Kenneth H. Craik
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195330922
- eISBN:
- 9780199868292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195330922.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
The theme of this chapter deals with the ways in which each member of a person’s reputational network gathers and cumulates impressions, beliefs, and evaluations about that specifically identifiable ...
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The theme of this chapter deals with the ways in which each member of a person’s reputational network gathers and cumulates impressions, beliefs, and evaluations about that specifically identifiable person. The resulting network of cognitive nodes, or person bins, constitutes the distributive facet of reputation. The chapter reviews dynamic features of personal perception and cognition, such as the negativity bias. The domain of disreputable acts is explored by examining outcomes of legal actions for defamation. These analyses suggest that disreputable acts tend to fall within the categories of specific personality dispositions, such as high extroversion, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness.Less
The theme of this chapter deals with the ways in which each member of a person’s reputational network gathers and cumulates impressions, beliefs, and evaluations about that specifically identifiable person. The resulting network of cognitive nodes, or person bins, constitutes the distributive facet of reputation. The chapter reviews dynamic features of personal perception and cognition, such as the negativity bias. The domain of disreputable acts is explored by examining outcomes of legal actions for defamation. These analyses suggest that disreputable acts tend to fall within the categories of specific personality dispositions, such as high extroversion, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness.
Simone Bignall
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748639434
- eISBN:
- 9780748671878
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748639434.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book opens up a new direction for postcolonial studies by creating concepts of agency, resistance and transformation that allow positive roles for desire and difference in the development of ...
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This book opens up a new direction for postcolonial studies by creating concepts of agency, resistance and transformation that allow positive roles for desire and difference in the development of social forms. It argues that non-imperial concepts of selfhood, relationship and material transformation are embedded within the minor tradition of Western philosophy described by the work of Nietzsche, Bergson, Spinoza and Deleuze. The book is comprised of two sections. The first deals mainly with the task of critique and targets the reading of dialectical desire and negativity given by Kojève in his seminar on Hegel in the 1930s and assimilated by thinkers including Lacan, Sartre and Fanon in the mid-twentieth century. This view of self and process generated a hugely influential concept of agency, which has shaped the concepts and models of transformation widely assumed by postcolonial theory. Part 1 criticises the implicit imperialism of the style of agency and attitude towards difference implied by the dominant Western understanding of desire, subjectivity and history-making, and to suggest that, in the postcolonial world, there is a need for alternative conceptualisations of constructive practice. Part 2 shifts focus from the task of critique to the labour of construction. It provides a concept of postcolonial agency, which in turn enables the conceptualisation of postcolonial practices of sociability. Because it is grounded in a positive conceptualisation of desire informed by the Spinozan notion of joyful mutuality, Deleuze's philosophy supports non-imperial concepts of agency and relationship, informing new thinking about postcolonial transformation.Less
This book opens up a new direction for postcolonial studies by creating concepts of agency, resistance and transformation that allow positive roles for desire and difference in the development of social forms. It argues that non-imperial concepts of selfhood, relationship and material transformation are embedded within the minor tradition of Western philosophy described by the work of Nietzsche, Bergson, Spinoza and Deleuze. The book is comprised of two sections. The first deals mainly with the task of critique and targets the reading of dialectical desire and negativity given by Kojève in his seminar on Hegel in the 1930s and assimilated by thinkers including Lacan, Sartre and Fanon in the mid-twentieth century. This view of self and process generated a hugely influential concept of agency, which has shaped the concepts and models of transformation widely assumed by postcolonial theory. Part 1 criticises the implicit imperialism of the style of agency and attitude towards difference implied by the dominant Western understanding of desire, subjectivity and history-making, and to suggest that, in the postcolonial world, there is a need for alternative conceptualisations of constructive practice. Part 2 shifts focus from the task of critique to the labour of construction. It provides a concept of postcolonial agency, which in turn enables the conceptualisation of postcolonial practices of sociability. Because it is grounded in a positive conceptualisation of desire informed by the Spinozan notion of joyful mutuality, Deleuze's philosophy supports non-imperial concepts of agency and relationship, informing new thinking about postcolonial transformation.
Benjamin Noys
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638635
- eISBN:
- 9780748671915
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638635.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book aims to rehabilitate a thinking of negativity within and against the usual forms of contemporary Continental Theory. It identifies and presents an analysis of the dominant tone of ...
