Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Embodied Rhetoric Of Cognitive Labour, Shubhayan Chakrabarti

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This dissertation traces the roots of neoliberal selfhood to the rationalist ontology of modernity in the 1600s. The historical tension between materialism and immaterialism is expressed in the historicisation of work into Fordism and post-Fordism where embodied factory toil is apparently replaced by immaterial work, recalling Descartes’ mind-body split. If post-Fordist work addresses the Marxist critique of alienation in its emphasis on entrepreneurial inner selves, it does not explain the post-Fordist preoccupation to efficiently “Taylorise” the body through obsessive productivity. I argue that the factory prevails in the entrepreneur’s adoption of factory efficiency as a learnt behaviour from the Fordist …

The Cave And The Stars: On The People And Democracy Of Non-Philosophy, Jeremy R. Smith

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This monograph dissertation explores the work of François Laruelle and the democratic nature of his non-philosophy. In four separate chapters, this dissertation argues for identifying non-philosophy as the introduction of democracy into thought and seeks to instantiate a necessary theoretical delimitation for its programme, which explores the relationships between people, thought, and power. Chapter One analyzes previous philosophical frameworks from thinkers such as Edmund Husserl, Max Horkheimer, and Louis Althusser on their respective stances toward philosophy’s role for people. Chapter Two investigates the work of François Laruelle for the past fifty years as the development of non-philosophy or “human philosophy.” …

Civil War And Power: A Theoretical Inquiry, Can Guven

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This dissertation is a theoretical project that explores the conceptual nexus between civil war and power. It maps out a lineage of thought which posits civil war as a framework for explicating politics, not as a pre-political stage of savagery or a deteriorated condition of the socio-political order. Starting with Michel Foucault’s radical yet short-lived civil war thesis, which situates civil war as the matrix of relations of power, this investigation traverses the work of several theorists and philosophers who have drawn on, or departed from, this line of thought. It critically evaluates Giorgio Agamben’s use of the concept …

Colombian Women’S Experiences Of The Canadian Refugee And Asylum Adjudication Process, Camila N. Parra Carrillo

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The present thesis “Colombian women’s experiences of the Canadian refugee and asylum adjudication process” is an ethnographic description and analysis of the experiences of Colombian refugee women as they move through the refugee and asylum adjudication system in Ontario, Canada. Using concepts such as liminality, politics of waiting, hermeneutics of suspicion and arbitrariness, the refugee and asylum adjudication system is shown to be a site of power and domination that creates negative emotions in the people who face it, especially in the oral hearing as a central event in the process. Centering Colombian refugee women’s voices, their experiences and emotions …

Indigenous Land Claims And Reconciliation: The Importance Of Land And Relationship Between Indigenous Nations And The Government Of Canada, Joy S. Spear Chief-Morris

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This thesis discusses whether Indigenous land claims settlements signal reconciliation between Indigenous nations and the Government of Canada. Using Indigenous methodologies, anti-oppressional and intersectional lenses, and process tracing, it argues that land claim settlements do not signal reconciliation of the Indigenous-Canadian relationship. This is because the modern land claims settlement process exists as a reiteration of the colonial policies and institutions that proceeded it. It examines the historical treaty process, case law on Aboriginal rights and title, existing documents, and statutes that protect and promote Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood. Lastly, it examines the 2015 Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission as …

Global Governance And Imperial Entanglements: Competition, Cooperation, And Catastrophe In Anglo-Italian Relations, 1922-1940, Jessi Gilchrist

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This study reconsiders the road to war narrative by focusing on cooperation rather than conflict in Anglo-Italian relations. I link international and imperial historical methods in order to examine British and Italian efforts to cooperate over their clashing interests in empire between 1922 and 1940. By comparing six case studies drawn from British and Italian archives, this thesis explains why the two governments pursued cooperation over empire; how imperial methods facilitated or challenged cooperation; and what this tells us about the global order and the norms that governed it during the interwar years.Three case studies highlight imperial spaces where cooperation …

A Geology Of The General Intellect, Dillon Douglas

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We can no longer be certain whether the central terms and conceptual matrix that the Italian Autonomist Marxist tradition richly develops and draws on--the common, the general intellect, immaterial labour, psychopolitics, cognitariat--are able to survive unscathed the theoretical problems that the epoch of the Anthropocene poses. In an attempt to push this conceptual matrix to its political and ontological limits, I expose a series of “ecological deficits” at the core of Autonomist thought and make the argument that semiocapitalism is a geological operator just as much it is a cognitive, financial or linguistic one. …

Frontiers Of Care, Thomas E. Randall

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Care ethics is a feminist normative theory that emphasizes the moral significance of our relational interdependency in the provision and receipt of care. On this view, ethical action is situated and evaluated as it emerges through caring relations. However, an oft-cited criticism of care ethics is that its normative frontiers cannot be extended to the wider concerns of justice that lie beyond our relational limits. In this dissertation, I outline and defend an interpretation of care ethics that shows how the values of care identified within our personal relations can be abstracted to show that we do have certain obligations …

