Digital Commons Network^™

Sociopoetics In The Works Of Shakespeare, Thomas Bechtold

Fast Capitalism

This study is meant to develop an immanent critique following the dialogism of socio-poetics in the literary criticism of Mikhail Bakhtin. Socio-poetics in the reception and composition of Shakespeare's works reflect the first intimations of social and political transformation to a modern nationalized society from a premodern feudal society. This study explores Shakespeare's use of metaphor through his dramatizations and characterizations at the dawn of modernity and the decline of feudalism: identifying contradictions and tensions that intimate this transformation in English society and language, and, providing an approach to this globalizing language that partakes in simultaneous modes of confabulation and …

Shakespeare's Plays Of Deranged Authority: The King's Three Bodies, Daniel Krier

Fast Capitalism

Shakespeare's plays are situated upon the threshold of two worlds: a declining traditional order torn apart by political rivalry and ascendant early-modern capitalism. The history plays dramatize infighting among warring factions of privileged aristocrats as well as revolutionary forces propelled by the rising commons and the politics of commodity. Legitimate authority is rarely secure among the kings perched upon Shakespearean thrones. In Shakespeare's Henriad and King John, crowns are contested from the moment they are placed upon royal heads, inspiring Kantorwicz's political theology: the corporeal body of short-lived kings is distinct from the sovereign's sublime body that reigns without cease. …

The Master's Race: Phallic Whiteness In "The Young Savages", Graham Cassano

Fast Capitalism

This essay examines two parallel, historically contemporaneous, depictions of the Freudian master-slave dialectic. John Frankenheimer's first film, The Young Savages (1961), reconstructs Hank Bell's (Burt Lancaster) repressed transformation from Italian racial other into a white ethnic. In doing so, the film approaches the possibility that race itself may be a kind of social construction. To get at this notion, the film explores the meaning of race in an overtly psychoanalytic language. In fact, The Young Savages echoes the argument of Jacques Lacan's nearly contemporaneous essay, "The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious." Lacan's …

Ignoring Goethe's Faust: A Critical-Theoretical Perspective On American Ideology, Harry F. Dahms

Fast Capitalism

The neglect of Goethe, his work in general, and Faust in particular, in English-speaking countries, is notorious. While Shakespeare's plays have been prominent and widely performed in German-speaking countries, the same is not true for Goethe in the English-speaking world. Focusing non-exclusively on Faust, and cutting a link to Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, I will endeavor to delineate problematic aspects of American ideology, and what it would take, within U.S. sociology, to be cognizant of the latter.   Georg Lukacs wrote about Goethe and Faust, and so did Theodor W. Adorno and Leo Loewenthal, highlighting its importance to critical theory. The …

Breath Back, Bronte Alston

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Breath Back is a collection of poems written throughout the first 18 months of a doctoral study based in the petro-state of Western Australia. As a Wadjela (non-Indigenous) climate justice activist-researcher, Alston adopts poetic autoethnography as an embodied, intuitive praxis to critically and reflexively examine limitations, positionality, power, privilege, and voice throughout their research process. This collection is deeply intertwined with Alston’s deepening connection to Country, specifically through the seasonal cycles of Wardandi Noongar Boodja (Country) in south-west Western Australia.

Developing Transformative Pilgrimage Tourism: Seeing The Relationship Between Stakeholders In Religion-Based Tourism Practices In Quds, Indonesia, I Nyoman Ruja

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The growing transformation of the pilgrimage tourism sector worldwide cannot be separated from relations between community groups, pilgrims and the tourism industry. This research analyses the relationships between stakeholders involved in faith-based tourism practices in Quds, Indonesia. Through a qualitative approach, we investigate, in Quds the interactions and relationships of multiple parties involved in the religious tourism industry, including pilgrims, government, local communities and related institutions. This research collects data through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis. The results show that stakeholder relationships significantly create a sustainable religious tourism experience in Quds. Collaboration between pilgrims, the government and local …

Where Do Latinos Live In The New York City Metropolitan Area? Changing Settlement Patterns, 2000 - 2024, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

This report shows that between 2000 and 2024, the Latino population of the New York metropolitan area increased by 48% from 3,592,542 to 5,316,472 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Along with population expansion, there was a decisive change in settlement patterns among all Latinos, which, in fact, began before 2000. This was the decline of New York City as the major area of the Latino population concentration, although there were differentiations by nationality.