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This book aims to rehabilitate a thinking of negativity within and against the usual forms of contemporary Continental Theory. It identifies and presents an analysis of the dominant tone of ‘affirmationism’ in contemporary theory: the insistence on starting from the affirmation of metaphysical ontologies, the inventive potential of the subject, the necessity for the production of novelty, and a concomitant suspicion of the negative and negativity. Despite all the conflicts and ‘wars’ of contemporary theory, this tone remains an unstated point of unification. Although it was often developed to resist the corrosive effects of contemporary capitalism, this work argues that affirmationism remains bound to its ideological coordinates in its emphasis on production, creativity, and invention. Critically reconstructing this ‘affirmationism’ through the work of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Antonio Negri, and Alain Badiou, the book also recovers from their work a disavowed thinking of negativity. Dependent on negativity, despite their claims to affirmation, this dependence allows a critique of the reliance on affirmation. Also, this negativity is turned against this affirmative tone to develop a more sharply-focused political analysis of theory, and to suggest the possible politics emerging from a relational thinking of negativity.Less
This book aims to rehabilitate a thinking of negativity within and against the usual forms of contemporary Continental Theory. It identifies and presents an analysis of the dominant tone of ‘affirmationism’ in contemporary theory: the insistence on starting from the affirmation of metaphysical ontologies, the inventive potential of the subject, the necessity for the production of novelty, and a concomitant suspicion of the negative and negativity. Despite all the conflicts and ‘wars’ of contemporary theory, this tone remains an unstated point of unification. Although it was often developed to resist the corrosive effects of contemporary capitalism, this work argues that affirmationism remains bound to its ideological coordinates in its emphasis on production, creativity, and invention. Critically reconstructing this ‘affirmationism’ through the work of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Antonio Negri, and Alain Badiou, the book also recovers from their work a disavowed thinking of negativity. Dependent on negativity, despite their claims to affirmation, this dependence allows a critique of the reliance on affirmation. Also, this negativity is turned against this affirmative tone to develop a more sharply-focused political analysis of theory, and to suggest the possible politics emerging from a relational thinking of negativity.
Rocio Zambrana
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226280110
- eISBN:
- 9780226280257
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226280257.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Hegel’s Theory of Intelligibility offers an interpretation of the Science of Logic in light of recent revisionist readings of Hegel. Revisionists have argued that Hegel carries the legacy of Kant’s ...
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Hegel’s Theory of Intelligibility offers an interpretation of the Science of Logic in light of recent revisionist readings of Hegel. Revisionists have argued that Hegel carries the legacy of Kant’s idealism forward albeit in a new direction. This book transforms this interpretive tradition by distilling the theory of normativity elaborated in the Logic and pursuing the implications of Hegel’s signature treatment of negativity for this theory of normativity. The book thereby clarifies crucial features of Hegel’s theory of intelligibility previously thought to be entirely absent from the argument of the Logic—normative precariousness and normative ambivalence.Less
Hegel’s Theory of Intelligibility offers an interpretation of the Science of Logic in light of recent revisionist readings of Hegel. Revisionists have argued that Hegel carries the legacy of Kant’s idealism forward albeit in a new direction. This book transforms this interpretive tradition by distilling the theory of normativity elaborated in the Logic and pursuing the implications of Hegel’s signature treatment of negativity for this theory of normativity. The book thereby clarifies crucial features of Hegel’s theory of intelligibility previously thought to be entirely absent from the argument of the Logic—normative precariousness and normative ambivalence.
William J. Richardson
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823222551
- eISBN:
- 9780823235247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823222551.003.0018
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter explains the non-subjective character of thought, describing in new terms what it means for thought to let beings be. It means to yield to Being in its ...
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This chapter explains the non-subjective character of thought, describing in new terms what it means for thought to let beings be. It means to yield to Being in its negativity. In the essay “The Time of World-as-Picture”, there are passages where the author contrasts the Cartesian version of presentative thought with what he understands to be Greek νοε̃ιν. Heidegger argues that when beings emerge into presence in any given instance, the domain of non-concealment is limited, for the emergence is finite. Thus the domain of disclosure has measure. It is what separates what comes to presence from what does not. For Protagoras, the fundamental attitude is one of acceptance, of opening himself unto the self-revelation of beings in their Being.Less
This chapter explains the non-subjective character of thought, describing in new terms what it means for thought to let beings be. It means to yield to Being in its negativity. In the essay “The Time of World-as-Picture”, there are passages where the author contrasts the Cartesian version of presentative thought with what he understands to be Greek νοε̃ιν. Heidegger argues that when beings emerge into presence in any given instance, the domain of non-concealment is limited, for the emergence is finite. Thus the domain of disclosure has measure. It is what separates what comes to presence from what does not. For Protagoras, the fundamental attitude is one of acceptance, of opening himself unto the self-revelation of beings in their Being.