"I Have A Seat In The Abandoned Theater": Post-Foundational Subjects, Inoperative Teleologies, And The Aesthetics Of Dispossession, Averil L. Novak

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What is the nature of political ‘reality,’ and in what ways are we capable of affecting it? Who (or what? and where?) is the subject of democratic politics? Of revolutionary politics? Are they opposed to one another? The grand narratives that ‘ground’ this project and the resistances that unground them form the basis for a post-foundational analytic of the subject of politics, of identity, and of community, which constitutes a mobilization of democratic resistance as a commitment to persistent (and in some cases, relentless) contestation, interruption, and disruption. These questions are explored through the argument that modern politics is …

The Political Power Of Carlos Chávez And His Influence Upon Silvestre Revueltas And Blas Galindo, Yolanda Tapia

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This monograph examines the political power of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez (1899–1978) during the first half of the twentieth century in Mexico, and his influence upon the careers and lives of composers Silvestre Revueltas (1899–1940) and Blas Galindo (1910–1993). I show how Carlos Chávez acquired institutional power through various cultural organizations such as the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, the Conservatorio Nacional, Departamento de Bellas Artes, and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, and how his desire to bind music and culture with politics positioned him as the head of the cultural committee of Miguel Aleman’s presidential campaign of 1945. Chávez’s …

The Politics Of Wounds, Jonathan Nash

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What configuration of strategies and discourses enable the white male and settler body politic to render itself as simultaneously wounded and invulnerable? I contextualize this question by reading the discursive continuities between Euro-America’s War on Terror post-9/11 and Algeria’s War for Independence. By interrogating political-philosophical responses to September 11, 2001 beside American rhetoric of a wounded nation, I argue that white nationalism, as a mode of settler colonialism, appropriates the discourses of political wounding to imagine and legitimize a narrative of white hurt and white victimhood; in effect, reproducing and hardening the borders of the nation-state. Additionally, by turning to …

Social Networks, Political Discourse And Polarization During The 2017 Catalan Elections, Rafael Monroig

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This thesis investigates the political process in Spain and Catalonia during the Catalan election in December 2017. This regional election was unusual because of the independence process in Catalonia and its repression. Two parties, Ciudadanos (anti-independence) and Podemos (ambiguous position) and their leaders’ activity in Twitter was analyzed. It was explored from three perspectives: social networks, lexical and emotional discourse and ideological polarization. Firstly, social networks were used to see the properties of the support communities of both parties. Interestingly unlike Ps, Ciudadanos’ (Cs) metrics of cohesion showed that political communities of this party in Spain and Catalonia were remarkably …

Settler Colonial Ways Of Seeing: Documentary Governance Of Indigenous Life In Canada And Its Disruption, Danielle Taschereau Mamers

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Settler colonialism in Canada has and continues to dispossess Indigenous nations of their lands and authority. Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing argues that a politics of visibility has been central to these structures of invasion and dispossession. In an effort to transform sovereign Indigenous nations into “Indians”, the state has used techniques of bureaucratic documentation to naturalize the classification of Indigenous bodies as racially inferior and thus subject to a range of violent interventions. This politics of visibility fails to see Indigenous people as people who matter.

Using Indigenous feminist critique, discourse analysis, and aesthetics to analyze federal legislation, …

Cultural Diversity In Artificial Societies: Case Studies Of The Maya Peoples, Roberto Ulloa

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The existence of cultural diversity in a connected world is paradoxical given that all individuals constantly interact and share information, and that individuals are all part of one giant network of connections. In the long term, it seems logical to assume that everybody should hold the same cultural information and, therefore, the same culture. Yet cultural diversity is still manifest around the globe. Cultural diversity as a phenomenon becomes even more puzzling when we take into account how it survives catastrophic events which regularly befall societies, such as invasions, natural disasters, and civil wars. In this thesis, agent-based computer simulations …

Building Canadian National Identity Within The State And Through Ice Hockey: A Political Analysis Of The Donation Of The Stanley Cup, 1888-1893, Jordan Goldstein

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The Stanley Cup elicits strong emotions related to Canadian national identity despite its association as a professional ice hockey trophy. This strong link between the Cup and Canadian national identity emerged in its creation and donation. Lord Stanley, in addition to his love of ice hockey, donated the Cup partly as a political action. The cup stood as a physical symbol to unite the disparate Canadian population around a new national sport. Given Lord Stanley’s position as Governor General (1888-1893) this donation carried political authority. The purpose of this study is to investigate the donation of the Stanley Cup as …

Sexual Violence At Nyarubuye: History, Justice, Memory. A Case Study Of The 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Nicole M. Ephgrave

