Continental Philosophy Commons^™

Civic Engagement Through Theatre: Running A Brechtian Workshop In The Classroom, Margot Morgan

eJournal of Public Affairs

This study presents an innovative active learning technique to support the development of civic education: a theatrical workshop based on the dramaturgy of Bertolt Brecht. I argue that the Brechtian workshop can develop three skills necessary for effective civic engagement: perspective taking, collaboration, and critical judgment/self-reflection, and that these skills are directly tied to the three civic values of pluralism, community, and civic responsibility. Using qualitative data gathered in the course of teaching this workshop to two distinct student populations — a self-selecting group of students in a liberal arts environment and a group of students at a commuter campus …

From The Corner Of One's Soul: The Methods Of Negotiating Tension In Cormac Mccarthy's Blood Meridian Or The Evening Redness In The West, Julian Pena

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a practical and meaningful reading of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West, one that is rooted in the claim that both Judge Holden and the Kid reflect two different methods for negotiating a tension impinged upon them by their external circumstances. Using a theoretical framework that is inspired by the social psychological Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, this thesis provides an extensive analysis of the novel’s fictional universe, Judge Holden, and the Kid. Such an analysis elucidates the violent nature of Blood Meridian’s universe and further reveals the character of Judge Holden …

No Cell For The Soul: Prison, Philosophy And Bernard Stiegler - A Short Appreciation, Rod Earle

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

Bernard Stiegler was a French philosopher who served 5 years in prison for a series of bank robberies committed in his youth. He died in August 2020, aged just 68, a professor celebrated in the highest ranks of continental philosophy. Stiegler subsequently published over 30 books, at the core of which is the series tellingly gathered under the title ‘Time and Technics’. His essay, ‘How I became a philosopher’, convinced me he, and it, should be on every prison philosophy course. In this article I outline why, as a convict criminologist, I feel an affinity with Stiegler’s project.

‘…In The Secret Of One’S Life’: Bernard Stiegler And Philosophy In The Intimacy Of His Prison Cell, Anna Kouppanou

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

In his book, Acting Out, philosopher Bernard Stiegler confesses that the question once posed to him by Marianne Alphant − namely, ‘How does one become a philosopher in the intimacy and secret of one’s life?’ threw him ‘into an embarrassing position’, mainly because Stiegler became a philosopher in the intimacy of his prison cell. There is no question that from Socrates to Antonio Gramsci, there have been philosophers who have suffered shorter or longer periods of imprisonment, but this was mainly because of their philosophy – their individuated way of being and thinking. In Bernard Stiegler’s case, it appears …

Critical Theory, Fascism, And Antifascism: Reflections From A Damaged Polity, Bradley Macdonald, Katherine E. Young

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The presidency of Trump has produced an increasing sense that we are possibly moving into a period of fascism in the United States. In this essay, we wish to look closely at conditions which define this current political period by taking seriously Max Horkheimer’s plea to see the necessary relation of capitalism to protofascist potentials and fascist aspirations within our liberal democratic context. Drawing upon the work of Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others, we will look more closely at the particular political economic conditions that underlie the development of our one-dimensional society, in which “totalitarian” economic-technical control, rampant consumerism, …

Further Toward Minor Literatures, Aaron Hammes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Minor literature is literatures of the minoritarian, not simply that produced by (cultural, ethnic, racial, gender-expressive, sexual, ability, age) minorities. Further Toward Minor Literatures operates from this decisive distinction to trace the contours and potentialities of one minoritarian literature, the contemporary transgender novel in the US and Canada. This study is premised in part on putting the fiction itself on a plane with theoretical and critical sources, creating a dialogue that does not privilege one discourse over the other. Minor literature is self-theorizing, perhaps even authotheoretical, in its expressing and fulfilling the mobile orientations of its minoritarian communities. This study …

‘Damn Deleuze’: The Unexpected Artefacts Of Reading Together, Maureen A. Flint, Carlson H. Coogler

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

What does reading together produce? As we read A Thousand Plateaus together, Deleuze and Guattari butted into our dreams, our art-making, and our everyday lives. We found that their concepts were active, blurring the lines between theory, method and art. In this paper, we follow these invasions and interruptions of our thinking and living, collecting and discussing them as artefacts that help us make sense of reading and writing together as methodological, theoretical, artful inquiry. By taking up and sharing artefacts -- fragments of encounters, snapshots of artmaking, quotes from novels or poetry that embedded in our conversations about haecceity …

