Johns, Lindsay. "In Praise of Dead White Men." PROSPECT MAGAZINE September 23, 2010.

In 2007 a home affairs select committee produced a report about young black boys in the criminal justice system, calling for the department for education and schools to consult with black community groups to make the curriculum more relevant—and to find “content which interests and empowers young black people.” We can safely assume they were not talking about Ovid, Chaucer or Shakespeare.

Sadly, the canon has a serious image problem amongst black people, too. Many see it as the preserve of white public schoolboys, taught in fusty classrooms by doddery Oxbridge tutors. We have been led to see it as whitey’s birthright, not ours. Meanwhile anti-racist educationalists and black community leaders rail against a racist curriculum which does not meet the cultural needs of their students, with some calling for “black schools” in which black culture—rather than an elite white culture—can be taught.

But the literary canon should not be the preserve of any one race. As both a writer of colour and an ardent (but not uncritical) devotee of the canon, I have little time for people who say that black people cannot relate to books written 2,000 years ago by a bunch of dead white guys, or that Maya Angelou is better than Shakespeare. This denies us our shared humanity across racial divides.

Dead white men, the pillars of the western canon, remain supremely relevant to black people in the 21st century, because their concerns are universal. At its best, the canon elucidates the eternal truths at the heart of the human condition. It addresses our common humanity, irrespective of our melanin quotient. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens—all male, all very white and all undeniably very dead. But would anyone be so foolish as to deny their enduring importance? Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Boccacio’s Decameron or Pico’s Oration On The Dignity of Man are as germane to black people as they are to white. There is no apartheid in the philosophical musings of Cicero, no racial segregation in the cosmic grandeur of Dante and no ethnic oppression in the amorous sonnets of Shakespeare. These works can, if given the chance, speak as much to Leroy in Peckham or Shaniqua in the South Bronx as they can to Quentin in the home counties. . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/09/in-praise-of-dead-white-men/.

Cfp: Harrison, Christine, and Angeliki Spiropoulou, eds. HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. SYNTHESIS 5 (2012).

Deadlines:

1 December 2010 submission of abstracts
1 February 2011 notification of acceptance
1 October 2011 submission of articles

The ‘turn to history’, witnessed in both literary studies and literature since the 1980s, has ensued in part from new developments in the theory of history itself, which have stressed the relevance of literature for history and the affinity of historiography with fictional narration, long suppressed by historiography’s traditional empirical status and positivist claim to truth (c.f. the groundbreaking work of Hayden White and Paul Ricoeur, as well as that of Michel Foucault, Stephen Greenblatt and Dominick LaCapra, for example). The turn to history has, inversely, also derived from an acknowledgement of the need to take into account the historicity of the historiographical, literary and critical acts. Fredric Jameson, for example, contributed to the elaboration of a sophisticated notion of historicity in the field of literary studies in the early 80s, and at much the same time there also appeared ‘new historicist’ and ‘cultural materialist’ trends, inspired by diverse history-based theoretical paradigms.

Simultaneously, and related to the above developments, there has emerged a trend within literature itself of evoking historical epochs, personages and texts of the past, culminating in what Linda Hutcheon has called with reference to fiction ‘historiographical metafiction’, namely a set of texts which exhibits a concern with the historical past and with issues of historiography while retaining an acute language consciousness and a leaning to formal experimentation. Even more recently, over the past decade, both historicist models of criticism and established theorizations of new historical literature have been challenged for some of their presumptions. However, historical literature, and especially fiction, continues to dominate the literary production of the twenty-first century in forms and for reasons that need exploring as they may point to yet newer directions in both literature and the conceptualization of the relationship between history and literature.

We invite contributions that engage with the modes in which contemporary fiction, poetry and drama address, employ and revise history and historiographical practices, and/or discuss new critical trends and theoretical approaches to literature and history. Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:
• New trends and subjects of historiographical representation in contemporary poetry, fiction, drama (e.g., gender and topographical approaches; interrogations of particular historical periods, methodologies and mythologies; challenges to divides between the literary/popular and private/public; contemporary historical literature and realism, modernism, postmodernism)
• Revisions of literary history, the literary canon and traditional literary genres (e.g., the historical novel, historical drama, gothic romance)
• New directions in historical literature and critical approaches since 2000
• National/regional contemporary historical literature
• Re-writings of colonial history and the history of the European periphery (Balkan, Mediterranean) through literature
• Memory, auto/biography, visual material and contemporary literature
• Historical fantasies and utopias of the future
• The past-present dialogue in contemporary theory and literature
• New challenges to recent historicist models and critical taxonomies of contemporary historical literature

Detailed proposals (800-1,000 words) for articles of 6,000- 7,000 words, a short bio (up to 300 words) as well as all inquiries regarding this issue, should be sent to both guest editors: Christine Harrison at and Angeliki Spiropoulou.

For their details please contact:

Mata Dimakopoulou
Faculty of English Studies
University of Athens, Greece
Email: sdimakop@enl.uoa.gr.

Pub: FOUCAULT: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON. SOCIAL IDENTITIES 16.5 (2010).

Introduction

"For Cutting: an Introduction to Foucault, 25 Years On," pp. 583 - 585
Author: Ian Goodwin-Smith

Articles:

"Resisting Foucault: the Necessity of Appropriation," pp. 587 - 596
Author: Ian Goodwin-Smith

"Post-structuralism's Colonial Roots: Michel Foucault," pp. 597 - 606
Author: Pal Ahluwalia

"The Huntsman's Funeral: Targeting the Sensorium," pp. 607 - 619
Author: Ryan Bishop

"The Post-Panoptic Society?  Reassessing Foucault in Surveillance Studies," pp. 621 - 633
Author: Gilbert Caluya

"The Paradoxical After-Life of Colonial Governmentality," pp. 635 - 649
Author: Michael Dutton

"What is an Anti-Humanist Human Right?," pp. 651 - 668
Author: Ben Golder

"Liberalism: Rationality of Government and Vision of History," p. 669 - 673
Author: Barry Hindess

"The Author, Agency and Suicide," pp. 675 - 687
Author: Katrina Jaworski

"A (Con)fusion of Discourses? Against the Governancing of Foucault," pp. 689 - 703
Author: Jim Jose

Book Reviews:

"Aftermaths: Exile, Migration and Diaspora Reconsidered," pp. 705 - 709
Author: Catherine M. Douillet

"Becoming Brazuca: Brazilian Immigration to the United States," pp. 711 - 714
Author: Benito Cao

For more information, visit http://www.informaworld.com/.

Tsohatzidis, Savas L. Review of John Searle, MAKING THE SOCIAL WORLD. NDPR (September 2010).

Searle, John.  Making the Social World: the Structure of Human Civilization.  Oxford: OUP, 2010.

This book will be useful to readers familiar with Searle's work in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, but unacquainted with, and curious to learn about, the 'philosophy of society' that he has been busy building since the mid-nineties. Such readers are offered a lengthy exposition (Chapters 1, 3, 5) of an updated version of the account of institutional facts that was the main theme of Searle's The Construction of Social Reality (1995), as well as shorter discussions (mostly drawing on material already presented in two subsequent books, 2001 and 2007) of what Searle perceives as the implications of his account of institutions on issues pertaining to rational action, free will, political power, and human rights (Chapters 6, 7, 8). The book will also be useful to readers who have developed an interest in Searle's account of institutional reality while lacking sufficient exposure to his philosophies of mind and language, since it includes brief overviews (Chapters 2, 4) of his extensive work in these fields, which he presents as providing the foundations of his account of society. Readers already familiar with Searle's major works on mind, language, and society will probably be mainly interested in considering whether the account of institutional facts he currently adopts differs significantly from the one he had originally proposed, and, if so, whether it places him in a better position than before to attain his stated goals.

Common to Searle's old and new accounts is a conception of institutional facts according to which such a fact (a) cannot exist unless a community collectively accepts it as existing; (b) requires the assignment to an entity of a "status function" (that is, of a function that an entity can only have by virtue of collective recognition, and not merely by virtue of whatever properties it might have prior to such recognition); and (c) characteristically generates, once in existence, "deontic powers" (in particular, rights and obligations) within the community whose behaviour brings it to existence. . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=21469.

Cfp: "(Re)Branding Feminism," Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies (IGRS), University of London, March 1-2, 2011.

There has been a general recognition, if not acceptance, of many of feminism’s key concepts. But does this mean that it has ceased to assert itself as a unique movement? Indeed, should feminism be (re)branded in an age when all ideologies are subject to market forces? And what should this rebranding consist of?

Two years on from the stimulating ‘Where are we now? A workshop on women and heterosexuality’ hosted by the IGRS, this conference will address some of the issues raised then to question the place of feminism in the twenty-first century. While there has been ambivalent press and general apathy towards those issues that once encouraged women to put the political into the personal, it is increasingly women themselves who think there is nothing more to discuss. Why has there been a decline in the link between the personal and the ideological? Do we need a different kind of feminism to meet the cultural, political and academic needs of a younger generation?

Topics might include but are not limited to:

• Are sisters doing it for themselves?
• Feminism on the frontline
• I can be a real bitch
• Family romances
• Home-makers and career women
• God was/is a woman
• Feminism and the sex industry
• Feminist renaissance
• Feminism is bollocks
• Rebranding feminism
• Pub talk

Abstracts between 200-300 words that explore any aspect of (re)branding feminism are sought as are poster submissions of 200 - 300 words on any topic related to rebranding feminism. Submit poster ideas and abstracts in a word document or .pdf.

Please send abstracts and poster ideas to both Jean Owen (ojean27@yahoo.com) and Elisha Foust (elishafoust@googlemail.com) by 5pm 1 October 2010.

Cfp: SPECULATIONS 2.