Ashley T. Shelden
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780231178228
- eISBN:
- 9780231543156
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231178228.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The contemporary novel does more than revise our conception of love—it explodes it, queers it, and makes it unrecognizable. Rather than providing union, connection, and completion, love in ...
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The contemporary novel does more than revise our conception of love—it explodes it, queers it, and makes it unrecognizable. Rather than providing union, connection, and completion, love in contemporary fiction destroys the possibility of unity, harbors negativity, and foregrounds difference. Comparing contemporary and modernist depictions of love to delineate critical continuities and innovations, Unmaking Love locates queerness in the novelistic strategies of Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureshi, Alan Hollinghurst, and Hari Kunzru. In their work, "queer love" becomes more than shorthand for sexual identity. It comes to embody thwarted expectations, disarticulated organization, and unnerving multiplicity. In queer love, social forms are deformed, affective bonds do not bind, and social structures threaten to come undone. Unmaking Love draws on psychoanalysis and gender and sexuality studies to read love's role in contemporary literature and its relation to queer negativity.Less
The contemporary novel does more than revise our conception of love—it explodes it, queers it, and makes it unrecognizable. Rather than providing union, connection, and completion, love in contemporary fiction destroys the possibility of unity, harbors negativity, and foregrounds difference. Comparing contemporary and modernist depictions of love to delineate critical continuities and innovations, Unmaking Love locates queerness in the novelistic strategies of Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureshi, Alan Hollinghurst, and Hari Kunzru. In their work, "queer love" becomes more than shorthand for sexual identity. It comes to embody thwarted expectations, disarticulated organization, and unnerving multiplicity. In queer love, social forms are deformed, affective bonds do not bind, and social structures threaten to come undone. Unmaking Love draws on psychoanalysis and gender and sexuality studies to read love's role in contemporary literature and its relation to queer negativity.
Frank Palmer
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198242321
- eISBN:
- 9780191680441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198242321.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Moral Philosophy
There is commonly a dilemma whenever the interest in literature is not a moral interest. To apprehend a work of literature as a work of art is not to regard it solely as a vehicle for moral ...
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There is commonly a dilemma whenever the interest in literature is not a moral interest. To apprehend a work of literature as a work of art is not to regard it solely as a vehicle for moral instruction or moral enlightenment, nor would it be appropriate to appraise a work on the basis of its alleged moral message. However, on the other hand, it is normal that a literary work will express some attitude to human life, or to an aspect of it, and therefore has a moral dimension. In this case, no work can be ethically neutral. Therefore, it is important to draw a distinction between agreement and acceptance, in which, acceptance is not so tightly related to belief.Less
There is commonly a dilemma whenever the interest in literature is not a moral interest. To apprehend a work of literature as a work of art is not to regard it solely as a vehicle for moral instruction or moral enlightenment, nor would it be appropriate to appraise a work on the basis of its alleged moral message. However, on the other hand, it is normal that a literary work will express some attitude to human life, or to an aspect of it, and therefore has a moral dimension. In this case, no work can be ethically neutral. Therefore, it is important to draw a distinction between agreement and acceptance, in which, acceptance is not so tightly related to belief.
William S. Allen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823269280
- eISBN:
- 9780823269334
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823269280.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Blanchot’s writings are distinctive for the ways that negativity takes place in them in terms of the experience of literature, the possibility of the work, and the nature of its language. However, ...
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Blanchot’s writings are distinctive for the ways that negativity takes place in them in terms of the experience of literature, the possibility of the work, and the nature of its language. However, this role in his thinking is unique and is not to be subsumed to the negativity found in the thought of Hegel or Heidegger, although it partakes of aspects of both. Instead, negativity for Blanchot operates at the level of the ontological status of language, which oscillates undecidably between the assertion and negation of meaning and thereby affects the experience of literature and the possibility of the work with an irreducible ambiguity. To explicate the significance of this negativity it is necessary to turn to another figure for whom it has become as central, Adorno, whose Hegelian background is much stronger, but who also works against this tradition to form his own negative understanding of dialectics that is crucially exemplified in the work of art. For Adorno, the work of art exists as a particular model of its historical and material context, one that both demonstrates its contradictions and also indicates what has been obscured by them. The negativity of the work is thus both that of the critique that it levels against this context and of the possibilities that it negatively raises in its place. To study the two writers together it is necessary to find the place where their thinking converges, which occurs most critically in the area of post-Kantian aesthetics and the question of autonomy.Less
Blanchot’s writings are distinctive for the ways that negativity takes place in them in terms of the experience of literature, the possibility of the work, and the nature of its language. However, this role in his thinking is unique and is not to be subsumed to the negativity found in the thought of Hegel or Heidegger, although it partakes of aspects of both. Instead, negativity for Blanchot operates at the level of the ontological status of language, which oscillates undecidably between the assertion and negation of meaning and thereby affects the experience of literature and the possibility of the work with an irreducible ambiguity. To explicate the significance of this negativity it is necessary to turn to another figure for whom it has become as central, Adorno, whose Hegelian background is much stronger, but who also works against this tradition to form his own negative understanding of dialectics that is crucially exemplified in the work of art. For Adorno, the work of art exists as a particular model of its historical and material context, one that both demonstrates its contradictions and also indicates what has been obscured by them. The negativity of the work is thus both that of the critique that it levels against this context and of the possibilities that it negatively raises in its place. To study the two writers together it is necessary to find the place where their thinking converges, which occurs most critically in the area of post-Kantian aesthetics and the question of autonomy.
