Continental Philosophy Commons^™

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 …

On The Borders Of The Document: Trip To Turakia, Sabine Roux, Caroline Courbieres

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Analysis of documentary boundaries through the study of a set of documents related to the French Theater Company Turak. We describe as artistic documents the different documents that circulate during the creation of a play. There is an initial documentary collection comprised of the documentation for the performance on which the company relies to stage the play itself. At different stages of artistic creation, the company designs documents that are useful for the pursuit of creative reflection. The theater company also develops documents aimed at promoting the play for professionals and the public. Finally, the spectators also produce many documents …

Hermeneutic Philosophies Of Social Science: Introduction, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

La Violenza Della Violenza, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

ünther Anders, al pari di Hannah Arendt, fu un teorico del potere che sviluppò un’esplicita riflessione filosofica sulla violenza. Tuttavia, anche gli esperti delle sue opere trovano solitamente che le riflessioni di Anders sul potere (in tedesco Macht) implichino una certa difficoltà interpretativa, specialmente perché la sua scrittura è stilisticamente impegnativa, ma anche perché, in modo più decisivo, Anders scrisse sulla natura della tecnica, argomento inusuale per la maggior parte dei teorici della politica e dei filosofi. Questo interesse può essere riscontrato a cominciare dalle primissime riflessioni del filosofo tedesco sulla musica, e in tutti i suoi studi sull’essere …

Aftermath, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Aftermath

The question after any disaster is the question of what remains and that, to the extent that there is still something that remains, is the question of life. It is life that is the question after Auschwitz—how go on, how write poetry, how philosophize? What is called thinking after Heidegger? Are we still inclined to thinking, after Heidegger? And what of logic? What of history? And what of science? In addition, we may ask after ethical implications, including questions bearing on anti-Semitism, but also issues of misogyny, as well as Heidegger’s critical questions concerning technology and concerning animal life …

The Varieties Of Place-Based Education, Laureen Park

Publications and Research

Traditionally, the predominant focus of Place-based educational (PBE) theories and practices has been the natural environment. The focus of this chapter will be on urban and digital environments as incubators of the PBE goals of experiential learning, interdisciplinarity, critical thinking, ethical reflection, and other goals. The framework used to interpret and analyze the various senses of place is based on the notions of the lifeworld, personalistic attitude, noesis and noema, all concepts found in Edmund Husserl’s Ideas I and II. Urban and virtual places share the characteristic of being built, which has resonances for the interactivity and engagement …

Speaking Of Genocide: Double Binds And Political Discourse, Benjamin Meiches

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Genocide scholars have always argued over the best definition of genocide. However, recent genocide studies have begun to emphasize both the ‘contestable’ nature of genocide and, paradoxically, call for clear or rigid definitions of the term. This article evaluates this tension by examining the act of defining genocide as a type of epistemological practice. Placing the act of definition in the context of a complex socio-linguistic system, the article shows how genocide discourse is subject to a variety of demands and pressures. These pressures, internal to genocide discourse, inadvertently promote restrictive and paradoxical formulations of the concept. To illustrate this …

The Little Hours, Frederick Ruf, Kathryn Wade

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Little Hours (2017), directed by Jeff Baena.

W.E.B. Du Bois: Freedom, Race, And American Modernity, Elvira Basevich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation defends W.E.B. Du Bois’s philosophy of modern freedom, which he grounds in the historical reconstruction of the American civic community on the moral basis of free and equal citizenship. Rather than ascribe to him an elitist politics of racial ‘uplift’ and assimilation to Anglo- American folkways, I instead argue that he defends black moral and political autonomy for securing state power and civic equality. Additionally, he challenges both historical and the contemporary political philosophers, including John Rawls, Axel Honneth, and Philip Pettit, to articulate the racial dimension of the development of a social order that actualizes the moral …

Tools For Subversion: Illich And Žižek On Changing The World, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Reviewing the work of Ivan Illich, Robert Kurz and Stanley Aronowitz together with Slavoj Žižek, this essay includes a discussion of Heidegger’s technically economic articulation of standing reserve correspondent to challenging forth (the world, ourselves, animals, plants, whatever), this essay takes up “the thought of the weak in search of alternatives” as Vattimo and Zabala argue for the possibility of interpretive transformation. In addition to Slavoj Žižek’s analysis of the resistance to revolution that functions as corollary to the existential stress of the dislocated mind, this reflection includes a discussion of media and illusion via Adorno.

