Continental Philosophy Commons^™

They, The People, Ammel Sharon

Socio-Legal Review

This essay engages with Rohit De and Ornit Shani’s Assembling India’s Constitution by situating it within a broader conceptual history of “the people.” While the book offers a compelling account of participatory constitution-making, the essay suggests that it opens up further questions about the conceptual and historical conditions shaping the people as a political subject. Drawing on contemporary political theory on populism, the essay explores how politics invokes the people through affective and performative practices alongside constitutional forms.

Wilhelm Von Humboldt And The Idea Of The Modern University: The Unity Of Bildung And Wissenschaft, Ken Udas

Graduate Masters Theses

Wilhelm von Humboldt and the Idea of the Modern University examines Wilhelm von Humboldt’s contribution to shaping a philosophical ideal that has profoundly influenced the concept and identity of the modern research university for over two centuries. It highlights Humboldt’s position as a key figure in the Prussian reform movement and as the founder of the University of Berlin. Specifically, it addresses a question raised in the late twentieth century as part of the Mythos Humboldt revision: why has the Humboldtian Ideal maintained such lasting influence over the German university system, even as its practical realities have increasingly strayed from …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

The Grand Narratives: The Rise And Fall Of Universal Philosophical Systems, Gavin S. Litchford

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis reviews the development of narrative and systematic methods of argumentative legitimation in the Western tradition of philosophy from its conception until the present day. Utilizing both primary sources from central figures in key movements within this development process and supplementary secondary sources, this analysis notes which systems were used as appeals to higher authority and the trends in the adoption and transformation of new models. It is demonstrated that the Enlightenment era punctuated a progression begun in the premodern era from simple, cultural narratives to individualized, subjective, and self-perpetuating Grand Narrative systems, and that it generated the preconditions …

Johann Georg Hamann And The Liberal Project, Jesse D. Ansley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the political thought of Johann Georg Hamann, his relationship to liberalism, and the importance to modern concerns for consensus formation and intercultural dialogue. This contributes to the line of literature sparked by Isaiah Berlin debating the political legacy of Hamann and its relation to the development of modern politics. Berlin labels Hamann an anti-rationalist whose current developed into the ideology of the Nazi party. My work supports the countervailing arguments that Hamann’s work is importantly different from the Romantics he inspired and even more so from the Nazis. By examining two complete works and a number of …

Thinking Blue / Writing Red: Marxism And The (Post)Human, Stephen C. Tumino

Publications and Research

Thinking Blue/Writing Red interrogates contemporary culture across a range of texts, from the pandemic (‘Covid’ and ‘Trump Speak’) to high theory (Melville's narratives) and popular culture (Beyoncé's ‘Formation’ and Super Bowl performance, Twin Peaks , metamodern ‘cli-fi’ films). Inspired by Derrida’s idea of the secret, Tumino examines the significance of social movements (Black Lives Matter, Occupy, alter-globalization) and naïve art (Darger, Ryden) to argue that these texts speak of the secrets that capitalism cannot speak. Contending that the cultural surfaces narrate only the ‘nonsecret,’ that to see the social logic of the culture one must dig into what Bruno Latour …

Illusions Of Freedom? A History Of Attitudes Toward Death, Dominick Bucca

All Theses

My thesis explores the historical question: “Is there any freedom from death?” through three figures within the Western metaphysical tradition: Thucydides (460-400 BCE), Augustine (354-430 CE), and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616). In so doing, my thesis suggests the following: for Thucydides, freedom from death arose through the immortality of empire; for Augustine, through the immortality of God’s grace; and for Cervantes, through the immortality of narratives/attitudes of immortality. Moreover, I nest my claim within an exploratory narrative. Which is to say that, lifting a page from Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), I have attempted to break away from the near total …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

What Difference Does It Make? Early Reception Stories About Luce Irigaray's Writing On Divine Women, Elsa Kunz

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This paper examines numerous pre-texts in Anglo-American feminist theology and critical theory seminal to the establishment of feminist philosophy of religion as a distinct academic discipline. Specifically, I trace early reception of philosopher Luce Irigaray’s writing on becoming divine women in Anglo-American feminist circles, arguing that critical attention to the “horizons of expectations” around Irigaray’s person is a necessary step to the myriad readings of her work. I begin by situating my own initial expectations and encounters with Irigaray’s writing on divine women as a graduate student in theological studies cross-registered in a course on ‘French Feminism’ in the neighboring …

The Bodies Of The Condemned: The Return Of The Body As The Object Of State Power, Kenzo E. Okazaki

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper provides a historical analysis of the genealogy of American policing and attempts to explain the return of state power to individual bodies. It argues that this return was informed by French counterinsurgency strategies in Algeria. Through engagement with Foucault's analysis of power and surveillance practices, it aims to shed light on and help us better understand and combat police brutality today.