Paul S. Fiddes
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263470
- eISBN:
- 9780191682568
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263470.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter describes the notion of ‘non-being’ or ‘negativity’ as an accompaniment to the notion of God as being, and explores some ways to overcome this nothingness. Non-being is a symbol for the ...
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This chapter describes the notion of ‘non-being’ or ‘negativity’ as an accompaniment to the notion of God as being, and explores some ways to overcome this nothingness. Non-being is a symbol for the suffering of God, evoking something alien that befalls God's relationship with is creation. The discussion notes two ways in which one can talk of God's negating the negative in the act of suffering it. First, to claim that God conquers non-being means that God is not destroyed by it when exposes his being into it. Instead, he uses it to define his being. Second, it means that the permanent impression of death upon God contributes to the life-giving quality of the being of God for his world.Less
This chapter describes the notion of ‘non-being’ or ‘negativity’ as an accompaniment to the notion of God as being, and explores some ways to overcome this nothingness. Non-being is a symbol for the suffering of God, evoking something alien that befalls God's relationship with is creation. The discussion notes two ways in which one can talk of God's negating the negative in the act of suffering it. First, to claim that God conquers non-being means that God is not destroyed by it when exposes his being into it. Instead, he uses it to define his being. Second, it means that the permanent impression of death upon God contributes to the life-giving quality of the being of God for his world.
Scott Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097416
- eISBN:
- 9781526104083
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097416.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
It is of course an error to over narrativise or make too much sense of pop lyrics. The power of pop lyrics lies precisely in their economy or even their poverty, which leads to an excess of possible ...
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It is of course an error to over narrativise or make too much sense of pop lyrics. The power of pop lyrics lies precisely in their economy or even their poverty, which leads to an excess of possible meanings and effects. Effect is more important than meaning. Their power is completely bound up with the rhythm and mood of a particular recording. Words are nothing outside of the song in which they are embedded and in the particular performance that gives them emphasis, or not. Words are musical rather than linguistic elements. They evoke a feeling, a mood, an attitude. Mis-heard lyrics can be as effective as correctly heard ones. They are not verbal statements but musical utterances that are related to perceptions and changes in perception rather than knowledge.Less
It is of course an error to over narrativise or make too much sense of pop lyrics. The power of pop lyrics lies precisely in their economy or even their poverty, which leads to an excess of possible meanings and effects. Effect is more important than meaning. Their power is completely bound up with the rhythm and mood of a particular recording. Words are nothing outside of the song in which they are embedded and in the particular performance that gives them emphasis, or not. Words are musical rather than linguistic elements. They evoke a feeling, a mood, an attitude. Mis-heard lyrics can be as effective as correctly heard ones. They are not verbal statements but musical utterances that are related to perceptions and changes in perception rather than knowledge.
Risto Näätänen, Teija Kujala, and Gregory Light
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198705079
- eISBN:
- 9780191874192
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198705079.001.0001
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Sensory and Motor Systems
This book introduces the electrophysiological change-detection response of the brain called the mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN is elicited by any discriminable change in some repetitive aspect of ...