Nietzsche’S Posthuman Imperative: On The Human, All Too Human Dream Of Transhumanism, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Catharine Mackinnon, Feminism, And Continental Philosophy: Comments On Toward A Feminist Theory Of The State—Twenty-Five Years Later, Natalie Nenadic

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Catharine MacKinnon’s feminist work on sexual abuse and violence has had a major impact on law and on policy in the United States and internationally. However, her complex theoretical writings, which are a foundation of that work, have yet to be adequately appreciated by philosophy, especially continental philosophy, that tradition with which she identifies her project. I explain her project in continental terms, especially Heidegger’s thought, so that we may better grasp the philosophical nature and significance of her work. In doing so, I also open paths by which those within the continental tradition may make it more relevant to …

Are They Good? Are They Bad? Double Hermeneutics And Citation In Philosophy, Asphodel And Alan Rickman, Bruno Latour And The ‘Science Wars, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

The attached file is a proof copy.

Please see the printed version. Das interpretative Universum

Echoes Of Leibniz In Pope’S Essay On Man: Criticism And Cultural Shift In The Eighteenth Century, Sierra Billingslea

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This paper is an examination of the intellectual relationship between Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man and the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. This relationship was accentuated by Crousaz, a Swiss critic, who accused Pope of plagiarizing Leibniz’s misguided philosophy due to the evidence of Leibniz’s Principle of the Best, Principle of Sufficient Reason, and Principle of Continuity found within An Essay on Man. This paper argues that both Leibniz and Popes’ philosophies do not reflect a direct relationship but instead share the spirit of Augustan thought as well as a similar classical upbringing. Crousaz and other critics who criticized …

Tolkien’S Sub-Creation And Secondary Worlds: Implications For A Robust Moral Psychology, Nathan S. Lefler

Journal of Tolkien Research

In his work, “On Fairy Stories,” J. R. R. Tolkien offers a detailed account of what he calls Sub-creation, along with the corresponding notions of Primary and Secondary Worlds. In this paper, I suggest that Tolkien’s concept of Sub-creation can be creatively appropriated in the realm of moral psychology and there applied to the fundamental relationship between self and other – or in Judeo-Christian terms, “I” and my neighbor. Through appeal to Tolkien’s thought and to the wider Christian theological tradition, and in constructive tension with the contemporary psychoanalytic attention to “intersubjectivity,” I attempt to elucidate the power and appropriate …

Is There A Secular Tradition? On Treason, Government, And Truth, Ali M. Uğurlu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Because the secular is so much part of our modern life, it is not easy to grasp it directly,” writes Talal Asad, in the introduction to his Formations of the Secular. This thesis attempts to obliquely engage with secular power through a concept that has been at the center of much contention in our political present: treason. Taking the failed coup of July 16and the ensuing purge against the Gülen movement in Turkey as its points of departure, it seeks to broach some of the constitutive and operative logics of the modern nation-state. Inquiring into the State’s perennial presupposition …

Hegel On Indian Philosophy: Spinozism, Romanticism, Eurocentrism, Gino Signoracci

Philosophy ETDs

This study examines nineteenth-century German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel’s appraisal of philosophies of India. In Hegel’s time, classical Indian texts such as the Vedas, Upaniṣads, and Bhagavadgītā had only recently been translated into European languages, and were generating tremendous controversy. Hegel carved out a unique and hugely influential position by devotedly reading fledgling translations of source texts alongside European interpretations, attempting to comprehend the philosophical significance of Indian thought. Hegel’s legacy proved deeply problematic, however, both because his views were not entirely consistent or unambiguous over time, and because his evident relegation of Indian ideas to pre- or unphilosophical status …

Existential Counseling For An Extraordinary Community, John Cox

Senior Honors Projects

Existential philosophy views the anticipation of death as an opportunity to live more authentically; in doing so Existentialism challenges us to take responsibility for our fundamental freedom and the creation of meaning in life. In addition, psychotherapeutic methods that consciously utilize core existential concepts appear to have beneficial effects on those experiencing grief or bereavement. In particular the psychotherapeutic method Logotherapy, which is grounded in existential analysis, appears to be especially conducive to grief therapy in practice. Logotherapy helps client find their ‘will to meaning,’ which has astounding implications for the bereaved individual’s meaning making process.

Such implications, however, have …

Health And Sickness: An Examination Of The Question Of The Affirmation Or Negation Of Life In The Face Of Suffering, Frank M. Scavelli

Student Publications

In this thesis, I examine a line of thought that stretches from Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), who regarded his own work merely as an interpretation and continuation Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) philosophy, through Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who reacted to Schopenhauer’s negation of life with an affirmative philosophy, to Thomas Mann (1875-1955), who, operating from within this tradition, attempted a synthesis of it as well as a critical analysis of some of its aspects and their relation to seemingly-pathological fascistic sentiment he witnessed in the Germany of the 1920s and 30s. This line of thought deals with the essential question of Life. It …

William J. Richardson, S.J.: Reflections In Memoriam, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Fr. William J. Richardson, S.J., was born in Brooklyn, New York on the 2nd of November, 1920. He died at the Jesuit Campion Health Center, in Weston, Massachusetts, on the 10th of December, 2016.