Speculations, a journal for speculative realist thought, invites submissions for its second volume. Given the intrinsically open and unconstrained nature of the arena for speculative thought which Speculations aims at embodying — and in view of the favourable reception of the inaugural issue — our aim in the second volume is to broaden the range and ambition of the journal. In accordance with speculative realism’s mandate to open philosophy to the richness of reality, we particularly encourage scholars to engage with speculative realism from disciplines beyond philosophy. We therefore welcome papers discussing speculative realism’s renewed philosophical concern with the non-human world from a wide array of disciplines.

Speculations is an open-access and peer-reviewed journal that hopes to provide a forum for the exploration of speculative realism and post-continental philosophy. Our aim is to facilitate discussion about ongoing developments within and around speculative realism. We accept short position papers, full length articles and book reviews.

Potential authors should make sure to go through the ‘Submission Checklist’ before submitting which can be found at: http://speculationsjournal.org/. Articles should be no longer than 8,000 words and follow the Chicago Manual of Style (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html).

The deadline for submission is the 8th of January 2011.

Submissions can be sent to speculationsjournal@gmail.com.

Pub: Frederic Jameson, THE HEGEL VARIATIONS.

Jameson, Frederic. The Hegel Variations: On the Phenomenology of the Spirit. London: Verso, 2010.

In this major new study, the philosopher and cultural theorist Fredric Jameson offers a new reading of Hegel’s foundational text Phenomenology of Spirit. In contrast to those who see the Phenomenology as a closed system ending with Absolute Spirit, Jameson’s reading presents an open work in which Hegel has not yet reconstituted himself in terms of a systematic philosophy (Hegelianism) and in which the moments of the dialectic and its levels have not yet been formalized. Hegel’s text executes a dazzling variety of changes on conceptual relationships, in terms with are never allowed to freeze over and become reified in purely philosophical named concepts. The ending, on the aftermath of the French Revolution, is interpreted by Jameson, contra Fukuyama’s “end of history,” as a provisional stalemate between the political and the social, which is here extrapolated to our own time.

Further information may be found here: http://www.versobooks.com/books/495-the-hegel-variations.

Morris, Michael. Review of Nectarios G. Limnatis, ed. THE DIMENSIONS OF HEGEL'S DIALECTIC. NDPR (September 2010).

Limnatis, Nectarios G., ed.  The Dimensions of Hegel's Dialectic.  London: Continuum, 2010.

In an apt description of the guiding purpose, intended audience, and intellectual context for this collection of essays, editor Nectarios G. Limnatis notes that, "despite the immense and steadily growing Hegel discussion, dialectic is not frequently addressed in a systematic and comprehensive way in the English speaking world" (3). Accordingly, this volume brings together a roughly equal number of contributions from European and American scholars, with the intention of fostering English-language discussion of this central but abstruse Hegelian topic. While some contributions directly connect this topic with recent trends in contemporary Anglophone philosophy, including themes from the works of Wilfred Sellars, Robert Brandom, and John McDowell, other essays situate Hegel's dialectic within more exotic traditions, including negative theology and Heideggerian discussions of onto-theology. Additionally, many essays provide helpful historical context, focusing on the relationship between Hegel's dialectic and various related themes in the works of Kant, Fichte, Hölderlin, Schelling, Reinhold, and Novalis.

This book implicitly raises an important question, one that highlights the significance of the essays it contains, while, at the same time, suggesting some specific challenges these essays must address. Limnatis's pointed observation raises the question: why has the dialectic received so little attention from Anglophone philosophers, particularly those steeped in the analytic tradition?

In part, the answer lies in the history of analytic philosophy itself. If we ignore the role played by distinctly continental traditions in the formation of analytic philosophy, including the work of Frege and the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle, then we might say that analytic philosophy emerged from Russell and Moore's rejection of the British Hegelianism of their elders, the philosophical systems of F.H. Bradley and John McTaggart. Among other things, this involved the rejection of holism, the embrace of realism, and the insistence upon the role of formal systems and linguistic analysis as the primary means for resolving traditional philosophical problems. At least since Quine's "Two Dogmas," however, various kinds of holism have enjoyed a resurgence, and the dominance of rigidly formal, logical, and linguistic approaches to philosophical problems has greatly declined. Moreover, historical scholarship has suggested significant differences between Berkeley's idealism, with its Cartesian starting point, and the more complex and nuanced idealisms of Kant and Hegel, thus correcting certain simplistic conceptions of idealism that can be found in Bradley, McTaggert, and their detractors. Finally, the recent works of McDowell, and the reemergence of certain strands of pragmatism, as represented in the works of Sellars, Rorty, and Brandom, have suggested potential connections between contemporary concerns and the themes of Hegelian philosophy.

However, even if holism, idealism, and non-formal approaches to philosophy now enjoy a more prominent place in the Anglophone world, there remains a potential stumbling block at the heart of Hegel's philosophy: namely, the dialectic, along with Hegel's peculiar conception of the role that contradiction plays within thought and within the very structures of reality itself. It is clear, of course, that contradiction plays an important role in philosophical thought. Insofar as logical coherence provides a necessary -- if not sufficient -- condition for a true philosophical system, philosophical progress often involves both the discovery of latent contradictions within our pre-philosophical assumptions as well as the evaluation of various suggestions for removing these contradictions. If dialectic simply involved the discovery of contradiction within one system of thought and the development of a successor system that eliminates these contradictions, then it would be wholly unobjectionable. However, as many authors in this collection rightly emphasize, contradiction plays a far more complex role in Hegel's dialectic. On the traditional view of philosophical progress already presented, contradictions play a purely negative and ultimately contingent role. Their role is negative, for they merely indicate that we hold some false belief(s). Likewise, their role is contingent, for thought could, in principle, exist without them.

By contrast, contradiction plays a positive and essential role in Hegel's conception of thought, a role that apparently reflects the existence of contradictions in the basic structure of reality itself. Hegel's texts are filled with remarks like the following: "a consideration of everything that is shows that in its own self everything is in its self-sameness different from itself and self-contradictory."[1] Any serious interpretation of Hegel's texts must grapple with repeated claims of this sort. As one contributor to this volume, Dieter Wandschneider, pointedly notes: "Hegel's objective-idealistic program is so closely tied to the possibility of dialectical logic that the program itself stands or falls thereon" (31). Dialectic is not an optional feature of Hegel's philosophy, one we might safely ignore or excise.

In relation to this perplexing topic, we can approach the essays in this volume in terms of three different questions. First, what leads Hegel to make contradiction a central theme in his philosophy? Second, what aspects or interpretations of the dialectic might allow us to avoid the unsettling conclusion that Hegel's philosophy flagrantly violates the principle of non-contradiction? Third, what does Hegel actually mean when he presents contradiction as an essential feature of thought and reality? . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=21408.

McWhorter, John. "Don't Believe the Hype About Aborigines, Yiddish, or Ebonics." THE NEW REPUBLIC September 2, 2010.

Judging from how the Times magazine’s excerpt from Guy Deutscher’s new book has been one of the most read pieces in the paper for over a week now, the book is on its way to libating readers ever eager for the seductive idea that people’s languages channel the way they think--that is, that grammar creates cultural outlooks.

“Oooh-mmmm!” I heard in a room once when a linguist parenthetically suggested that the reason speakers of one Native American language have prefixes instead of words to indicate mixing, poking, and sucking on food is because they are “culturally” attuned to such things.

But don’t we all cherish poking and sucking? As cool as it would be if grammar were thought, the idea is a myth--at least in any form that would be of interest beyond academic psychologists.

Deutscher is to be commended for noting that the original version of this idea has not held up. Fire-inspector-by-day Benjamin Lee Whorf claimed in the thirties that Hopi has no way to indicate tense, and thus created a cyclical sense of time among its speakers. But Hopi has plenty of words and suffixes to indicate tense, and the whole idea that Hopi was a substrate for a mystical frame of mind has fallen to pieces.

But Deutscher’s idea is that a new thread of work is showing that language does create thought patterns nevertheless. The upshot is supposed to be that human groups are going about with their grammatical structures lending them fascinatingly different Ways of Looking at the World.

Deutcher’s favorite evidence is peoples who sense direction not as a matter of front and back but as north, south, east and west. In their languages you say not “in front of me” but “west of me” and so on--meaning that where if we were turned around after saying something was in front of us we’d say that it was now in back of us, speakers of these languages would still say that it was west of them.

Neat. But are these people’s languages making them sensitive to direction rather than position--or is it, as almost anyone would intuit, that the culture focuses on direction and thus the language does? Americans have a plethora of terms referring to psychology--complex, affect, syndrome, superego, compensation. Yet who would say that it’s the English language that makes us sensitive to these things? It sounds like something a Martian anthropologist might come up with, too eager for the exotic to perceive--or settle for--the more mundane truth. . . .

See this post concerning the extract from Deutscher's book to which McWhorter alludes: http://philosophysother.blogspot.com/2010/08/deutscher-guy-does-your-language-shape.html.

Read the rest of McWhorter's piece here: http://www.tnr.com/blog/john-mcwhorter/77631/dont-believe-the-hype-about-aborigines-yiddish-or-ebonics?passthru=NTYzYWMzYjE4YWIxYTA3ZmYwNDA3M2EyNDE0NTM3ODU.

Cfp: "The Early Phenomenology of Munich and Göttingen," Franciscan University of Steubenville, April 29-30, 2011.

Keynote Speakers:

Angela Ales Bello (Pontifical Lateran University)
Dallas Willard (University of Southern California)
Antonio Calcagno (Kings College, UWO)
Alice von Hildebrand (CUNY, Hunter College)

The MA Philosophy Program at Franciscan University of Steubenville invites all scholars working in the area of the early phenomenology to submit abstracts on any topic relevant to the theme of the conference. This encompasses the members of the Munich and Göttingen circles (major and minor figures), their students, their influence, their place within the early period of phenomenology, their relationship to other philosophers, as well as their contributions to the development of the early phenomenology.

For further information, email: mroberts@franciscan.edu.