New Materialism’S Second Phase, Tobias Skiveren

Criticism

Influx and Efflux. Writing up with Walt Whitman by Jane Bennett. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. 224 pp. $25.95

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 Linknyc Kiosk: Phone Booths, Urban Culture, And The Neoliberal Dream For New York City, Michael A. Villanova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis provides a history of the development policies around the phone booth in New York City as a “dialectical image” to understand the use of urban culture as a means of achieving political ends. First, I lay out a cultural history of public communication devices in their relation to the political and material changes in New York City since the late 19^th century. By doing so, this thesis explains how the cultural significance of the phone booth opens essential points of connection between notions of autonomy, uses of technology in the public sphere, and the relation between politics …

Vulnerability: Sensation And Subjectivity In The Late Victorian Novel, Michael Shelichach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Vulnerability: Sensation and Subjectivity in the Late Victorian Novel” explores how developments in the science of psychology in the second half of the nineteenth century destabilized the genre of literary realism in Britain. Prominent mid-Victorian psychologists theorized a subject with a highly impressionable brain and nervous system. This new understanding of the mind’s potential vulnerability to external influence impelled contemporary novelists to contemplate the extent to which subjective interiority could be altered by the environment. Through close readings of canonical realist novels like Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss and Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone …

Translation In And Of Philosophy, Hussein Barrada

Theses and Dissertations

Paul Ricoeur in his essay The Paradigm of Translation, presents an understanding of translation that is found between two positions that are irreconcilable. These two positions represent on the one hand, the difference that exists between languages and on the other hand, the common ground that languages must have for them to be translatable into one another. Following Ricoeur’s paradigm, the thesis will aim to unpack an understanding of translation as a tension that occurs between its theoretical impossibility and the reality of its everyday practice. The theoretical impossibility of translation lies in the fact that for one language …

Arguing For Vegetarianism: (Symbolic) Ingestion And The (Inevitable) Absent Referent — Intersecting Jacques Derrida And Carol J. Adams, Mariana Almeida Pereira

Between the Species

In this paper I draw together the notion of the absent referent as proposed by Carol J. Adams, and the notions of literal and symbolical sacrifice by eating the other — or ingestion — advanced by Jacques Derrida, to characterize how animals are commonly perceived, which ultimately forbids productive arguments for vegetarianism. I discuss animals as being literally and definitionally absent referents, and I argue, informed by Derrida’s philosophy, that it is impossible to aim at turning them into present referents without reinforcing symbolic ingestion by linking symbolic ingestion to epistemic appropriation or conceptualization. With this, I highlight the ethical …

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.

The Phenomenology Of Conversion, Paul Digeorgio

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to offer a systematic phenomenology of the conversion experience based primarily on the transcendental method of Husserl. Conversion is an empirical phenomenon that, when phenomenologically analyzed, is revealed to have several eidetic or essential features that shape any conversion in general. After reviewing the secondary literature on conversion, I construct a synthetic account of the empirical experience. I then sketch the transcendental phenomenological method and proceed to evaluate conversion as a firsthand experience in the “natural attitude” which is necessary in order to ensure that I can exclude or bracket all of the assumptions …

Circle Of Circles: Rethinking Idealism Through Hegel's Epistemology, Sila Ozkara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation’s central thesis is that Hegel’s approach to knowledge and philosophy is “circular”. A “circle of circles”, Kreis von Kreisen, an image Hegel regularly uses throughout his corpus, has sustained a steady wonder in his commentators. Nevertheless, it has not been studied with rigor adequate to its extensive importance, which spans his philosophical career and frames his engagement with the history of philosophy and the philosophy of his time. Due attention to Hegel’s concept of circles provides a robust frame for grasping his philosophical project, idealism, and account of knowledge. The content of each of Hegel’s works is the …

Nietzsche, Foucault, Power: A Study Of Paradox And Ontology In Nietzsche, Nicholas R. Ray

Honors Thesis

This thesis investigates a paradox at the heart of Nietzsche and utilizes Foucault as an instrument to understand this dilemma. The paradox is the synthesis of Nietzsche's doctrine of perspectivism and his ontological doctrine of the will to power. Put simply his doctrine of perspectivism says there can be no ontological facts yet Nietzsche articulates the will to power as an ontological matter of fact. This thesis explores the "First Essay" of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals to demonstrate the existence of this paradox. Further, I will conduct a Foucauldian cross-examination to further flesh out this paradox, where and why it …

Grappling With The Aftereffects Of Modernism In American Literature And Culture: Spiritual, Political, And Ecological, Joseph Neary

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

In this portfolio, Joe Neary examines various texts within contemporary American culture, including David Foster Wallace’s short story, “Good Old Neon,” Harmony Korine’s film, Spring Breakers, Richard Powers’ novel, The Overstory, and Bruce Holsinger’s book of criticism, Neomedievalism, Neoconservatism, and the War on Terror.