Leo O’Donovan, S.J., Richard Kearney, and Jeffrey Bloechl, each in different ways gathered the diffusions of mourning friends, students, colleagues, patients, and admirers of the late William J. Richardson, via email over the days leading up to and after his funeral.

As Bill was one of the founding members of the Heidegger Circle (Penn State, 1967) and was present at the first conference on Heidegger’s thought …

On Heidegger On Education And Questioning, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Discussions of Heidegger and education, particularly as expressed by those interested in the philosophy of education, take a number of perspectives as thematic foci. Questioning is key to Heidegger’s thinking from the start of his 1927 Being and Time, calling into question the foundations of what we suppose ourselves to know. Thus questioning involves a reflection on education, that is: both teaching and learning. Heidegger himself thematizes education, significantly so in the light of the political circumstances of his 1933 “Rectoral Discourse” as well as, in an inventive mode which would, as we shall see, have been better had …

Guest Editor's Introduction, Sherlynn Allen-Harris

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgments And Disclaimer, Regennia N. Williams

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

2018 Call For Submissions, Regennia N. Williams

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

The Question Of Fiction – Nonexistent Objects, A Possible World Response From Paul Ricoeur, Noel Fitzpatrick

Articles

The question of fiction is omnipresent within the work of Paul Ricoeur throughout his prolific career. However, Ricoeur raises the questions of fiction in relation to other issues such the symbol, metaphor and narrative. This article sets out to foreground a traditional problem of fiction and logic, which is termed the existence of non-existent objects, in relation to the Paul Ricoeur’s work on narrative. Ricoeur’s understanding of fiction takes place within his overall philosophical anthropology where the fictions and histories make up the very nature of identity both personal and collective. The existence of non-existent objects demonstrates a dichotomy between …

Asterix, Carnival, And The Wonder Of Everyday Life, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s Asterix novels present us with a charmingly silly world. Their shared premise is that, during the time of the Roman Empire, a tiny Gaulish village has a magic potion that makes its inhabitants extremely strong and fast, and this allows the village to keep the entire Roman Empire at a hopeless disadvantage. The main character is a wily little warrior named Asterix who, with his good, very large, and not very bright friend Obelix, has many absurd adventures as he travels in the Roman world and beyond. I shall explore Asterix at the Olympic Games, …

Ivan Illich’S Medical Nemesis And The ‘Age Of The Show’: On The Expropriation Of Death, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

What Ivan Illich regarded in his Medical Nemesis as the ‘expropriation of health’ is exacerbated by the screens all around us, including our phones but also the patient monitors and increasingly the iPads that intervene between nurse and patient. To explore what Illich called the ‘age of the show’, this essay uses film examples, like Creed and the controversial documentary Vaxxed, and the television series Nurse Jackie. Rocky’s cancer in his last film (and his option to submit to chemo to ‘fight’ cancer) highlights what Illich along with Petr Skrabanek called the ‘expropriation of death’. In contrast to what Illich …

Nietzsches Lyrik. Archilochus, Musik, Metrik, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

La Violenza Della Violenza, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Günther Anders, al pari di Hannah Arendt, fu un teorico del potere che sviluppò un’esplicita riflessione filosofica sulla violenza. Tuttavia, anche gli esperti delle sue opere trovano solitamente che le riflessioni di Anders sul potere (in tedesco Macht) implichino una certa difficoltà interpretativa, specialmente perché la sua scrittura è stilisticamente impegnativa, ma anche perché, in modo più decisivo, Anders scrisse sulla natura della tecnica, argomento inusuale per la maggior parte dei teorici della politica e dei filosofi. Questo interesse può essere riscontrato a cominciare dalle primissime riflessioni del filosofo tedesco sulla musica, e in tutti i suoi studi sull’essere umano …

Catholic Literary Theory: The Conditional Existentialism Of Four Protagonists And Their Creators, Jacob Patrick Pride

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

According to Catholic literary theory, the novelist, like the Divine Mystery to a certain extent, creates her characters freely and free with the possibility and probability that they may speak against their creator and even finally rebel. This dissertation reflects upon the relative infiniteness of four literary authors - Flannery O'Connor, Mary McCarthy, Walker Percy, and Cormac McCarthy. In the three novels and one imaginative memoir considered in particular, these authors create their existentialist protagonists, who in their turn reflect the conditional existentialism of their creators. This dissertation, thus, seeks to resurrect, with modern sensibilities, the pre-renaissance and renaissance commonplace …