Cfp: "The Eighteenth Century and the Unconscious," Tenth Annual Workshop, Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Indiana, Bloomington, May 11-13, 2011.

Eighteenth-century studies in many ways emerged from and remains beholden to "the Enlightenment"-a category often understood in terms of rationality, reason, and the exercise of conscious decision making. Reason may be celebrated (see Jonathan Israel) or it may be critiqued (see Horkheimer and Adorno): in either case, it remains central to most accounts of the period. Yet the eighteenth century was also the era of empirical psychology, sentimentalism's triumph, and the emergence of what we now call Romanticism. It may even be the era of the discovery or the invention of the unconscious (Sloterdijk). By focusing on "unconscious" eighteenth centuries, this workshop therefore asks participants to reconsider the relation of reason to un-reason and of theory to historically inclined analyses.

Any mention of the unconscious immediately invites psychoanalytic interpretation. Yet the framework and vocabulary of psychoanalysis were unknown to eighteenth-century protagonists. For the purposes of this workshop, we therefore propose a broad starting definition of the unconscious as that which is unavailable to consciousness: it may be simply invisible or it may be actively produced by some "invisibilizing" mechanism, such as repression, suppression, or forgetting. It may operate within an individual or text, or it may function throughout a culture; its effects may be social, political, legal, literary, pedagogical, or psychological. There may be structurally different forms of unavailability. While the unconscious and its effects may be analyzed in terms derived from Freud, they do not need to be-indeed, it is our hope that this workshop will provoke participants to rethink both their understandings of the eighteenth century and their accounts of conscious and unconscious processes.

We invite participants to be explicit about their methodological choices. Papers might address one or all of the following concerns:

1. Was there an unconscious according to eighteenth-century protagonists; if so, how did it emerge and what functions did it serve?
2. Can we historicize a concept or structure such as the unconscious? What would be gained from doing so? What would be lost?
3. If there is something "eighteenth-century" about current theories of the unconscious, need their origins be found in this period, broadly construed?
4. To what extent do eighteenth-century examples challenge or complicate common models of unconscious life? With its focus on oedipal dramas within the nuclear family has psychoanalysis itself blinded us to the effect of extended families, the importance of social modes of remembering and forgetting, and the emotional work of religious affiliation?

Further information may be found here: http://www.indiana.edu/~voltaire/workshop.html.

Pub: FOUCAULT STUDIES 9 (2010).

Articles:

• "At the Intersection of Sovereignty and Biopolitics: The Di-Polaric Spatializations of Money" by Tero Auvinen, 5-34
• "The Emotional Life of Governmental Power" by Elaine Campbell, 35-53
• "Foucault, Borges, Heterotopia: Producing Knowledge in Other Spaces" by Robert J. Topinka, 54-70
• "Foucault and the Ethics of Eating" by Chloë Taylor, 71-88
• "Apparatuses of Animality: Foucault Goes to a Slaughterhouse" by Stephen Thierman, 89-110

State of the Disciplines:

• "Postcolonial Studies and the Discourse of Foucault: Survey of a Field of Problematization" by Robert Nichols, 111-144

Exchange:

• "Transcendental Philosophy and Critical Philosophy in Kant and Foucault: Response to Colin Koopman" by Colin McQuillan, 145-155
• "Appropriation and Permission in the History of Philosophy: Response to McQuillan" by Colin Koopman, 156-164

Review Essay:

• Ladelle McWhorter, Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America: a Genealogy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009) by Chloë Taylor, Robert Nichols, 165-184

Reviews:

• Paul Veyne, Foucault: Sa pensée, sa personne (Paris: Éditions Albin Michel, 2008) by Alan Milchman, 185-188
• Ed Cohen, A Body Worth Defending: Immunity, Biopolitics and the Apotheosis of the Modern Body (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2009) by Elliot A. Jarbe, 189-193
• Vanessa Lemm, Nietzsche’s Animal Philosophy: Culture, Politics, and the Animality of the Human Being (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009) by Mike McConnell, 194-197
• Joseph J. Tanke, Foucault’s Philosophy of Art: a Genealogy of Modernity (New York: Continuum, 2009) by Dag Petersson, 198-202
• C.G. Prado (ed.), Foucault’s Legacy (London: Continuum International, 2009) by Darryl M. De Marzio, 203-208
• Lynne Huffer, Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009) by Christopher Roman, 209-211
• David Gelernter, Judaism: a Way of Being (New Haven, CT & London: Yale University Press, 2009) by David A. Kaden 212-215
• John Sellars, The Art of Living: the Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy, Second Edition (London: Duckworth/Bristol Classical Paperbacks, 2009) by Antonio Donato, 216-220
• Daniel T. O’Hara, The Art of Reading as a Way of Life: On Nietzsche’s Truth (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2009) by Charles Villet, 221-224
• Mari Ruti, Reinventing the Soul: Posthumanist Theory and Psychic Life (New York: Other Press, 2006) by Marcus Schulzke, 225-227

Download the essays here: http://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/issue/view/398/showToc.

Cfp: "Teaching Narrative and Teaching through Narrative," Nordic Network of Narrative Studies, University of Tampere, May 26-28, 2011.

The conference is organized to explore the broad interface of narrative theory, literary pedagogy, and the uses of narrative as a tool for teaching and distributing knowledge in diverse disciplinary fields. A special feature of the conference will be a series of workshops devoted to close analysis of particular narrative texts – fictional as well as non-fictional – which are studied together by the participants from varying theoretical angles.

Plenary Speakers:

Professor Jens Brockmeier (University of Manitoba and Free University of Berlin)
Professor Rita Charon (Columbia University)
Professor Leona Toker (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Visit the conference website here: http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/taide/teaching_narrative.html.

Robinson, Julie. "Book Review: THE SOUTHERN CRITICS." WASHINGTON TIMES September 10, 2010.

Arbery, Glenn C., ed.  The Southern Critics: an Anthology.  Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2010.

A Southern critic by any other name would be an Agrarian or Fugitive. Four of the writers featured in this book defended their way of life against modernity 80 years ago at Vanderbilt University in "I'll Take My Stand." The others given voice here are literary critics, writers of fiction, poets and teachers. They never apologize for the South but shelter and uphold the best of their heritage. . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/10/book-review-the-southern-critics//.

Premiere: THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY VOLUME ONE BY MICHEL FOUCAULT: AN OPERA. Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna. October 1 and 2, 2010.

The History of Sexuality Volume One by Michel Foucault: an Opera is a work-in-progress adopting the dramatic musical form to stage the major themes and philosophical insights of one of the most influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. In this adaption of Foucault´s great work, the philosopher will encounter one student, two rivals, and a sworn enemy - perhaps all of them are ghosts. Nothing less than a grand opera is required to stage the epochal theory of self-emancipation that is Michel Foucault´s unique legacy. The performance will be set against a backdrop drawn from Foucault´s biographical details; including his activism on behalf of prisoners´ rights, and his death from AIDS.

For more information, visit: http://www.mumok.at/program/events/the-history-of-sexuality-volume-one/?L=1.

11th Annual Conference on Caribbean Literature, Morehouse College, Purdue University Calumet and University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, November 3-5, 2010.

You are invited to join Morehouse College, Purdue University Calumet, and the University of the West Indies (St. Augustine Campus) for the 11th International Conference on Caribbean Literature, to be held in Port of Spain, Trinidad, West Indies, on November 3-5, 2010. Papers may be presented (in English, French, or Spanish) on any aspect of Caribbean literature and culture. This year’s ICCL will celebrate the literary vision of Trinidadian Earl Lovelace (on the occasion of his 75th birthday) and commemorate the artistic legacy of the late Honorable Rex Nettleford of Jamaica. Among other signature ICCL activities, the conference will also feature a literary study tour of Trinidad and Tobago.

Visit http://www.icclconference.com/ for information regarding keynote speakers, registration, airfare, hotel accommodations, etc.

Download the programme here: http://icclconference.org/2010schedule.html.

"Caribbean Globalizations: Histories, Cultures and Genres, 1493 to the Present Day," Oriel College, University of Oxford, September 27-29, 2010.

This conference aims to map and analyse the multiple engagements of various Caribbean countries with the complex and vexed process that is ‘globalization' since 1493 (when Columbus landed in Guadeloupe). The region has undoubtedly been the source of a number of the literary-critical paradigms by which we understand this process. Examples of these include: ‘Créolité', ‘creolisation', ‘la relation', ‘the Commonwealth', ‘world literature', ‘the Black Atlantic' and ‘littérature-monde'. However, as the recent disturbances in Guadeloupe and Martinique have suggested, Caribbean countries are also actively rethinking their own identity and place in a world where the Western economic model of globalization is more in question than ever. Similarly, in the cultural sphere, the effects of this process on the region have been the subject of a growing and divergent debate.

‘Caribbean globalizations' seeks to make an intervention in this debate by focussing critical attention on the differing engagements with globalization produced in the Caribbean cultural field. The cultural field has long been a particularly fertile arena for Caribbean globalizations. The diversity that characterizes the cultural and social realities of the region – arguably forged in the context of earlier forms of globalizations – has been an enduring source of inspiration for Caribbean artists, writers, and intellectuals. At the same time, their work has expressed a preoccupation with generating theoretical and aesthetic frameworks – globalization being, perhaps the first among equals – to account for the specificities of their societies as well as the shifting range of ‘relations' that these societies maintain both within and beyond the ‘Caribbean region'. The conference aims therefore to foster a wide-ranging discussion of the possibilities presented by Caribbean cultural production for reflecting upon and re-imagining the idea of globalization. It will seek to explore the multiple engagements with – and representations of – this phenomenon by Caribbean writers, artists, and intellectuals and, as such, interdisciplinary and comparative approaches (bringing together the different languages spoken in the region) are encouraged.