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This book introduces the electrophysiological change-detection response of the brain called the mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN is elicited by any discriminable change in some repetitive aspect of ongoing auditory stimulation even in the absence of attention, causing an attentional shift to change, hence representing a response of vital significance to the organism. In addition, an analogous response is also elicited in the other sensory modalities and occurs in different species and in the different developmental stages from infancy to the old age. Importantly, MMN, reflecting the NMDA-receptor functioning, is affected in different cognitive brain disorders, providing an index of the severity of the disorder and effectiveness of remediating treatments.Less
This book introduces the electrophysiological change-detection response of the brain called the mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN is elicited by any discriminable change in some repetitive aspect of ongoing auditory stimulation even in the absence of attention, causing an attentional shift to change, hence representing a response of vital significance to the organism. In addition, an analogous response is also elicited in the other sensory modalities and occurs in different species and in the different developmental stages from infancy to the old age. Importantly, MMN, reflecting the NMDA-receptor functioning, is affected in different cognitive brain disorders, providing an index of the severity of the disorder and effectiveness of remediating treatments.
Dean Moyar
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195391992
- eISBN:
- 9780199894659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195391992.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Chapter 1 makes the initial case for thinking of conscience as central to Hegel's ethics and lays out the conceptual basis for Hegel's theory of practical reason. The chapter gives a preliminary ...
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Chapter 1 makes the initial case for thinking of conscience as central to Hegel's ethics and lays out the conceptual basis for Hegel's theory of practical reason. The chapter gives a preliminary account of the role of self-consciousness by reading a central passage from the Phenomenology of Spirit in relation to Richard Moran's recent work on the authority of self-consciousness. The chapter shows that Hegel's distinctive take on issues of self-consciousness and self-determination stems from his conception of “self-referring negativity.” This device allows Hegel to think of practical reason and ethical content as uniting the universality and particularity of the will, and it thus serves as the basis of what the chapter calls Hegel's performative view of practical reason.Less
Chapter 1 makes the initial case for thinking of conscience as central to Hegel's ethics and lays out the conceptual basis for Hegel's theory of practical reason. The chapter gives a preliminary account of the role of self-consciousness by reading a central passage from the Phenomenology of Spirit in relation to Richard Moran's recent work on the authority of self-consciousness. The chapter shows that Hegel's distinctive take on issues of self-consciousness and self-determination stems from his conception of “self-referring negativity.” This device allows Hegel to think of practical reason and ethical content as uniting the universality and particularity of the will, and it thus serves as the basis of what the chapter calls Hegel's performative view of practical reason.
Ter Ellingson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520222687
- eISBN:
- 9780520925922
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520222687.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the two minds of Pierre F.-X. de Charlevoix, who embodies much of the complexity and ambiguity of changing European views of the “savage.”; vanishing savages and diminishing ...
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This chapter examines the two minds of Pierre F.-X. de Charlevoix, who embodies much of the complexity and ambiguity of changing European views of the “savage.”; vanishing savages and diminishing nobility; Constantin François Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney, and the ruins of savagery; Lewis Henry Morgan and the ennobling effects of evolution. The discussion looks at the rising currents of racial negativity that increasingly suffuse the writings of every discipline during the period after Rousseau.Less
This chapter examines the two minds of Pierre F.-X. de Charlevoix, who embodies much of the complexity and ambiguity of changing European views of the “savage.”; vanishing savages and diminishing nobility; Constantin François Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney, and the ruins of savagery; Lewis Henry Morgan and the ennobling effects of evolution. The discussion looks at the rising currents of racial negativity that increasingly suffuse the writings of every discipline during the period after Rousseau.
Yannis Stavrakakis
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619801
- eISBN:
- 9780748672073
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619801.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
In recent years psychoanalysis – especially Lacanian theory – has been gradually acknowledged as a vital resource in the ongoing re-orientation of contemporary political theory and analysis. Of ...
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In recent years psychoanalysis – especially Lacanian theory – has been gradually acknowledged as a vital resource in the ongoing re-orientation of contemporary political theory and analysis. Of particular note is that the work of Jacques Lacan is increasingly being used by major political philosophers associated with the Left. This indicates the dynamic emergence of a new theoretico-political horizon: that of the ‘Lacanian Left’. The Lacanian Left systematically follows and discusses this emergence and draws its implications for concrete political analysis.It offers: An accessible mapping of its main contours. A detailed examination of the points of convergence and divergence between the major figures active within or at the periphery of this terrain, including Slavoj Zizek, Ernesto Laclau, Alain Badiou and Cornelius Castoriadis. A critical evaluation of their respective arguments on social construction and the political, affectivity and discourse, ethics and social change, negativity and positivity.Engaging with the role of affect and emotion in political life through the central Lacanian notion of ‘enjoyment’, The Lacanian Left puts forward innovative analyses of political power and authority, nationalism, European identity, consumerism and advertising culture, de-democratisation and post-democracy. It is of value to everyone interested in exploring the potential of psychoanalysis to reinvigorate political theory, critical political analysis and democratic politics.Less
In recent years psychoanalysis – especially Lacanian theory – has been gradually acknowledged as a vital resource in the ongoing re-orientation of contemporary political theory and analysis. Of particular note is that the work of Jacques Lacan is increasingly being used by major political philosophers associated with the Left. This indicates the dynamic emergence of a new theoretico-political horizon: that of the ‘Lacanian Left’. The Lacanian Left systematically follows and discusses this emergence and draws its implications for concrete political analysis.It offers: An accessible mapping of its main contours. A detailed examination of the points of convergence and divergence between the major figures active within or at the periphery of this terrain, including Slavoj Zizek, Ernesto Laclau, Alain Badiou and Cornelius Castoriadis. A critical evaluation of their respective arguments on social construction and the political, affectivity and discourse, ethics and social change, negativity and positivity.Engaging with the role of affect and emotion in political life through the central Lacanian notion of ‘enjoyment’, The Lacanian Left puts forward innovative analyses of political power and authority, nationalism, European identity, consumerism and advertising culture, de-democratisation and post-democracy. It is of value to everyone interested in exploring the potential of psychoanalysis to reinvigorate political theory, critical political analysis and democratic politics.