The Barmen Declaration And The American Church: A Warning And Guidance From History, Johnny Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

The Barmen Declaration serves as a great example that the American Church should heed.[1] The American Church faces a hostile secular culture and a government that is increasingly statist and anti-Christian. The state has become an idol in an American culture that rejects truth and righteousness. A bold stance for truth and Christ is required by scripture and is the key to transforming the culture and saving the American Republic.

Those Thrice Marked By Time: The Significance Of The Last Known Survivor, Their Death, And Our Remembrance, Michael Tofte

Theses

Following Adam Zarakov, the last known survivor is a significant figure and a representative of a larger type that is under-considered. Last known survivors are ubiquitous in fictional media and how history is told. Some survivors like Frank Buckles are given lavish state funerals with participation of strangers. Yet, this under-analysis is concerning as the 21^st century will likely feature the recognition of last known survivors of many significant 20^th century events. I offer one attempt of addressing this lacuna.

The first aim is to motivate philosophical interest in the phenomenon of the last known survivor. I present …

Locke’S Rebellious Progeny: Phenomenology And Ethics Of Leopardi’S A-Dialectical Materialism, Paolo Pellecchia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With this study I reconstruct a genealogy of the a-dialectic materialism that defines the production of 19^th-century Italian author Giacomo Leopardi and with which he criticizes canonical metaphysical stances. In this regard, I consider John Locke as the first instance of a philosophical outlook that stands as an alternative to the anthropocentrism demanded by traditional metaphysics. By focusing on An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and its significant influence on Leopardi’s philosophical and aesthetic work, I emphasize how Locke’s system finds a synthetic formulation in the hypothesis, at the time highly contested yet groundbreaking, that matter might be endowed …

The Political Aesthetic Of Hannah Arendt: Modernity, Judgment, And Culture, Quixote R. Vassilakis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The plan of this thesis is, first, to interpret Arendt’s critique of the modern age. Next, this paper outlines Arendt’s reconceptualization of Kant’s theory of judgment as the basis for a novel model of the public sphere in light of the conditions of modernity. Finally, this paper explores Arendt’s poetics as a means of activating the faculty of judgment in order to reconcile with the modern world. In order to address the political crises of modernity, Arendt develops a political aesthetic alive to the role of narrative and culture in reconstituting political communities. I argue that Hannah Arendt develops a …

The Dialectic Of Naturgeist In Hegel’S Anthropology: Soul, World, And Bodiliness, Jiho Oh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary concern of the “Anthropology” section in Hegel’s Encyclopedia of 1830 is the relationship between soul and body: how the soul gains an immediate, bodily existence through embodiment, why and how this immediate mode of the soul’s bodily existence is precarious, and how the soul becomes second nature by overcoming the immediate, bodily existence through habit, more precisely. Importantly, the “Anthropology” is the place in Hegel’s Encyclopedia system where the Philosophy of Nature ends, and the Philosophy of Spirit begins. The thematization of the soul-body relationship in the “Anthropology” is thus essentially framed by a broader, systematic problem concerning …

Table Of Contents, Regennia N. Williams

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Madiba And Martin: A Bibliography Compiled By Martha Ruff, Martha Huff

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Transformational Leadership: Flow, Resonance, And Social Change, Enas Elhanafi

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

South Africa As A Dynamic Teaching Experience, Robert A. Simons, Christine Dickinson

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

The Spiritual Mandela: Faith And Religion In The Life Of Nelson Mandela, Jenni L. Shelton

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Applying Gadamer: An Evaluation Of Interpretations Of The Confucian Analects By Different Schools Under The Light Of Gadamerian Hermeneutics, Yifeng Xu

Senior Independent Study Theses

This thesis attempts to analyse and evaluate several interpretations of the Confucian Analects under the light of Gadamerian hermeneutics. In chapter 1, I explicate Gadamerian hermeneutics and analyse Gadamer’s hermeneutical view. In chapter 2, I introduce a challenge to Gadamer’s theory regarding the problem of objectivity, give Gadamer a limited defence, and then reconstruct Gadamerian hermeneutics in order to answer the challenge. Chapter 3 deals with some further concerns about the application of Gadamerian hermeneutics in terms of evaluating interpretations. Chapter 4 and 5 are spent on analysing two groups of interpretations of the Confucian Analects as well as the …