The following themes will serve as starting points to guide the process of reflection and the expectation is that they would be interpreted as broadly as possible:

• Histories: How do Caribbean artists, writers, and intellectuals represent and situate globalization within the history of the region? What alternative histories of globalization are presented in their works? How is the idea of a Caribbean ‘history' itself represented?
• Geographies: How can the ‘Caribbean region' be defined? What types of geographies do Caribbean artists create and enact in their work? How do these engage with and/or re-shape current geographical configurations of the ‘West' and ‘the Caribbean', the ‘Mother country' or the ‘metropolitan space' and ‘the colonies', ‘home' and ‘adopted country', in a globalized world
• Languages: What role does language play in the processes of Caribbean globalization? To what extent does it challenge or uphold traditional dichotomies between ‘mother tongue' and ‘foreign tongue'?
• Cultures: How are the relations between globalization and the culture of the Caribbean to be understood? To what extent are notions of ‘highbrow' and ‘lowbrow', ‘indigenous' and ‘foreign', ‘local' and ‘global' challenged or re-configured?
• Genres: To what extent are traditional generic categories respected, challenged or re-invented by Caribbean artists and intellectuals? Can such engagements be situated historically and culturally within the processes of globalization?
• Identities: How is a globalized Caribbean identity represented and re-imagined? And how is ‘globalization' itself to be defined in a Caribbean context?
• Theories: What is the role of ‘theory' in defining ‘the Caribbean' and/or its relationship to the globalized world? To what extent are distinctions between ‘indigenous theories' and ‘foreign borrowings' relevant?

Further information may be found here: http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article34195.php.

Cfp: "Dialogue and Representation," 13th International Conference on Dialogue Analysis, International Association for Dialogue Analysis, Université de Montréal, April 26-30, 2011.

We invite researchers to submit proposals that address the connections of representation and dialogue, which can be problematized in at least the three following ways: 1. Dialogue as representation, 2. Normative perspectives on dialogue/representation issues, and 3. Representations of dialogue. The conference also welcomes any contribution addressing the question of dialogue. The notion of dialogue is not restricted to a specific view of dialogue nor to a particular model but covers the whole range of language use including approaches based on other concepts such as conversation, discourse or social interaction. The following premises are considered to be common ground, even though they may also be discussed: (1) Language is primarily used for communication, (2) Communication is always dialogic. Based on this inclusive acceptation of the notion of dialogue, we hope that many scholars and students will be interested in participating in this unique conference.

Keynote Speakers:

Éric Grillo (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)
Cornelia Ilie (Malmö University)
Alain Létourneau (Université de Sherbrooke)
Wolfgang Teubert (University of Birmingham)
Karen Tracy (U. of Colorado at Boulder)
Edda Weigand (University of Münster)

Visit the conference website here: http://www.dialogue-representation.org/v2/anglais/index.html.

Cfp: Symposium on Queer and Feminist Narrative Theories, Sponsored by Project Narrative, Ohio State University, May 12-14, 2011.

The symposium is motivated by the question, “What are the theoretical principles driving current work on gender and narrative or sexuality and narrative?” Twenty-five years after the first feminist narratologists brought cultural context to bear on the formal analysis of texts, theorists and critics continue coming to new insights about gender, sexuality, and sexual identity through the study of narrative. This symposium brings together scholars in literature, performance studies, and popular culture who are interested in the ways narrative represents, structures, and constitutes gender and sexuality, and vice versa.

This is to be an all-plenary symposium, featuring nine 30-minute speakers and three round tables on “burning questions” in the field. The Symposium will break for two hours on Saturday into seminar groups to discuss work in progress by senior scholars. We seek proposals for 30-minute talks to be followed by 30 minutes of plenary discussion.

The question to consider as you think about what you might contribute is simply, “What is queer and/or feminist about the work I am doing on narrative right now? Or, what is narrative-theoretical about the work I am doing on gender and/or sexuality?” Broadly theoretical papers and close analyses of texts would be equally welcome, as long as the close readings lead up to a generalizable point about queer and/or feminist narrative or narrative theories. Any topic in literary or cultural studies is appropriate.

Send 500-word proposal and 2-page c.v. to Robyn Warhol at warhol.1@osu.edu.

Cfp: "Animals and Prison." Special Issue of JOURNAL FOR CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES.

The connection between nonhuman animals and incarceration discourses has never been more intimately associated. It seems one cannot discuss animal liberation without conversing about prison, whether that be in the form of imprisoned nonhuman animals or human prisoners incarcerated for their role in liberating nonhuman animals. As activists continue to be sentenced under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, prison becomes more realty than metaphor in human-animal studies. At the recent Let Live Animal Rights Conference in Portland, Oregon, former political prisoner Andy Stepanian served as the opening speaker. The synopsis of his talk asks, “what if you closed your eyes and woke up a prisoner? What if you were estranged from your family and labeled a convict? What if you lived your entire life in a cage? What if you were convicted and imprisoned for trying to set beings free from their cages?” It’s unclear whether he is speaking about nonhuman animals or his own incarceration, which is exactly the point. We are at a critical moment in history with mass incarceration and mass exploitation of nonhuman animals. This issue seeks to illuminate connections between animals and prison and to generate new ways of thinking through and tackling nonhuman and human oppression.

Possible Areas of Inquiry:

· Policing bodies
· Prison industrial complex and mass animal agriculture production
· History of prison reform and rise of the animal rights movement
· Nonhuman animal prisoners/ human prisoners
· Invisibility and incarcerated hidden populations
· Nonhuman animals in human prisons, such as dog training programs
· Linked oppressions
· Connection of race, animals and prison culture
· Prison abolition/animal abolition movements
· Discourse of prison in animal liberation material
· Capitalism and the animal/military//agricultural industrial complexes
· Caging, control, domination and power

Deadline: April 15, 2011

For further information, visit the Institute for Critical Animal Studies at: http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/?page_id89.

Annual Congress, Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy, University of Alberta, October 14-16, 2010.

Keynote Speakers:

• John Protevi (Louisiana State University), “Deleuze and Enactive Biology: Towards a New Transcendental Aesthetic”
• François Raffoul (Louisiana State University), “The Origins of Responsibility”
• Robert Burch (University of Alberta), “‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ Reflections on the Form of a Finite Philosophy”
• Samir Gandesha (Simon Fraser University), “Three Logics of the Aesthetic in Marx”
• Karyn Ball (University of Alberta), “Precarious Civility”

Invited Speakers:

• Sarah Allen (Concordia University), “Levinas on Neutrality: From Ethics to Social Justice”
• Jean-François Bissonnette (Université d’Ottawa), « Savoir, pouvoir et inconscient : la critique foucaldienne de la psychanalyse »
• Elodie Boublil (McGill University), « La notion de Heimat chez Heidegger : l’Ister de Hölderlin ou le site de l’appropriation (Ereignis) »
• Martin Desrosiers (Université de Montréal), « Le zoo adornien »
• Maxime Doyon (McGill University), “Husserl’s Idealism Reconsidered”
• Vincent Duhamel (Université de Montréal), “Self-Consciousness, Expression and Work in Hegel”
• Charlene Elsby (McMaster University), “The Phenomenal Present”
• Krystal Kreye (The New School), “Benjamin, Foucault and Historiography”
• Justin Marquis (Loyola University Chicago), “Nietzsche’s Cartesian Meditation: A Skeptical Argument in Beyond Good and Evil”
• Scott Marratto (University of King’s College), “‘Self-Touching-You’: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida on Double Sensation”
• Amhed Abdel Meguid (Emory University), “The Aesthetic Subject and the Place of the Human in Kant: Revisiting the Critique of Judgment in Light of Heidegger’s Nietzsche Lectures”
• Daniel Mullin (Institute for Christian Studies), “Politics of the Sublime: Adorno contra Kant and Habermas”
• Felix Ó Murchadha (National University of Ireland, Galway), “Phenomenology and Skepticism”
• Radu Neculau (University of Windsor), “Hegel, Nietzsche, and Crowd Psychology”
• Pierre-François Noppen (Université de Montréal), “The Marxian Model: Materialism and Critique in Adorno”
• Christophe Perrin (Université Paris-Sorbonne), « Heidegger ou la défense et l’illustration de Descartes »
• Kristin Rodier (University of Alberta), “De Beauvoir and the Possibility of Materialist Feminism”
• Xander Selene (Université de Montréal), “A Philosophy that Imitates Art? Theodor W. Adorno’s Configuration-Construction”

Visit the conference website here: http://www.c-scp.org/en/congress-parent/congress.html.

Sheth, Falguni A. Review of Ann Ferguson, et al., eds. DANCING WITH IRIS. NDPR (September 2010).

Ferguson, Ann, and Mechthild Nagel, eds.  Dancing with Iris: the Philosophy of Iris Marion Young.  Oxford: OUP, 2009.

This collection of 18 essays is an intellectual tribute to the presence and thought of Iris Marion Young, a philosopher who wrote across a broad spectrum of topics. Young, who died in July 2006, wrote notably about feminist phenomenology, ethics and social justice, democratic theory, global justice and security. The essays, divided into five sections, engage with and challenge the full range of Young's work in philosophy. They reflect the editors' multifaceted relationship to Young and her work. Since it is not possible to review all eighteen essays, I will discuss a selection of themes and essays from each section. . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=21308.

Book Series: Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism / Jenseits des Humanismus: Trans- und Posthumanismus (Peter Lang).

Humanism, which is characterized by the special status of human beings within the world, i.e. human beings do not differ gradually but categorically from other natural beings, is in a crisis. It gets attacked from various directions. Basically, it is possible to distinguish two main movements which try to transcend Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism. In the book series „Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism/Jenseits des Humanismus: Trans- und Posthumanismus“, monographs and essay collections can get published which discuss aspects of this range of topics historically or systematically.