Alexis Lothian
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479811748
- eISBN:
- 9781479854585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479811748.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Building on the insights of the previous chapter, the second chapter of part 1 turns to feminist dystopian fiction written by antifascist British women between the First and Second World Wars. Man’s ...
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Building on the insights of the previous chapter, the second chapter of part 1 turns to feminist dystopian fiction written by antifascist British women between the First and Second World Wars. Man’s World (1926) by Charlotte Haldane and Swastika Night (1937) by Katharine Burdekin use divergent strategies to route modernity’s futures through reproductive bodies, troubling oppositions twenty-first-century critical theory tends to naturalize: between heteronormativity and its others, queer and straight time, futurity and negativity, deviant and normative pleasures. Both novels revolve around the production of futurelessness—not just an undesirable world for some, but the notion that the future could end altogether. This negative speculation resonates with the queer project of articulating a politics that might not rely on reproduction: a futureless politics. At the same time, both Haldane and Burdekin insist that same-sex desire can all too easily appear as one of the various interlocking forces that set in place politically horrifying futures. This convergence of reproductive oppression with homoerotic nationalism calls forth concerns and conflicts in queer studies over the ways in which nonheterosexual bodies, communities, and politics have participated in the perpetuation of racial and colonial violence.Less
Building on the insights of the previous chapter, the second chapter of part 1 turns to feminist dystopian fiction written by antifascist British women between the First and Second World Wars. Man’s World (1926) by Charlotte Haldane and Swastika Night (1937) by Katharine Burdekin use divergent strategies to route modernity’s futures through reproductive bodies, troubling oppositions twenty-first-century critical theory tends to naturalize: between heteronormativity and its others, queer and straight time, futurity and negativity, deviant and normative pleasures. Both novels revolve around the production of futurelessness—not just an undesirable world for some, but the notion that the future could end altogether. This negative speculation resonates with the queer project of articulating a politics that might not rely on reproduction: a futureless politics. At the same time, both Haldane and Burdekin insist that same-sex desire can all too easily appear as one of the various interlocking forces that set in place politically horrifying futures. This convergence of reproductive oppression with homoerotic nationalism calls forth concerns and conflicts in queer studies over the ways in which nonheterosexual bodies, communities, and politics have participated in the perpetuation of racial and colonial violence.
Alexis Lothian
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479811748
- eISBN:
- 9781479854585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479811748.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
As part 3 (It’s the Future, but It Looks like the Present: Queer Speculations on Media Time) turns to the cultural and technological reproduction of speculative futures imagined in audiovisual form, ...