The Documentality Of Memory In The Post-Truth Era, Claire Scopsi

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This article analyzes the documentality of memories in order to ground further consideration of memory for historical research in the post-truth era. The article compares discussions of the document in document theory to those in French historical epistemology in order to establish what is a reliable documentary source. Formerly, reliability was rooted in the paradigm of truth and the authenticity guaranteed by institutions and scientists. In today's post-truth era, these foundations are questioned. This article suggests that we consider the production of historical narratives as a design process, and that we evaluate the truthfulness of a source according to three …

Portraits With A Posthumous Voice: Reinforcing And Contesting Social Norms In The Heterotopic Museum And Cemetery, Matthew J. Crissey

Museum Studies Theses

Abstract

The following paper qualitatively analyzes and documents over 500 memorial-photographs/etched portraits on tombstones in ten Western New York cemeteries. This paper covers fourteen topics, ranging from religion to gang-violence. A juxtaposition of portraits exhibited within the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with memorial-portraits on tombstones revealed heterotopic environments creating a public forum enabling the reinforcing or contestation of social ideologies. In other words, the author observed the similarities of identities and social norms publicly expressed on tombstones and gallery portraits.

A Social Constructionist approach enabled the study to examine how one social phenomenon contributes to the shaping of a culture. …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Another Scientific Revolution: Now Yielding A 'Cosmic Biology' Consistent With Natural Theology, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Beyond the Copernican revolution, another scientific revolution is now in process. Inspired by Sir Fred Hoyle and others, this contemporary extension of the Copernican revolution is replacing biology conceived as exclusively Earth science with biology conceived as including study of stellar evolution and cosmic evolution. Furthermore, astrobiology, panspermia, and cosmic biology (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe) are advancing in ways consistent with natural theology, especially with panentheism. Some of this was anticipated and advocated by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and other philosophers of nature.

Rescinding Rancière: An Investigation Into The Conservative Tendencies Of A Leading Proponent Of Radical Democracy, And A Reconstruction Of The Participatory Democracy Of Ancient Athens, Tyler J. Olsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis advances a critique of the political theory of Jacques Rancière, focusing on the problems that arise as a result of its rigid form combined with its narrow content. I argue that Rancière gets caught in a practice of immanent critique that merely presupposes bourgeois abstract right; and that his ontological and pragmatic commitments prohibit him from projecting a norm that would transcend the liberal order. I trace these ontological and pragmatic commitments in detail by examining the intellectual milieu from which Rancière’s project emerged, the post-foundational political philosophy of the 1980s, with particular attention given to Claude Lefort. …

"Betwixt The World Destroyed And World Restored": Subjectivity And Paradisal Recovery In John Milton's Late Poems, Chihping Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study focuses on the discovery of subjectivity through the recovery of lost paradise in Milton’s late poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. This theme revolves around the tension between the affective and the empirical, which also configure the spheres of the sacred and the profane. I explore how the irresistibly emancipatory impulse of recovering lost paradise compels Miltonic subjects to seek ways to return to their originary state or the divine ensemble. During this process, the subject is engaged with his own incapacity or privation while reaching into the sphere of unknown potentiality. In …

In Anthropocene Air: Deleuze's Encounter With Shakespeare, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Paul Piccone’S Providential Moment: Phenomenology, Subjectivity, And 20th Century Marxism In Telos, Jacob A. Ulmschneider

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the intellectual history of editor, writer, and philosopher, Paul Piccone and Telos, an independent journal of contemporary critical theory, which he founded in 1968. Born in Italy, Piccone lived most of his life in the United States, earning his Ph.D. in philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo in 1970. Piccone served as Telos’ editor and a major contributor from 1968 to 2004. This thesis follows the trajectory of his thought by contextualizing his writing within the broader world of Marxist, and eventually post-Marxist, political philosophy. Telos also concerned itself with modern interpretations of historical dialectics and early 20^th-century …

Stasi Brainwashing In The Gdr 1957 - 1990, Jacob H. Solbrig, Jacob Hagen Solbrig

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the methods used by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), more commonly known as the Stasi, or East German secret police, for extraction of information from citizens of the German Democratic Republic for the purpose of espionage and covert operations inside East Germany, as it pertains to the deliberate brainwashing of East German citizens. As one of the most efficient intelligence agencies to ever exist, the Stasi’s main purpose was to monitor the population, gather intelligence, and collect or turn informants. They used brainwashing techniques to control the people of the GDR, keeping the populace paralyzed with fear …