The Constructivist Emphasis on Language: A Critical Conversation

1992 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen W. Coale
Keyword(s):  
Critical Conversation

Forms of Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Gailus
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
The Core ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Critical Conversation

This book argues that the neglect of aesthetics in most contemporary theories of biopolitics has resulted in an overly restricted conception of life. The book insists we need a more flexible notion of life: one attuned to the interplay and conflict between its many dimensions and forms. The book develops such a notion through the meticulous study of works by Kant, Goethe, Kleist, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Benn, Musil, and others. It shows that the modern conception of “life” as a generative, organizing force internal to living beings emerged in the last decades of the eighteenth century in biological thought. At the core of this vitalist strand of thought, the book maintains, lies a persistent emphasis on the dynamics of formation and deformation, and thus on an intrinsically aesthetic dimension of life. The book brings this older discourse into critical conversation with contemporary discussions of biopolitics and vitalism, while also developing a rich conception of life that highlights, rather than suppresses, its protean character. It demonstrates that life unfolds in the open-ended interweaving of the myriad forms and modalities of biological, ethical, political, psychical, aesthetic, and biographical systems.

scholarly journals Non-philosophical Christ-poetics beyond the mystical turn in conversation with continental philosophy of religion

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann-Albrecht Meylahn
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Critical Conversation ◽  
Language Text ◽  
The Way

The religious turn in continental philosophy has opened the door for postmetaphysical mystical theology. Postmetaphysical mystical theology seeks to understand the non-relation relation of language (text) to the Other. Yet, this non-relation relation to the Other, who is every other, can also be interpreted differently to the mystical understanding. For example, Žižek argues that the Other, which is often experienced as the uncanny, the unpredictable and the contingent (lived spirituality), is not necessarily the result of some mystical unknowable Otherness but is a consequence of the way the subject’s own activity is inscribed into reality. These experiences of lived spirituality or experiences of Otherness can, rather than being interpreted as an in-breaking of the mystical Other, be interpreted otherwise, as a grammatological consequence of the inability and impossibility of language (Lacan). Therefore, in this article, Žižek’s thoughts function as a bridge to bring this mystical turn back into critical conversation with continental philosophy and particularly with the thoughts of Derrida, Laruelle and Stiegler. The contemporary mystical turn in theology rediscovers something of this non-religious religion. Derrida’s thoughts are in close proximity to negative theology and yet there is an important difference. This difference will be explored and further developed towards Laruelle’s non-philosophy, which does not translate into a non-religion religion or postmetaphysical metaphysics but remains a non-philosophy or maybe a science of Christ. This article will conclude with a tentative exploration of a postmetaphysical Christ-poetics beyond the mystical turn.

Refugee Compassion and the Politics of Embodied Storytelling: A Critical Conversation

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 441-445
Author(s):  
Vinh Nguyen ◽  
Thy Phu ◽  
Y-Dang Troeung
Keyword(s):  
Critical Conversation

The Autonomous Object of Concrete Poetry

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-61
Author(s):  
Rebecca Kosick
Keyword(s):  
Object Oriented ◽  
Concrete Poetry ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Critical Conversation ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology

In the concrete poem, language is not a representation of extra-poetic objects, feelings or ideas but an object all its own. In this chapter, Brazilian concrete poetry by Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, and Décio Pignatari is compared with other analogous forms – from Hellenistic pattern poems to Guillaume Apollinaire’s calligrams and Louis Zukofsky’s objectivism – to emphasise that what’s unique about Brazilian concrete poetry has to do with an insistence on the object as resistant to relation. In critical conversation with object-oriented ontology, this chapter shows that Brazilian concrete poetry manages to think the object’s resistance by thinking language. Without renouncing language’s ‘virtuality’ – its ability to mean – early concrete poetry stakes out a space for the poem-object to achieve a mode of autonomy akin to what theorists like Graham Harman describe. Though the poem relates by nature to the things it represents and to its writer and reader, this chapter explores concrete poetry’s self-theorisation and practical realisation as a form capable of existing autonomously from its representation of external objects. Ultimately concrete poetry even finds ways of existing apart from an authorial or reading subject when the poem, and its materiality, creates itself and determines its own readability.

Conceptualising quality following conflict: Afghanistan’s higher education policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-451
Author(s):  
Daniel Couch
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Higher Education Policy ◽  
National Development ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Conversation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the dominant conceptualisation of quality in Afghanistan’s higher education strategic planning and policies, and consider the implications a broader conceptualisation of quality might have within Afghanistan’s conflict-affected context. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on data from document analysis and semi-structured interviews, the author identifies the dominant policy conceptualisation of quality. Findings The dominant conceptualisation of quality in Afghanistan’s higher education policy documents aligns with the sector’s primary policy purpose of promoting economic growth. However, quality assurance processes were developed with significant input from international actors, and replicate global norms for quality assurance. Whilst this is important for validity and legitimacy, at the same time it can be delegitimising for local stakeholders, and can limit opportunities for conceptualisations of quality which genuinely engage with the particularities of Afghanistan’s broader conflict-affected social context. Research limitations/implications Introducing conceptualisations of quality in Afghanistan’s higher education policy which de-centre economic growth, and rather re-position social goals of cohesion and political sustainability as a central understanding of quality higher education, opens possibilities for the sector’s contribution towards national development. Originality/value There is limited published research into conceptualisations of quality within low-income and conflict-affected higher education contexts in general, and Afghanistan in particular. This paper intends to extend a critical conversation about the non-economic dividends a quality higher education sector can offer in such contexts.

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