In 2000, 60% of all Latinos in the region lived in the City. By 2024, this had declined to 46%. And while the City’s Latino population …

Assessing Abuse And Neglect In U.S. Nursing Homes: A Comparative Analysis Across Pre-, During, And Post-Pandemic Periods, Katherine Gane

Theses and Dissertations

Nursing homes are among the most closely regulated providers in the U.S. healthcare system, with both federal and state agencies working together to monitor care and help protect residents. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, introduced unprecedented challenges for facilities and survey agencies alike, disrupting normal operations, limiting in-person visits, and temporarily shifting regulatory priorities. The purpose of this study was to examine how these pandemic-related disruptions were reflected in the severity and reporting patterns of substantiated abuse and neglect deficiencies in U.S. nursing homes. Using publicly available data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), this study analyzed 39,607 …

Uk And The 'Razor-Wire Humanitarianism': The Refugee Crisis And The Aesthetic Of Violence, Yasmin Ibrahim

Fast Capitalism

When the 'refugee crisis' in Calais became an issue of renewed concern in the summer of discontent in 2015, UK's reticent stance towards the crisis was captured through its measured approach. A notable riposte from the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, was to send in yet more security fencing to fortify the borders in Calais to assuage the disaffect from the truckers and the public. Dubbing this as UK's 'razor wire humanitarianism', the paper examines how the material artefact of the razor wire is implicated in the aesthetic of violence towards the refugee and migrant bodies in the camps of …

The Politics Of Curiosity, Eva-Maria Swidler

Fast Capitalism

Curiosity, a simultaneously intellectual and emotional phenomenon, is surprisingly unstudied, yet pivotal for social critics and activists to understand. While recognizing curiosity as frequently positive and necessary for creating new solidarities and political movements, it also considers the social and political roots and consequences of incuriosity, apathy, and ignorance, including such topics as willful apathy as cultural resistance and self-defense, ignorance as an ethical choice, incuriosity as arrogance, and the generalized anxiety of neoliberal society and the shrinking of curiosity.

Author Biography

Eva-Maria Swidler, Curtis Institute of Music

Eva Swidler is an environmental historian and political economist with additional interest …

Was Karl Marx An Ecosocialist?, Carl Boggs

Fast Capitalism

Author Biography

Carl Boggs, National University

Carl Boggs is the author of many books in the fields of critical social theory, American politics, U.S. foreign policy and military history, film studies, and ecology. After receiving his Ph.D. at U.C., Berkeley he taught at Washington University in St. Louis, Carleton University in Ottawa, UCLA, USC, and U.C., Irvine. He is currently professor of social sciences at National University in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor to the magazine CounterPunch, is a member of the executive board of the Global Studies Association, and is involved with such journals as Theory …

Panic Learning Off (And On) The Covid Campus, Tara Brabazon, Jamie Quinton, Narelle Hunter

Fast Capitalism

Online learning has been flooded with platitudes, promises and possibilities for twenty years. Oversold and undertheorized, online learning reached its "moment' through the Covid lockdown. Underprepared staff and underfunded universities implemented online learning in a crisis. This was a zombie apocalypse of a context in which to summon innovation. This article activates Paul Virilio's University of Disaster to explore the COVID campus and classroom, entering panic learning.

Author Biographies

Tara Brabazon, Dean of Graduate Research / Professor of Cultural Studies Flinders University

Tara Brabazon is the dean of graduate research and professor of cultural studies at Flinders University, Australia, fellow …

The Pandemic Preferred User, Katie Ellis, Kai-Ti Kao, Tim Pitman

Fast Capitalism

As COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, universities acted quickly to move their core business of teaching and research online. Classes shifted to platforms such as Zoom, Webex, Collaborate and Microsoft Teams and teachers and students alike were expected to adapt. And they did. While there has been much discussion of the unpaid labour involved in making this shift and the difficulties inherent in merging work, study and domestic life, there has been little acknowledgement or analysis of inherent notions of the preferred user in this rapid shift to technology.

This paper draws on critical disability studies to offer a conceptual …

Who Wouldn't Get The Joke?: Vile Sovereignty, Vanishing Mediators, And Trump, Simon Orpana, Evan Mauro

Fast Capitalism

This article considers Trump as an example of "vile sovereignty," a concept Michel Foucault put forward in the mid 1970s to describe "the exercise of power through the explicit disqualification of the person who wields it" (2003b: 35)—a "childish discourse" that disqualifies the speaker at the very moment that they are being appealed to as a figure of authority (36). We argue that this concept helps illuminate contemporary US politics, where Trump's carnivalesque flaunting of political decorum and morality paradoxically seem to buttress the power of his Republican Party. Building upon our theorization of the role vile sovereignty has played …

The Carnival King Of Capital, Charles Thorpe

Fast Capitalism

This paper argues that President Donald Trump may be understood as ruling through carnival. The theatrical reversal of conventional standards and rules, his carnivalesque incivility, is key to his political persona. It performs his claim to be an outsider, attacking and subverting the Washington DC establishment. But Trump's carnivalesque performance, far from undermining the dominant order, reflects it. What Trump represents is carnivalized capital, a financialized and globalized form of capital that has broken free of the social and legal restraints of the nation state. The carnivalesque chaos of Trump's presidency reflects the chaos of financialized capitalism.