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As part 3 (It’s the Future, but It Looks like the Present: Queer Speculations on Media Time) turns to the cultural and technological reproduction of speculative futures imagined in audiovisual form, chapter 5 focuses on two speculative films whose genealogy in queer screen history is secure yet which rarely appear in canons of science fiction media: Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk dystopia Jubilee and Lizzie Borden’s 1983 lesbian political fantasy Born in Flames. It argues that that the construction of science fiction film as a heteronormative, capitalist genre defined by spectacular special effects obscures the work done by queer speculative independent film. Alternatively, Jarman and Borden project politicized futures into the people and locations of a present whose shifting temporal location refuses progressive teleologies. The films share an intense focus on media and communication even as they offer contrasting strategies for building futures out of a present moment saturated with representations of the end of the world. Jubilee brings the present to light as a dystopian future whose polite public face hides deep-seated violence; Born in Flames shows us how the politics of revolutionary transformation replicate the problems of the untransformed world through the failure to reckon with them.Less
As part 3 (It’s the Future, but It Looks like the Present: Queer Speculations on Media Time) turns to the cultural and technological reproduction of speculative futures imagined in audiovisual form, chapter 5 focuses on two speculative films whose genealogy in queer screen history is secure yet which rarely appear in canons of science fiction media: Derek Jarman’s 1978 punk dystopia Jubilee and Lizzie Borden’s 1983 lesbian political fantasy Born in Flames. It argues that that the construction of science fiction film as a heteronormative, capitalist genre defined by spectacular special effects obscures the work done by queer speculative independent film. Alternatively, Jarman and Borden project politicized futures into the people and locations of a present whose shifting temporal location refuses progressive teleologies. The films share an intense focus on media and communication even as they offer contrasting strategies for building futures out of a present moment saturated with representations of the end of the world. Jubilee brings the present to light as a dystopian future whose polite public face hides deep-seated violence; Born in Flames shows us how the politics of revolutionary transformation replicate the problems of the untransformed world through the failure to reckon with them.
Mari Tervaniemi
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198525202
- eISBN:
- 9780191689314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198525202.003.0019
- Subject:
- Psychology, Music Psychology
This chapter provides a discussion on the evidence on musical sound processing. Data acquired in the mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm have shown that temporally and spectrally complex sounds as ...
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This chapter provides a discussion on the evidence on musical sound processing. Data acquired in the mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm have shown that temporally and spectrally complex sounds as well as their relations are automatically represented in the human auditory cortex. Furthermore, the MMN data indicate that these neural sound representations are spatially distinct between phonetic and musical sounds within and between the cerebral hemispheres. The majority of the MMN studies were conducted in pitch dimension but also temporal aspects of sound processing are under increasing experimentation. Up to some extent, also musical expertise is reflected in sound representation accuracy as indexed by the MMN. In addition, an overview on studies using musical sounds and sound successions to investigate the automatic neural sound processing is given. The chapter then outlines the recent studies comparing musicians and nonmusicians. In general, the results offer fundamental insight to the brains' ability to encode and differentiate acoustically complex sounds despite the focus of the listener's attention.Less
This chapter provides a discussion on the evidence on musical sound processing. Data acquired in the mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm have shown that temporally and spectrally complex sounds as well as their relations are automatically represented in the human auditory cortex. Furthermore, the MMN data indicate that these neural sound representations are spatially distinct between phonetic and musical sounds within and between the cerebral hemispheres. The majority of the MMN studies were conducted in pitch dimension but also temporal aspects of sound processing are under increasing experimentation. Up to some extent, also musical expertise is reflected in sound representation accuracy as indexed by the MMN. In addition, an overview on studies using musical sounds and sound successions to investigate the automatic neural sound processing is given. The chapter then outlines the recent studies comparing musicians and nonmusicians. In general, the results offer fundamental insight to the brains' ability to encode and differentiate acoustically complex sounds despite the focus of the listener's attention.
Yannis Stavrakakis
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619801
- eISBN:
- 9780748672073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619801.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Moving from the periphery to the core of the Lacanian Left, thesecond chapter discusses the work of a theorist who has elevatedthe Lacanian conceptualisation of negativity into one of the mostcrucial ...
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Moving from the periphery to the core of the Lacanian Left, thesecond chapter discusses the work of a theorist who has elevatedthe Lacanian conceptualisation of negativity into one of the mostcrucial dimensions of his multifaceted work. Laclau and Mouffe'spublications, and even more so Ernesto Laclau's solo work – whichis the main focus here – explicitly refer to a range of Lacanian termsof art and are extremely suggestive of many conceptual affinities even where there is no direct terminological cross-over. While acknowledging the insightful nature of these structural homologies, the second chapter probes the limits of such theoretical congruence. Lacan's category of the real functions as the central probingtool here; its specific modality of jouissance offers a productive wayof spurring on the dialogue between and among scholars inspired by Lacan and Laclau. The basic hypothesis is that, although discourse theory does take on board and develops further the Lacanian conceptions of negativity, lack and signification and their political implications – exactly what is missing from Castoriadis' work (ch. 1) – it has not adequately tackled the Lacanian problematic of enjoyment, a problematic crucial in understanding the libidinal/visceral underside of identification processes.Less
Moving from the periphery to the core of the Lacanian Left, thesecond chapter discusses the work of a theorist who has elevatedthe Lacanian conceptualisation of negativity into one of the mostcrucial dimensions of his multifaceted work. Laclau and Mouffe'spublications, and even more so Ernesto Laclau's solo work – whichis the main focus here – explicitly refer to a range of Lacanian termsof art and are extremely suggestive of many conceptual affinities even where there is no direct terminological cross-over. While acknowledging the insightful nature of these structural homologies, the second chapter probes the limits of such theoretical congruence. Lacan's category of the real functions as the central probingtool here; its specific modality of jouissance offers a productive wayof spurring on the dialogue between and among scholars inspired by Lacan and Laclau. The basic hypothesis is that, although discourse theory does take on board and develops further the Lacanian conceptions of negativity, lack and signification and their political implications – exactly what is missing from Castoriadis' work (ch. 1) – it has not adequately tackled the Lacanian problematic of enjoyment, a problematic crucial in understanding the libidinal/visceral underside of identification processes.
