there is also a need to acknowledge Habermas’s contention that all knowledge is contingent. This does not mean that knowledge is merely relative, subjective, or essentially interest serving, as some postmodernists would have it. In Habermasian terms, knowledge is developed through a rigorous process of contesting validity claims according to procedures appropriate to discipline areas. In these procedures, contestation occurs to the point where there is general agreement about the best current understanding, until such time as this is overtaken by ideas with a better claim. The danger is that over commitment to contestation in the classroom undermines subject knowledge and ultimately the authority of the educator. Speaking Habermas to Gramsci, and vice versa, helps socially and politically committed educators to construct a space in which didactic and discursive moments purposefully alternate. (shrink)

The role education plays in society has been contested in the United States since the inception of public education. Historically this contention has produced a delicate balance between promoting the social justice concerns of educating democratic citizens and the disciplinary concerns of individual intellectual development. Teacher preparation programs in American normal schools, colleges, and universities have traditionally struck a similar balance between theory and practice. In the past several decades, however, the rise of neoliberalism in American politics has shifted the (...) balance away from equity, diversity, and inclusivity. The purpose of this study is to provide an account of the lived experiences of teacher candidates with the phenomena of being and becoming “woke” within a teacher education program that reflects neoliberal values but maintains a stated commitment to social justice. This study includes narrative vignettes that explore the phenomenality of “wokeness” as it manifests in the public-school environment and the teacher education program. It also addresses the effects of neoliberalism on teacher candidates’ willingness and ability to take up social justice for themselves, their students, and society. (shrink)

Abstract This article examines major methodological issues in Gramsci?s writings that are relevant for re?thinking contemporary political relationships, by considering his use of the ?particular?. It draws on Gramsci?s notes on Chesterton?s Father Brown stories, including his contrast between ?old? Catholic Europe and ?new? Protestant, positivist America, and discusses Gramsci?s critique of positivism and populism with reference to his writings on the palaeontologist Cuvier and the criminologist Cesare Lombroso. It links Gramsci?s use of details and fragments from diverse sources, Father (...) Brown?s methods, and the practice of psychoanalysis. Gramsci?s criticism of Conan Doyle is contrasted with Freud?s admiration for him. It examines the tensions involved in interrogating seemingly unimportant, ?everyday? material and in engaging with the innate conservatism of popular ?common sense? beliefs, whose ?good sense? is nonetheless the necessary point of departure for mass politics. At the same time it argues that in addressing major social and political issues, the ?general?, universal or hegemonic cannot be derived from the ?particular?. It connects these themes to contemporary questions about the status and objectives of different kinds of knowledge and the split between politics and people. It suggests that Gramsci?s aim to go beyond the dichotomy between rationalism and irrationalism has profound implications both for understanding his writings and for their use in contemporary political analysis. (shrink)

This article provides a sociological explanation for urban “greening,” the normative practice of using everyday signifiers of nature to fix problems with urbanism. Although greening is commonly understood as a reaction against the pathologies of the industrial metropolis, such explanations cannot account for greening’s recurrence across varied social and historical contexts. Through a study of greening in Germany’s Ruhr region, a polycentric urban region that has repeatedly greened in the absence of a traditional city, I argue that greening is made (...) possible by a social imaginary of nature as an indirect or moral good, which I call urbanized nature, that is an outcome of, and subsequently becomes a variable in, urbanization. I draw on processual accounts of urbanization and the sociology of morality to explain urbanized nature’s emergence in the Ruhr at the beginning of the twentieth century, and its use to fulfill two competing visions of urban democracy in the postwar period. I find that rather than an ideological reaction against cities, greening is an aspirational practice that can be mobilized by a range of actors in a variety of places and times. By showing how a new social imaginary made new forms of moral action possible and how those ideals were then materialized in urban space, this article draws attention to the role of cultural imaginaries in urban change and to the material consequences of moral beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper I contrast conceptions of self from two perspectives: an individualistic orientation and a communitarian approach. In doing so, the philosophical justification is Wittgenstein’s idea that individualism is produced and reinforced as a way of being, thinking and interacting in community. With this contextual frame, I argue that we are shaped by the language practices of our community to ascribe meaning and interpret our own relationships with others through our language lexicon and grammar. To illustrate the communitarian perspective (...) I refer to Māori perspectives in which connectedness is axiomatic: in particular the concepts of whanaungatanga and whakapapa, as described by Ka’ai and Metge. On the basis that such concepts are predicated on language use, I suggest that we can learn the grammar of engagement in a discursive context that emphasises connectedness just as easily as in one which is founded on separateness. I argue that interacting with an other is to engage with the ideas, beliefs, and values that shape their language, even as we expose our own. Engaging between individualistic and communitarian understandings is presented as learning to bridge language gaps between different social constructs and understandings of reality. (shrink)

Abstract In criticising the Italian idealist philosopher Benedetto Croce ? described by Eric Hobsbawm as the first ?post?Marxist? ? Antonio Gramsci elaborated a distinct theory of history. For Gramsci, philosophers such as Croce developed a subjective account of history based on the progression of philosophical thought rather than problems posed by historical development. This essay develops a ?double reading? of Gramsci. First, it presents an overview of a dominant post?Marxist reading of Gramsci?s approach to historical materialism, which constructs a closed (...) and particularistic understanding of his theory of history. Second, it offers a reading that exposes and unsettles problems within post?Marxism by demonstrating how Gramsci?s focus on changes in social relations threatens the assumptions about both traditional idealism and materialism. It is this theory of history that throws into relief certain features necessary to understanding history as more than just a completely contingent system of articulatory practices. The method of a double reading therefore affords insight into the internal tensions and questionable assumptions of history understood as an association of discourses (first reading). It also avoids developing an account that relies on an ?extrinsic history? of objective forces by combining an appreciation of ethico?political principles alongside economic factors within the struggle over hegemony relevant to contemporary global political economy (second reading). (shrink)

This essay draws upon Gramsci’s understandings of law and of the philosophy of praxis to develop a critical analysis of international law in the constitution and potential revolutionary transformation of the contemporary global political economy. The analysis illustrates the analytical utility of Gramscian conceptions of historical bloc and hegemony in capturing the significance of international law as an effective historical force. It also extends these conceptions, theoretically, by arguing that the global political economy is undergoing a process of juridification in (...) which a commodified legal form provides the template for economic and political regulation. The commodity form theory of law is presented as the key to understanding the significance of international law under the culture of global capitalism. (shrink)