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This dissertation raises complex questions about historical truth, the pursuit of justice, and processes of memorialization vis-à-vis one case study of the Rwandan genocide: the Nyarubuye Church massacre, where members of the Interahamwe militia and their accomplices murdered tens of thousands of (mainly) Tutsi men, women and children, April 15^th-17^th, 1994. As a microcosm of larger patterns of the genocide and its aftermath, I analyze official discourses to uncover how this specific event is framed and understood, with a focus on the widespread perpetration of sexual violence. Specifically, I provide a chronological reconstruction of the massacre, …

Elusive Peace, Security, And Justice In Post-Conflict Guatemala: An Exploration Of Transitional Justice And The International Commission Against Impunity In Guatemala (Cicig), Daniel W. Schloss

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Guatemala has, until today, struggled to achieve security and justice following the end of nearly half a century of civil war in 1996. One specific institution, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), has been implemented to rectify many of the Guatemalan state’s difficulties in establishing and maintaining the rule of law. In this thesis, I look to better explain CICIG’s role in Guatemala relative to security and justice in a post-conflict setting: I define CICIG as an institution potentially capable of building societal trust, and I explain how the inclusion of procedural justice within transitional justice can help …

Mining, Resistance And Livelihood In Rural Bangladesh, Md Rashedul Alam

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In 2006, over fifty thousand people in the Phulbari Sub-District of Bangladesh mobilized against an open-pit coal mining-project that posed serious environmental and social risks. The state authorities negotiated with the protesters intensively over four days to reach an agreement. However, the state failed to fulfill the agreement, and the protest movement continued. The agrarian communities successfully halted the mining project for the last nine years. My research aims to understand how the protesters resisted this project. My objectives have been to explore the practices of a grassroots movement, attendant transformations in the sociopolitical landscape and role of the state …

La Dialectique Du Bourreau : Étude Du Bourreau Nazi Dans La Littérature Contemporaine Française, Désirée Lamoureux

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La parole du bourreau nazi est absente de la majorité des documents historiques. Pour contrer cette carence, certains auteurs ont choisi de donner une place narrative à ce personage sybillin à l’intérieur de leur diégèse. Cette étude a pour but d’analyser la manière dont trois auteurs, soit Robert Merle, Jonathan Littell et Laurent Binet, octroient une place narrative au bourreau nazi. Nous cherchons aussi à élucider les raisons pour lesquelles il existe un intérêt dans la perspective du bourreau au début de ce nouveau millénaire.

Manufacturing Legitimacy: A Critical Theory Of Election News Coverage, Gabriel N. Elias

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To what degree does instrumental reason influence election news coverage? Using Habermas's understanding of system/life-world as a heuristic, I map the rationalization process of political communication. This illuminates the institutional logics at play in the field of politics and the field of journalism, and the way the social dynamics between them enable the framing of political life as a strategic game. This understanding is then contextualized within an analysis of the media frames that informed the Canadian federal election of 2011. I find that news coverage does tend to focus on political strategy; but this is not wholly at the …

“Winds Of Change”: Explaining Support For Wind Energy Developments In Ontario, Canada, Chad Jr Walker

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This thesis addresses a major gap in the wind turbine and risk assessment literatures. It explains local support for wind energy in some areas in spite of vocal opposition in others. Findings from Port Burwell and Clear Creek, Ontario indicate that social and contextual forces may help explain much of the difference in opinion between the two communities. The case study was focused through 21 in-depth interviews. The interviews were analyzed verbatim using NVIVO 9 software. The findings were found to be consistent with Kasperson’s theory of the Social Amplification of Risk and seem to explain why Port Burwell is …

A Rawlsian Idea Of Deliberative Democracy, Angela D. White

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In my thesis, I develop a framework based on John Rawls's Political Liberalism that addresses the question: how is it possible for democratic institutions and their decisions to be legitimate, given that (i) they are supposed to be governed by the "will of the people", but (ii) the people will disagree with each other about what political institutions ought to do about any given issue? Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson advance a deliberative democratic response to this question, which has served as the basis of governments' attempts to "strengthen democracy". They argue that political decisions are justified insofar as they …

"Ça Devient Une Question D’Être Maîtres Chez Nous”: The Canadiens, Nordiques, And The Politics Of Québécois Nationalism, 1979-1984, Terry Gitersos

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This dissertation analyzes the discourses produced by the selected newspaper coverage of the Montréal Canadiens and Québec Nordiques, two professional hockey clubs based in the province of Québec, from 1979 to 1984. Sport has long provided a medium for national identification, and constitutes one the most effective institutions through which the nation is imagined. This is especially true of Canada, where ice hockey has been celebrated as the country’s national game and a window into the Canadian soul. However, sport is a malleable institution; in Québec, hockey has long served as a symbol, speaking to French Canadian national identity, imbued …