Benjamin Noys
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638635
- eISBN:
- 9780748671915
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638635.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This introduction traces the rejection of negativity by the major forms of contemporary theory and its replacement by ‘affirmationism’, an alternative stress of the fundamentally affirmative cast of ...
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This introduction traces the rejection of negativity by the major forms of contemporary theory and its replacement by ‘affirmationism’, an alternative stress of the fundamentally affirmative cast of thought. The rejection of negativity is analysed as the result of a desire to find a stable ontological point of resistance against the solvent effects of contemporary capitalism. Its origin is traced to the theorists of desire in the mid-1970s in France, who articulated resistance as the acceleration of the solvent tendencies of capitalism: ‘accelerationism’. With the increasing dominance of capitalism and the collapse of traditional forms of resistance this kind of thinking became untenable. In the context of a capitalism driven by forms of abstraction, especially with new instruments of financialisation, the Introduction argues that affirmationist theory has tried to retrieve points of metaphysical and ontological stability. Against this, it is suggested that a thinking of relational negativity, focused on the question of agency, can better address this political context and retrieve a functional form of negativity as critique.Less
This introduction traces the rejection of negativity by the major forms of contemporary theory and its replacement by ‘affirmationism’, an alternative stress of the fundamentally affirmative cast of thought. The rejection of negativity is analysed as the result of a desire to find a stable ontological point of resistance against the solvent effects of contemporary capitalism. Its origin is traced to the theorists of desire in the mid-1970s in France, who articulated resistance as the acceleration of the solvent tendencies of capitalism: ‘accelerationism’. With the increasing dominance of capitalism and the collapse of traditional forms of resistance this kind of thinking became untenable. In the context of a capitalism driven by forms of abstraction, especially with new instruments of financialisation, the Introduction argues that affirmationist theory has tried to retrieve points of metaphysical and ontological stability. Against this, it is suggested that a thinking of relational negativity, focused on the question of agency, can better address this political context and retrieve a functional form of negativity as critique.
Benjamin Noys
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638635
- eISBN:
- 9780748671915
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638635.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
The conclusion tries to sketch in more detail what a politics and theory of relational negativity might consist of. It does so by turning to a politics of abstraction, which accepts the necessity of ...
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The conclusion tries to sketch in more detail what a politics and theory of relational negativity might consist of. It does so by turning to a politics of abstraction, which accepts the necessity of abstraction and that tries to traverse abstraction. First, the conclusion argues that we must resist the usual reified forms of negativity: human suffering and violent destruction. Rather than a discourse of perpetual destruction and permanent revolution, negativity can be thought as moments of attack and preservation of non-commodified areas of life. Use is then made of Althusser’s work on art to develop a relational negativity that engages with and traverses the effects of abstraction. Rather than the search for a concrete point of resistance the conclusion suggests the need to map and analyse relational forms of negation. Also, the problem of agency is posed to argue that contemporary theory all too often leaves agency in an alternation between the passive and the active that fails to attend to a proper mediation.Less
The conclusion tries to sketch in more detail what a politics and theory of relational negativity might consist of. It does so by turning to a politics of abstraction, which accepts the necessity of abstraction and that tries to traverse abstraction. First, the conclusion argues that we must resist the usual reified forms of negativity: human suffering and violent destruction. Rather than a discourse of perpetual destruction and permanent revolution, negativity can be thought as moments of attack and preservation of non-commodified areas of life. Use is then made of Althusser’s work on art to develop a relational negativity that engages with and traverses the effects of abstraction. Rather than the search for a concrete point of resistance the conclusion suggests the need to map and analyse relational forms of negation. Also, the problem of agency is posed to argue that contemporary theory all too often leaves agency in an alternation between the passive and the active that fails to attend to a proper mediation.