Editorial Board Members:

• Prof. Dr. H. James Birx, Anthropology, Canisus College, SUNY Geneseo, USA
• Prof. Dr. Irina Deretic, Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Dr. James J. Hughes, Sociology, Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Lecturer, Public Policy Studies, Trinity College, Associate Editor, Journal of Evolution and Technology, USA
• Prof. Dr. Evi Sampanikou, Art History, University of the Aegean, Greece
• Prof. Dr. Domna Pastourmatzi, American Literature, University of Thessaloniki, Greece

The book series 'Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism/Jenseits des Humanismus: Trans- und Posthumanismus' is being published by the international publishing house Peter Lang: http://www.peterlang.net/.

"Humanism / Anti-Humanism: Philosophical Perspectives," 2010 Spring Philosophy Workshop, Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy, University of Melbourne, October 1, 2010.

Since the end of the Second World War, an unmistakable feature of much moral, juridical and political discourse has been the near-constant appeal to “humanity” as the yardstick and sometimes the source of value, justice and “right”.

But what do we mean today when we speak of “humanity”? What image or concept of the human is invoked when we talk of “human rights”, or “humanitarian” intervention, (or, as in philosophy, of “human finitude”?) More importantly: what is the effect of our notions of and appeals to “the human” in the legal, metaphysical and ethical situations in which these ideas are not only invoked but deployed?

This year’s MSCP Spring workshop on the topic of “humanism” and “anti-humanism” in modern European thought will engage with these topics and many more. The panel will take the work of philosophers as the point of departure for a wide-ranging discussion of humanity and the inhuman, immanence and transcendence, finitude and infinity, as these oppositions are played out in the arenas of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and, in particular, politics.

From Emmanuel Levinas’s “humanism of the other man”, to Ray Brassier’s meditation on the power of thought and its relation to human extinction, we will address the question: can humanism have anything to say to the citizens of the twenty-first century? If so, which parts of its message should we listen to?

Participants:

• Dr Geoff Boucher, Deakin University
• Bryan Cooke, Social Theory, University of Melbourne
• Dr Cameron Shingleton, MSCP
• Ricki Sebold, Latrobe University
• Dr Andrea Leon-Monterro, MSCP
• Dr Matthew Sharpe (Chair), Deakin University

Questions?

admin@mscp.org.au;
publicity@mscp.org.au.

The Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy is an independent teaching and research group housed in the Philosophy Department at the University of Melbourne. The MSCP teaches philosophy courses at its annual summer and winter schools. Please see the website for details and join our mailing list to be notified of upcoming MSCP events and philosophical activity in the community: http://www.mscp.org.au/.

Allen, Amy. Review of Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch, et al., eds. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RECOGNITION. NDPR (September 2010).

Schmidt am Busch, Hans-Christoph, and Christopher F. Zurn, eds.  The Philosophy of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.  Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010.

Over the last two decades, the concept of recognition has become central to debates within two distinct intellectual contexts: contemporary social and political philosophy, on the one hand, and history of philosophy, of German Idealism in particular, on the other. The goal of The Philosophy of Recognition: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives is, as the subtitle suggests, to bring together essays by scholars working both within and across these two areas of recognition theory. As Christopher Zurn explains in his insightful and substantial introduction to the volume, the editors organized the book in this way because they

are convinced that progress in the philosophy of recognition will only be made through careful attention to the insights available from the past combined with scrupulous attention to both the specific character of contemporary debates in moral, social, and political philosophy and contemporary moral, social, and political life itself.  (1)

Given this aim, it is not surprising that Axel Honneth's work is at the heart of this volume. For, more than any other contemporary recognition theorist, Honneth has developed his theory in conversation with both historians of philosophy -- in particular, Hegel scholars -- and contemporary social and political theorists -- in particular, critical social theorists. Like Honneth, Zurn aligns the project of recognition theory with that of critical theory, claiming that the former can be understood as "a systematic constellation of moral theory, social theory, and political analysis" which "reanimates the tradition of a critical diagnosis of the social pathologies of the present" (11). In light of this collection's focus on the relationship between recognition and critical theory, in general, and on Honneth's work, in particular, it should be of great interest not only to anyone interested in the concept of recognition, but also to all those interested in the current direction of critical theory.

In addition to Zurn's introduction, the volume contains fourteen essays, seven of which have more of a historical focus and seven of which have more of a contemporary focus, though several of the essays do, indeed, bridge that divide in interesting ways. The editors chose not to divide the volume up into distinct sections, perhaps as a way of avoiding the temptation to introduce potentially misleading or invidious distinctions between historical and contemporary approaches to the topic. And yet that decision has the side effect of leaving the thematic connections between the essays and the organizational structure of the volume as a whole for the reader to discern for herself. Zurn's introduction explains with admirable clarity the historical and intellectual context for contemporary recognition theory, argues convincingly for the importance of the concept of recognition given the state of current debates in moral, social, and political philosophy and provides incisive synopses of each of the individual essays. . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=21328.

Pub: Ruth Wodak, et al., eds. THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS.

Wodak, Ruth, Barbara Johnstone and Paul E. Kerswill, eds.  The Sage Handbook of Sociolinguistics.  London: Sage, 2010.

Table of Contents
Introduction – Ruth Wodak, Barbara Johnstone & Paul Kerswil

PART ONE: HISTORY OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS
1. Ferguson and Fishman: Sociolinguistics and the Sociology of Language - Bernard Spolsky
2. Labov: Language Variation and Change - Kirk Hazen
3. Bernstein: Codes and Social Class - Gabrielle Ivinson
4. Dell Hymes and the Ethnography of Communication - Barbara Johnstone and William M. Marcellino
5. Gumperz and Interactional Sociolinguistics - Cynthia Gordon

PART TWO: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SOCIAL THEORY
6. Social Stratification - Christine Mallinson
7. Social Constructionism - Anthea Irwin
8. Symbolic Interactionism, Erving Goffman, and Sociolinguistics - Shari Kendall
9. Ethnomethodology and Membership Categorization Analysis - Robert Garot & Tim Berard
10. The Power of Discourse and the Discourse of Power - José Antonio Flores Farfán & Anna Holzscheiter
11. Globalization Theory and Migration - Stef Slembrouck
12. Semiotics - Paul Kockelman

PART THREE: LANGUAGE VARIATION AND CHANGE
13. Individuals and Communities - Norma Mendoza-Denton
14. Social Class - Robin Dodsworth
15. Social Network - Eva Vetter
16. Sociolinguistic Approaches to Language Change: Phonology - Paul Kerswill
17. Social Structure, Language Contact and Language Change - Peter Trudgill
18. Sociolinguistics and Formal Linguistics - Gregory Guy
19. Attitudes, Ideology and Awareness - Tore Kristiansen
20. Historical sociolinguistics - Terttu Nevalainen
21. Fieldwork Methods in Language Variation - Walt Wolfram

PART FOUR: INTERACTION
22. Sociolinguistic Potentials of Face-to-Face Interaction - Helga Kotthoff
23. Doctor-Patient Communication - Florian Menz
24. Discourse and Schools - Luisa Martín Rojo
25. Courtroom Discourse - Susan Ehrlich
26. Analysing Conversation - Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen & Diana Slade
27. Narrative Analysis - Alexandra Georgakopoulou
28. Gender and Interaction - Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou
29. Interaction and the Media - Brigitta Busch & Petra Pfisterer

PART FIVE: MULTILINGUALISM AND CONTACT
30. Societal Bilingualism - Mark Sebba
31. Code-switching/mixing - Peter Auer
32. Language Policy and Planning - Anne-Claude Berthoud & Georges Lűdi
33. Language Endangerment - Julia Sallabank
34. Global Englishes - Alastair Pennycook

PART SIX: APPLICATIONS
35. Forensic Linguistics - Malcolm Coulthard, Tim Grant & Krzysztof Kredens
36. Language Teaching and Language Assessment - Constant Leung
37. Guidelines for Non-Discriminatory Language Use - Marlis Hellinger
38. Language, Migration and Human Rights - Ingrid Piller & Kimie Takahashi
39. Literacy Studies - David Barton & Carmen Lee

For  further information, visit: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book232327

Paglia, Camille. "Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex." SUNDAY TIMES September 12, 2010.

Lady Gaga is the first major star of the digital age. Since her rise, she has remained almost continually on tour. Hence, she is a moving target who has escaped serious scrutiny. She is often pictured tottering down the street in some outlandish get-up and fright wig. Most of what she has said about herself has not been independently corroborated… “Music is a lie”, “Art is a lie”, “Gaga is a lie”, and “I profusely lie” have been among Gaga’s pronouncements, but her fans swallow her line whole…

She constantly touts her symbiotic bond with her fans, the “little monsters”, who she inspires to “love themselves” as if they are damaged goods in need of her therapeutic repair. “You’re a superstar, no matter who you are!” She earnestly tells them from the stage, while their cash ends up in her pockets. She told a magazine with messianic fervour: “I love my fans more than any artist who has ever lived.” She claims to have changed the lives of the disabled, thrilled by her jewelled parody crutches in the Paparazzi video.

Although she presents herself as the clarion voice of all the freaks and misfits of life, there is little evidence that she ever was one. Her upbringing was comfortable and eventually affluent, and she attended the same upscale Manhattan private school as Paris and Nicky Hilton. There is a monumental disconnect between Gaga’s melodramatic self-portrayal as a lonely, rebellious, marginalised artist and the powerful corporate apparatus that bankrolled her makeover and has steamrollered her songs into heavy rotation on radio stations everywhere.

Lady Gaga is a manufactured personality, and a recent one at that. . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/magazine/article389697.ece.

Paglia, Camille. "No Sex, Please, We're Middle Class." NEW YORK TIMES June 26, 2010.

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own? Although a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently rejected an application to market the drug flibanserin in the United States for women with low libido, it endorsed the potential benefits and urged further research. Several pharmaceutical companies are reported to be well along in the search for such a drug.

The implication is that a new pill, despite its unforeseen side effects, is necessary to cure the sexual malaise that appears to have sunk over the country. But to what extent do these complaints about sexual apathy reflect a medical reality, and how much do they actually emanate from the anxious, overachieving, white upper middle class? . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27Paglia.html?_r=1.