Author Biography

Charles …

About The Contributors

Impact: A Journal of Community and Cultural Inquiry in Education

No abstract provided.

Latisha King: Queer Confusion, Aggression, And Correction, Hannah Bollin

Impact: A Journal of Community and Cultural Inquiry in Education

Latisha King was a 15-year-old biracial and transgender student at E.O. Green Junior High who was shot and killed by one of her peers on February 12, 2008. Latisha’s untimely death was followed by a court case during which she was blamed for her own murder due to her gender identity and sexual orientation. Through a thematic analysis of scholarly work alongside public media sources surrounding the case, this study argues that the transphobia that Latisha faced in her classroom was continued in the courtroom and media. More specifically, this article argues that the classroom, murder trial, and public media …

Macau Noir: Criminal Brotherhoods, Casino Capitalism, And The Case Of The Post-Socialist Chinese Consumer, Tim Simpson

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

"The World Of The Grotesque Is The Darkness Within Us": The Noir Geoaesthetics Of Murakami's Nakata, Rick Dolphijn

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Noir As Politics: Spanish Language Hardboiled Detective Fiction And The Discontents Of The Left, Patrick Blaine

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

A Contribution To The Critique Of The Political Economy Of Google, Christian Fuchs

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Media Spectacle And The "Massacre At Virginia Tech", Douglas Kellner

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

To: Multiple Recipients: "There Is A Gunman On Campus...", Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Henry David Thoreau: The Beginnings Of Fast Capitalism, Charles Lemert

Fast Capitalism

Author Biography

Charles Lemert, Wesley University Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University

The Plague Of White Supremacy In The Age Of Fascist Politics, Henry Giroux

Fast Capitalism

The toxic thrust of white supremacy runs through American culture like an electric current. Without apology,Jim Crow is back suffocating American society in a wave of voter suppression laws, ongoing attempts by rightwing politicians to implement a form of apartheid pedagogy, and the resurgence of a right-wing cultural politics organized around the legacy of white nationalism and white supremacy. The emergence of white supremacy to the centers of power is also evident in the reign of police violence against Black people that came into full view with the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer and the ensuring …

Homoterrorism: Definition, Application, Subversion, Angelos Bollas

Fast Capitalism

On Friday, September 21, 2018, news reports on Greek corporate media announced the death of a man who had allegedly attempted to rob a jewellery store. The media announcement was accompanied by video footage in which two civilians were shown violently attacking the alleged thief while the latter was attempting to escape the jewellery store. A little later, the alleged thief was announced dead. This is the case of Zak Kostopoulos who was lynched in his attempt to escape a jewellery shop where he had found shelter from a threat that, to this day, remains unknown. Zak was lynched literally …

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

The Claustropolitan Society: A Critical Perspective On The Impact Of Digital Technologies And The Lockdown Imaginary, Tara Brabazon, Stefan Lawrence

Fast Capitalism

The imperative of this article is to develop the trope of the ‘lockdown imaginary.’ To enact this project, a diverse array of theories and theorist are summoned, including the tropes and trajectories from Jean Baudrillard, Benedict Anderson, and Steve Redhead. This – seemingly – odd intellectual combination is both timely and appropriate. It is necessary – as with the Matryoshka Dolls – to commence with a theorization of hyperreality, then we crack open the concept to reveal theories of the imagined and imagining, concluding with the smallest and most brutalizing theoretical Dolls: claustropolitanism and foreclosure. From here, a (post) pandemic …

Film Review Of K-Pop Demon Hunters, Emily Stier Adler, Emily Farmer

Sociology Between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics

No abstract provided.

Power, Privilege, And Perceptions: A Critical Case Study Of Ffa And Gsa Members’ High School Experiences In A Southern Rural High School, Eric Moser, Stacy Vincent, Rebekah Epps

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

There is an urgent need to address the rampant homophobic and transphobic systems and rhetoric in the United States. School cultures reflect the systemic privileging of heterosexual and cisgender identities, which places queer students at an increased risk of victimization and harassment. Rural schools have been found to uphold heteronormative and cisnormative cultures more than suburban and urban schools, which increases safety concerns for rural queer students. Rural schools commonly offer school-based agricultural education (SBAE) and FFA programs, which have been found to struggle in their inclusion of racial minority students. To combat hostile school cultures, many schools offer a …