"Et Si Foucault N'Avait Pas Tort?," Five Seminars, Institut de Recherches Philosophiques de Lyon, September 2010-January 2011.

The Institut de Recherches Philosophiques de Lyon (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3) has put together a seminar focusing on Foucault’s work on psychiatry and its relevance today . The seminar will encompass five meetings running from September 2010 to January 2011 and is open to anyone interesed.

• 16 septembre de 18h à 20h.  "La méthode Foucault" par Dr Boulay et Catherine Dekeuwer
• 21 octobre de 18h à 20h.  "La folie" par Dr Giloux et Claude Olivier Doron
• 4 novembre de 18h à 20h.  "Foucault et la psychanalyse" par J. Lecaux et Elisabetta Basso
• 16 décembre de 18h à 20h.  "La normalité" par Dr Varagnat et Roland Chvetzoff
• 06 janvier de 18h à 20h.  "La sécurité" par Dr E. Venet et Arnaud Sourty

For further information, visit: http://historypsychiatry.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/seminar-et-si-foucault-navait-pas-tort/.

"Imagination and Imaginings," Universitaet Tuebingen, November 5-6, 2010.

This workshop is dedicated to the philosophical investigation of the imagination as a mental capacity and the nature of imaginings. We would like to concentrate on the following key issues: Can we formulate a unified theory of imaginings and what would such a theory look like? What is the
nature and common feature of all and only imaginings? What is the impact of such a theory on the architecture of the mind, on the relation of imaginability, conceivability and possibility, and on the debate about mental imagery?

Speakers:

Margherita Arcangeli (Institut Jean Nicod Paris)
Anne-Sophie Brueggen (Universitaet Bochum)
Jérôme Dokic (Institut Jean Nicod Paris)
Fabian Dorsch (University of Fribourg)
Frank Hofmann (Universitaet Tuebingen)
Jonathan Ichikawa (Arché, St Andrews)
Amy Kind (Claremont McKenna College)
Markus Kneer (Institut Jean Nicod Paris)
Kathleen Stock (University of Sussex)

Contact Anne-Sophie Brueggen: anne-sophie.brueggen@gmx.net.

Davis, Bret W. Review of Richard Capobianco, ENGAGING HEIDEGGER. NDPR (September 2010).

Capobianco, Richard. Engaging Heidegger. Foreword by William J. Richardson. Toronton: U of Toronto P, 2010.

On numerous occasions throughout his life, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) stated that his abiding philosophical concern was with "the question of Being." And yet, oddly, this question has been somewhat marginalized in much of recent scholarship on Heidegger. Indeed, when discussing last year a then forthcoming volume on Heidegger's "key concepts," I was asked by a colleague from Germany, with more than a tinge of irony, "Are you including anything on the question of Being?" Without diminishing the significance of investigations into the relevance of Heidegger's thought to everything from cognitive science to environmental ethics, it is perhaps high time for Heidegger scholars to also return their attention to his fundamental question of Being. This is exactly what Richard Capobianco does, especially in the first two chapters of his concise volume, Engaging Heidegger, a volume that is refreshing for its clarity and scholarly precision.[1] In the remaining chapters of his book, Capobianco variously attends to the matter that, for Heidegger, the question of Being (Sein) always entails at the same time the question of human being (Dasein). . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=21268.

Cfp: "Thinking About Animals," 10th Annual Conference, Institute of Critical Animal Studies, Department of Sociology, Brock University, March 31-April 1, 2011.

This two-day conference will explore a variety of issues concerning the current and historical situation of nonhuman animals and interactions with humans.

We are especially pleased to be hosting this conference in association with the Institute of Critical Animal Studies as the 10th annual ICAS conference. As with past conferences, we welcome participation from both activists and academics. The conference will be completely vegan.

We will consider proposals on any relevant topics but some suggestions include:

• Animal exploitation industries (economic, environmental, ethical aspects)
• Analyzing Industry Propaganda
• Undercover investigations
• Anarchy and animals
• Animals in War
• Current campaigns and issues in animal rights activism
• Sanctuaries
• Humane education
• Horse Slaughter in Canada: Cashing in on US Legislation
• Captivity: Animals in zoos and ?marine parks?
• Vivisection and animals in scientific research
• Biotechnology and animals
• Historical understandings of animals
• Animal rights history
• Animal rights and social justice
• Wildlife conservation and animal protection
• Companion animals
• Veganism and Vegetarianism
• Meat and gender identities
• Animals, labour and the working class
• Compassion, empathy, solidarity
• Animals and human identities
• Wildlife trade
• Social construction of animals
• What animals think
• Images of animals and animal activists
• Developing animal rights activism and creating cultures of compassion

Please send a short proposal (2-3 paragraphs or enough details to describe your idea) to: ac2011@brocku.ca.  Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2011.

Nehamas, Alexander. "Plato's Pop Culture Problem, and Ours." NEW YORK TIMES August 29, 2010.

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on a case that may have the unusual result of establishing a philosophical link between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Plato.

The case in question is the 2008 decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down a California law signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2005, that imposed fines on stores that sell video games featuring “sexual and heinous violence” to minors. The issue is an old one: one side argues that video games shouldn’t receive First Amendment protection since exposure to violence in the media is likely to cause increased aggression or violence in real life. The other side counters that the evidence shows nothing more than a correlation between the games and actual violence. In their book “Grand Theft Childhood,” the authors Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson of Harvard Medical School argue that this causal claim is only the result of “bad or irrelevant research, muddleheaded thinking and unfounded, simplistic news reports.”

The issue, which at first glance seems so contemporary, actually predates the pixel by more than two millennia. In fact, an earlier version of the dispute may be found in “The Republic,” in which Plato shockingly excludes Homer and the great tragic dramatists from the ideal society he describes in that work.

Could Plato, who wrote in the 4th century B.C., possibly have anything to say about today’s electronic media? As it turns out, yes, It is characteristic of philosophy that even its most abstruse and apparently irrelevant ideas, suitably interpreted, can sometimes acquire an unexpected immediacy. And while philosophy doesn’t always provide clear answers to our questions, it often reveals what exactly it is that we are asking. . . .

Read the rest here: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/platos-pop-culture-problem-and-ours/.

Shea, Christopher. "The End of Tenure." NEW YORK TIMES September 3, 2010.

In tough economic times, it’s easy to gin up anger against elites. The bashing of bankers is already so robust that the economist William Easterly has compared it, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole, to genocidal racism. But in recent months, a more unlikely privileged group has found itself in the cross hairs: tenured ­professors.

.At a time when nearly one in 10 American workers is unemployed, here’s a crew (the complaint goes) who are guaranteed jobs for life, teach only a few hours a week, routinely get entire years off, dump grading duties onto graduate students and produce “research” on subjects like “Rednecks, Queers and Country Music” or “The Whatness of Books.” Or maybe they stop doing research altogether (who’s going to stop them?), dropping their workweek to a manageable dozen hours or so, all while making $100,000 or more a year. Ready to grab that pitchfork yet?

That sketch — relayed on numerous blogs and op-ed pages — is exaggerated, but no one who has observed the academic world could call it entirely false. And it’s a vision that has caught on with an American public worried about how to foot the bill for it all. The cost of a college education has risen, in real dollars, by 250 to 300 percent over the past three decades, far above the rate of inflation. Elite private colleges can cost more than $200,000 over four years. Total student-loan debt, at nearly $830 billion, recently surpassed total national credit card debt. Meanwhile, university presidents, who can make upward of $1 million annually, gravely intone that the $50,000 price tag doesn’t even cover the full cost of a year’s education. (Consider the balance a gift!) Then your daughter reports that her history prof is a part-time adjunct, who might be making $1,500 for a semester’s work. There’s something wrong with this picture. . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/books/review/Shea-t.html?_r=2&src=me&ref=general.

Pub: PRESENT TENSE: A JOURNAL OF RHETORIC IN SOCIETY 1.1 (2010).

Welcome to the Inaugural Issue: In the summer of 2009 we set out to create an academic journal that would address contemporary and timely rhetorical issues through short, online articles. Volume 1, Issue 1 accomplishes this goal by providing seven pieces that analyze emerging rhetorics in a variety of institutional and public contexts.

"Turning Composition toward Sovereignty" by John Schilb: “We don’t seem to be writing much at all about sovereignty—a term that I shall define here, somewhat simplistically, as the exercise of authority by a nation-state or another sort of regime, not only with respect to its own people but also in relation to similar polities.”

"Momma’s Memories and the New Equality" by Vershawn Ashanti Young: “The new equality does not claim the achievement of racial and social justice. Rather, it offers an ongoing explicit pursuit of personal and systemic change advanced daily—publicly and privately—among black, brown, red, yellow, and white allies…”
"I’ll Google It!: How Collective Wisdom in Search Engines Alters the Rhetorical Canons" by Jill M. Parrott: “Invention is part of a single act committed by an individual in synchronous time while the returned arrangement is a result of thousands of asynchronous choices enacted collectively by Internet users.”

"Making Rhetoric Visible: Re-visioning a Capstone Civic Writing Seminar" by Heather Lettner-Rust: “In committee meetings, academic and student affairs retreats, or simply in chance encounters with colleagues, a periodic response to the mention the course is polite confusion, misinformation, or even outright dismissal…”

"Cooking Codes: Cookbook Discourses as Women’s Rhetorical Practices" by Elizabeth Fleitz: "Through informal conversations about cooking, women have participated in a practice that has allowed them throughout history to connect with other women and validate their own existence in the domestic sphere.”

"Program Review: The Land-Grant Way – Connected Knowing and the Call of Service" by James M. Dubinsky: “Founded on a core belief that student-community interaction is essential to transforming students into global citizens, CSECP also works to establish competencies related to service: leadership… and ethical development.”

Book Review: "Scott’s Dangerous Writing" by Sheri Rysdam: “Higher education increasingly follows a fast-capitalist model, according to Tony Scott, and the consequences of this model pervade writing instruction: its curriculum, assessment, and even the workforce of higher education.”

Download the essays here: http://www.presenttensejournal.org/.

Gyekye, Kwame. "African Ethics." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY September 9, 2010.

The ethics of a society is embedded in the ideas and beliefs about what is right or wrong, what is a good or bad character; it is also embedded in the conceptions of satisfactory social relations and attitudes held by the members of the society; it is embedded, furthermore, in the forms or patterns of behavior that are considered by the members of the society to bring about social harmony and cooperative living, justice, and fairness. The ideas and beliefs about moral conduct are articulated, analyzed, and interpreted by the moral thinkers of the society.

African societies, as organized and functioning human communities, have undoubtedly evolved ethical systems—ethical values, principles, rules—intended to guide social and moral behavior. But, like African philosophy itself, the ideas and beliefs of the African society that bear on ethical conduct have not been given elaborate investigation and clarification and, thus, stand in real need of profound and extensive analysis and interpretation. In the last three decades or so, attempts have been made by contemporary African philosophers to give sustained reflective attention to African moral ideas. This entry is intended to make some contribution to the understanding of African ethical thinking.

The entry makes the African moral language its point of departure, for the language of morality gives insight into the moral thinking or ideas of the society. The centrality of the notions of character and moral personhood, which are inspired by the African moral language, is given a prominent place. The entry points up the social character of African ethics and highlights its affiliated notions of the ethics of duty (not of rights) and of the common good. The humanistic foundations and features of African ethics are extensively discussed. . . .

Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/african-ethics/.

Dallmayr, Fred R. "Hermeneutics and Inter-Cultural Dialog: Linking Theory and Practice." ETHICS AND GLOBAL PRACTICE 2.1 (2009).

Abstract:

Inter-cultural dialog is frequently treated as either unnecessary or else impossible. It is said to be unnecessary, because we all are the same or share the same ‘human nature’; it is claimed to be impossible because cultures seen as language games or forms or life are so different as to be radically incommensurable. The paper steers a course between absolute universalism and particularism by following the path of dialog and interrogation—where dialog does not mean empty chatter but the exploration of the ‘otherness’ of interlocutors on the far side of either assimilation or exclusion. Such dialog is the heart of hermeneutics as formulated by Hans-Georg Gadamer. The paper explores the question whether hermeneutical interpretation can be transferred from textual readings to the domain of cross-cultural encounters. After discussing both the historical development and the basic meaning of contemporary hermeneutics, the paper draws attention to the intimate linkage between interpretive understanding and ‘application’, or ‘practical philosophy.’ Drawing on the insights of Gadamer and some more overtly political thinkers, the paper then shows the relevance of hermeneutics for cross-cultural studies, as an antidote to the looming ‘clash of civilizations.’ It turns to some writings by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to emphasize the necessary linkage between interactive dialog and concrete embodied engagement. Undercutting purely mentalist or ‘idealist’ misconstruals of dialog, this linkage shows the mutual compatibility between Gadamerian hermeneutics and existential phenomenology.

Read the essay here: http://www.ethicsandglobalpolitics.net/index.php/egp/article/view/1937/2187.

Stikkers, Kenneth W. Review of Fred R. Dallmayr, INTEGRAL PLURALISM. NDPR (September 2010).

Dallmayr, Fred R.  Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars.  Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 2010.

In his most recent volume, Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars, Fred Dallmayr again demonstrates, as he has throughout his distinguished career, his passionate commitment to making ours a more just and peaceful world. His central concern in this work is that, with postmodernism's steady move toward pluralism and emphatic rejection of totalizing monisms of every sort, there is a danger of cosmic incoherence whereby "individual lives likewise become incoherent and unintelligible" (1) and rendered incapable of effective engagement in the world. Dallmayr warns us:

Pluralism harbors a danger that curiously approximates it again to the monistic temptation. Carried to the extreme of radical fragmentation or dispersal, pluralism -- despite its protestations -- shades over into an assembly of fixed and self-enclosed monadic units exhibiting the same monadic units exhibiting the same static quality as its counterpart (8-9).

Such fragmentation, he further suggests, is a major source for today's "culture wars."

As an antidote to radical, atomizing pluralism, and as a middle position between it and tyrannizing monism, Dallmayr offers "integral pluralism," which he finds well exemplified already by classical pragmatists such as John Dewey, but especially by William James in A Pluralistic Universe. Integral pluralism entails "mutual embroilment, interpenetration, and contestation . . . differential entwinement without fusion or segregation" (9). The universe is taken as incomplete, but its pieces maintain real, although sometimes antagonistic, relations to one another. Other, non-Western thinkers whom Dallmayr offers as exemplars of integral pluralism are the philosopher of religion, Raimon Panikkar, whom Dallmayr discusses throughout this volume (and with whom this reviewer was privileged to study), Mahatma Gandhi, who receives a full chapter (Chapter 7), and two other, recently deceased Indian thinkers, little known in the West, Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi (a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi), who are the central subjects of the concluding chapter (Chapter 8). This reviewer is very appreciative of being made aware of these last two thinkers, and Dallmayr's interesting account of them has prompted him to read them first-hand.

Moreover, each of the above figures, including Dewey, is used to demonstrate the importance of religion for integrative pluralism. The Indian thinkers are especially exemplary because they articulate religious sensibilities that are integrated with the secular, in contrast to Western tendencies toward dualism, and thus steer between the dangers stemming from such dualism, namely, the politicizing of religion on the one hand (e.g., America's religious right and Islamic and Zionist extremisms), and the privatizing of religion and withdrawal into the solitude of religious consciousness, on the other. . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=21249.

Thicke, Mike. "Steve Fuller -- Science." THE BUBBLE CHAMBER September 9, 2010.

Fuller, Steve.  Science: the Art of Living.  Montreal: McGill-Queens UP; Chesham: Acumen, 2010.

Historian and philosopher of science Steve Fuller has long embraced his role as a public intellectual. As part of that mission, he testified in the 2005 Dover school board trials, arguing that intelligent design could legitimately claim scientific status. He has since written two books on the intelligent design controversy. Science, his latest effort, is part of The Art of Living series. It is ostensibly an exploration of what it means to “live scientifically,” but is more accurately described as an argument for the necessary connection between science and theology.

Fuller’s central argument should be no surprise to those familiar with his previous commentary on intelligent design. It is a two-pronged pragmatic argument. On the one hand, Darwinism is dispensable: most work in biology does not rely on Darwin’s theory of evolution (think molecular biology). On the other hand, religion is indispensible for scientific progress: without believing that the universe has been designed to be intelligible to humans, there is no motivation for scientists to attempt to comprehend it. However, in Science Fuller goes further than this. He also claims that a designer with intelligence resembling our own is the best explanation for the success of science. . . .

Read the whole review here: http://thebubblechamber.org/2010/09/science/#more-48.

Cfp: "On Hacking's 'Style(s) of Thinking,'" Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, March 26-28, 2011.

This workshop, which coincides with Professor Hacking’s 75th birthday, aims to explore aspects of his extended body of work. Although we welcome submissions on any Hacking-related themes, we hope to concentrate on two areas: the first explores Hacking’s suggestion that there are distinct Styles of Thinking, whilst the second reflects on the philosophical implications of Hacking’s own style of thinking.

Theme 1: Styles of Thinking

A Style of Thinking is in part constituted by specific methods of reasoning, new kinds of sentences and specific objects of study, where methods, sentences and objects are all intimately interrelated. By a method of reasoning, we mean a distinctive way of finding things out that is grounded in cognitive human capacities, has emerged at distinct moments in human history and has evolved in stable and historically traceable ways. By new kinds of sentences, we mean new candidates for being true-or-false which come into being with the new style of thinking. By an object of study, we mean a distinct class of objects of study introduced by that method of reasoning. One example of a style of reasoning in this sense is that of a taxonomic style of thinking: the methods of reasoning involve the ordering of difference and variation in terms of some form of hierarchic structure, the new sentences are those involving claims about such species and genera and their connections and the objects of study include the species and genera of systematic biology.

The suggestion that there are distinct styles of thinking raises a number of issues of potential philosophical interest, which can be grouped into three different categories.

The first category aims at clarifying the terms of the suggestion itself. Questions include: How should we distinguish one style of thinking from another? How does the notion of a style differ (if at all) from similar ideas, such as the Kuhnian disciplinary matrix or Lakatosian research programme? What is the best way of characterising the interrelation between method, new sorts of sentences and objects of study?

The second category focuses on (purportedly) extant styles of reasoning. Questions include: How many extant styles of thinking can be identified? What possible interrelations can there be between these extant styles? Can the notion of styles of thinking be extended beyond styles of scientific thinking? If so, what examples are there?

The third category explores the possible philosophical ramifications of these claims. Questions include: Does the notion of a style of reasoning change or undermine the way we think of traditional ontological disputes in the philosophy of science, concerning species, unobservables, and other objects which appear to be products of these styles? Does talk of historically-contingent styles of thinking inevitably lead to a form of relativism? Are there forms of thinking that do not fall under a style or that are not historically contingent?

Theme 2: Hacking’s Style of Thinking

A common thread running through the many varied areas that Hacking has explored is the explicit focus on the historical conditions surrounding the emergence and development of a target concept. He is clear that this attention to historical detail is not an exercise in history per se, but a way of grappling with philosophical problems by understanding how they became possible, as a ‘historicised conception of British 1930s philosophical analysis’.

Obvious questions abound, including:

In terms of methodology, how does this approach differ from related approaches – such as those falling under the heading of Genealogies? How central is the role played by actual history, as opposed to imaginary narratives for example, in such a methodology? What criteria are there for assessing the success of such narratives, and do these differ from the criteria used to judge good history? How does this differ from so-called ‘Whig-histories’, and what precisely is wrong with the latter?

In terms of philosophical import, how may an understanding of the history of a concept serve to resolve philosophical disputes and can such a resolution ever serve to favour one side? Must attention to historicity reveal the contingency and indeterminateness of conceptual norms? Is philosophical theorising that fails to pay attention to history problematic, or is this just one approach to philosophy amongst many?

Visit the conference website here: http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/philosophy/events_conferencesIanHacking.htm.

Cfp: "Literature as Communication," Philosophy of Communication Section, European Communication Research and Education Association, Abo Akademi University, Finland, September 2-3, 2011.

Not only among literary theoreticians and critics, but also among students of rhetoric, communication and media, stylisticians, discourse and dialogue analysts, historians of the book, and social and cultural philosophers and historians, there is a growing tendency to see literary activity as one among other forms of human communication. The Symposium will provide a forum in which to assess both the broader and more detailed implications of this trend for our understanding of literature’s place within the lives of individuals and communities.

The Symposium will assume a nominalistic and broad definition of literature. Literature, that is to say, will be viewed as consisting of all those texts which, either now or in the past, have been referred to as literary, and as not necessarily restricted to merely poems, plays and novels.

Papers on the following kinds of topic will be especially welcome:

• Literary-communicational insights in current work within any of the disciplines mentioned above: new paradigms;
• Literary communication as community-making;
• Literary communication as philosophical reflection;
• Literary-communicational ethics; for instance, the relevance of Keats’s remark that “we hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us”;
• The communicational workings of implied writers and implied readers;
• Communicational similarities and contrasts between singly, collectively and anonymously authored texts;
• Manuscript culture, book culture, digital culture: the consequences for literary communication;
• The politeness (or otherwise) of literary writers;
• The communicational dimensions of literary styles and / or genres.

Proposals (max. 300 words) for papers should be submitted as e-mail attachments to the Conference Secretary, Gunilla Ritkaew (gunilla.ritkaew@abo.fi), before March 31st, 2011.

Cfp: "The 'Post'-Marked World: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century," Department of British and Commonwealth Studies, University of Łódź, November 22-23, 2010.

Debates on the theoretical have dominated the discourse on humanities for a few decades now. The surge of anti-humanism from the 60s of the last century had already given way to the hermeneutics of the ‘post’ in the 80s, and the cult of the postmodern has launched us into the era of absolute deterritorialization of theory itself. As Baudrillard wrote in Symbolic Exchange, “…any theory can from now on be exchanged against any other according to variable exchange rates but without any longer being invested anywhere…”

In the wake of such theoretical aporia, the conference is an attempt to (re)think the implications of the term ‘post’ in current theoretical parlance. Is there a politics always/already embedded in the ‘post’? Do we need the ‘post’ any more? Did we, in the first place, need it at all? Is it possible to counter essentialism with the ‘post’ prefix? These are some of the questions the conference intends to raise and explore by examining the ‘post’-marked terms in the theoretical market. The purpose is to look at the ‘post’-marked terms, such as poststructuralism, postcolonialism, postcommunism, postfeminism, post-Marxism, postmodernism, post-Holocaust and (m)any other possible ‘post’, both theoretically and textually vis-à-vis the arts, cinema, literature, history, geography, anthropology, culture and area-studies, etcetera.

Visit the conference website here: http://www.britishstudies.uni.lodz.pl/post2010/.

Pub: Kurt Danziger Homepage.

Kurt Danziger was Professor of Psychology at York University from 1965 to 1994 and is now Professor Emeritus. In 1972 he was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association and in 1989 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He received the CPA Education and Training Award in 1994, having taken a leading role in establishing the History and Theory Option of the Psychology Graduate Programme at York University and having supervised many of the students who took this option during the first 15 years of its existence.

Since the late 1970’s, Danziger’s teaching and research have been largely devoted to the history and theory of psychology. His initial concentration was on the history of psychological methodology. The results of his work in this area were presented in his book, Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research, published by Cambridge University Press in 1990. The review that appeared in Contemporary Psychology in July 1992 judged that "without a doubt this is the most important book on the history of psychology to come along in years . . . the understanding and the very teaching of the history of our discipline will have been profoundly altered by Danziger's analysis".

The historical interest in research practice was based on many years' experience of empirical research in different areas of Psychology. Danziger’s earliest research publications reported on his experimental work with laboratory rats, but, under the influence of the work of the ethologist, N. Tinbergen, he became sceptical of the value of much of this work. There followed a period of research on conceptual development in the Piagetian tradition as well as experimental work on time judgement. A lasting engagement with social psychological topics was reflected in numerous research papers, as well as the books Socialization (1971) and Interpersonal Communication (1976).

More recently, the history of psychological categories has formed the main focus of Danziger’s studies. The first major product of this work appeared as a Sage publication in 1997, titled Naming the Mind: How Psychology Found its Language. A further book, Marking the Mind: A History of Memory, was published in 2008. In 2003 a group of authors from a number of countries contributed to a volume on Danziger’s work: Rediscovering the History of Psychology: Essays Inspired by the Work of Kurt Danziger (Springer). That volume also contains a list of Danziger’s publications.

Kurt Danziger’s work has always been international in scope. His books have been translated into Danish, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Swedish. He has given numerous invited addresses in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, as well as in Canada. He was a guest professor at the University of Konstanz, Germany, in 1988. He is or was on the editorial board of such journals as Theory & Psychology, History of the Human Sciences, Culture & Psychology, and Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Although the bulk of his research output has appeared in the psychological literature, he has also published studies in sociological, historical, and philosophical journals.

A wide range of experience in academic settings all over the globe provides the background for Kurt Danziger's deep appreciation of the importance of social and cultural context for psychological theory and research. He was born in Germany but his family emigrated to South Africa just before World War II. There he completed his schooling and took a degree with distinction in Chemistry. Then he switched to the study of Philosophy and Psychology. He obtained his doctorate in experimental psychology at the University of Oxford in 1952. His first teaching position was at the University of Melbourne, Australia. That was followed by eight years at two South African universities, a period which was interrupted by two years as a Visiting Professor in Indonesia. Before he settled in Canada he was Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Upon his departure in 1965 he was declared a "prohibited person" by the then South African government, a ban that remained in force for a quarter century. However, with the transition to democracy, Danziger regularly spends one quarter of each year in South Africa. He holds an honorary professorship at the University of Cape Town and was awarded an honorary degree by that institution in 2004. . . .

For more information, visit: http://www.kurtdanziger.com/.

Lane, Melissa. "Ancient Political Philosophy." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY September 6, 2010.

Ancient political philosophy is understood here to mean ancient Greek and Roman thought from the classical period of Greek thought in the fifth century BCE to the end of the Roman empire in the West in the fifth century CE, excluding the rise of Christian ideas about politics during that period. Political philosophy as a genre was invented in this period by Plato and reinvented by Aristotle: it encompasses reflections on the origin of political institutions, the concepts used to interpret and organize political life such as justice and equality, the relation between the aims of ethics and the nature of politics, and the relative merits of different constitutional arrangements or regimes. Platonic models remained especially important for later authors throughout this period, even as the development of later “Hellenistic” schools of Greek philosophy, and distinctively Roman forms of philosophical adaptation, offered new frameworks for construing politics. . . .

Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-political/.

Cfp: "New Geographies of Postcoloniality and Globalisation," University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, March 24-27, 2011.

With a conviction to articulate alternative directions for postcolonial studies within a globalised world, we invite paper proposals on a wide range of topics related to postcolonial theory and globalization studies. One of the aims of this conference is a rigorous scrutiny of what it may mean to ‘re-think’ the ongoing ‘critiques of postcolonialism’. Postcolonial studies has been steadily and rapidly energized by cross-disciplinary investigations thereby re-configuring critical paradigms of thought and contributing to contemporary understandings of the world as being dominated by transnational capital flows, rapid and extensive globalisation and an unprecedented surge of technology and information. At the conference, we propose to work with a more flexible understanding of postcolonial studies that can reveal new perspectives on the ideological, political and socio-cultural dimensions of the contemporary world order. Given the context and geographical locality of the conference, we are very keen to receive paper proposals that move beyond the West / non-West structure which inevitably involve a critique of Eurocentric thought. We thus invite proposals that are historically and geographically extensive and that seek to problematize facile divisions in an increasingly mobile and interconnected world. Within this context we are particularly interested in situating postcolonial studies and globalisation with the Caribbean context.

We particularly invite submissions dealing with new geographies including power relations within the Global South. We are also interested in debates about whether or not we have reached the decisive end of postcolonialism or/and the juncture where postcolonial theory and studies should be pushed beyond its current parameters and if so, what this might imply.

We are pleased to announce that the opening keynote address for this conference will be delivered by Prof. Arjun Appadurai. We are also delighted to have Guy DesLauriers at the conference and to screen his film followed by a post-screening Q & A session with the filmmaker himself.

Papers can be submitted in both; English and French. Selected papers will be published in an edited volume.

Possible areas of interest for paper presentations may include but are not restricted to:

• New Geographies of power: how can postcolonial theory account for the multiple heterogeneity and the various, contested voices and positions that make up the global South?
• Travelling cultures: postcolonial take on mobility and transnational connections
• The politics of radicalization in the globalizing world of the 21st century
• Thinking beyond binaries (self/other, colonial/postcolonial, silence/voice and so on.)
• Agency, cultural representation and communicative practices
• The relationship between the notion of history and the term ‘postcolonial’
• Technology , digital divides and Globalisation; globalization and localization of technologies within old and emerging configurations of power
• Identity and Eurocentric discourse
• Sex, sexualities and the rise of religion in the 21st century
• Ethnicity, class and conflict
• Environment, postcolonialism and the Globalised World

Please send abstracts (of 250 words or less) to postcolandglobal@gmail.com. Inquiries and panel suggestions are welcome via email. Deadline for submission is Oct 31, 2010. Please include full contact information--including affiliation, and a brief 50 word biography with your abstract submission.