The Liturgical Action Of Christ's Body: A Theo-Philosophical Extension Of Bonhoeffer's Ecclesiology, Joseph Carson

Senior Honors Theses

Bonhoeffer’s theological contributions may provide significant relevance and theoretical illumination on contemporary issues in ecclesiology. Not only did Bonhoeffer offer creative theological insights, but he also incorporated philosophy into his theological positions in a way that maintains the supremacy of theology. Specifically, Bonhoeffer develops an ecclesial theology, starting in Sanctorum Communio and extending throughout his writings, that relies on social theory and philosophy (especially Hegel) while simultaneously making theology the theoretical authority over these other disciplines. In his ecclesiology, Bonhoeffer argues for an ontological unity between the Church and Christ, which he calls the Christ-reality and Christ existing as Church-community …

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 …

Husserl And Merleau-Ponty: A Feminist Critique Of The Phenomenological Body, Jasmin M. Makhlouf

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the phenomenological notion of embodiment, to explain the objectification and coercion that women and their bodies experience on a daily basis. I build the philosophical foundation of this thesis on Husserlian and Merleau-Pontian phenomenology, as well as, their work’s receptions in feminist philosophy of the early 20th century, mainly Simone de Beauvoir, as well as, more contemporary thinkers like Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler. Moreover, the thesis argues for a return to the traditional phenomenological notion of embodiment while incorporating elements of sexuality and sexual difference.

“He Who Laughs Last!” Terrorists, Nihilists, And Jokers, William S. Chavez, Luke Mccracken

Journal of Religion & Film

Since his debut in 1940, the Joker, famed adversary of the Batman, continues to permeate the American cultural mediascape not merely as an object of consumption but as an ongoing production of popular imagination. Joker mythmakers post-1986 have reimagined the character not as superhuman but as “depressingly ordinary,” inspiring audiences both to empathize with his existential plight and to fear his terroristic violence as an increasingly compelling model of reactionary resistance to institutionality. This article examines the recent history of modern terrorism in conjunction with the “pathological nihilism” diagnosed by Nietzsche in order to elucidate the stakes and implications of …

Hume's Objects After Deleuze, Michael P. Harter

LSU Master's Theses

The skeptical challenge of David Hume in the 18th Century presented a shock to existing dogmatic thinking in philosophy. In challenging long-held and fundamental beliefs about the nature of causation and the external world, Hume would be categorized as a radical skeptic and anti-realist by his contemporaries and Immanuel Kant later on. However, renewed debate over these historical interpretations of Hume has emerged, and those under the New Hume banner argue that Hume held a realist position. However, all of these interpretations are not without their issues. In this thesis, I show that the historical readings of Hume misjudge the …

The Seduction Of Pessimism: Eros, Failure, And The Novel, Tom Ribitzky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Plato’s Symposium, we get a pessimistic myth not only about love, but about the first experience of loss, in which we were once globular cosmic beings who were split in two by Zeus’s thunderbolts as punishment for not obeying the Olympian gods. Falling down to earth after the split, Zeus introduced eros out of pity for our condition. Our consolation was to find our other halves and hold on to them as a way of remembering what it was like when we were whole. But, as Allan Bloom notes:

…man’s condition soon worsened. In the beginning, their real …

The Meaning Of “Phenomenology”: Qualitative And Philosophical Phenomenological Research Methods, Heath Williams

The Qualitative Report

I show some problems with recent discussions within qualitative research that centre around the “authenticity” of phenomenological research methods. I argue that attempts to restrict the scope of the term “phenomenology” via reference to the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl are misguided, because the meaning of the term “phenomenology” is only broadly restricted by etymology. My argument has two prongs: first, via a discussion of Husserl, I show that the canonical phenomenological tradition gives rise to many traits of contemporary qualitative phenomenological theory that are purportedly insufficiently genuine (such as characterisations of phenomenology as “what-its-likeness” and presuppositionless description). Second, I argue …

Günther Anders’S Epitaph For Aikichi Kuboyama, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Günther Anders’s poem Du kleiner Fischerman is read here as a text contribution to the irruption that is violence and its enduring (omnipresent) aftermath. The essay includes a discussion of transmedial expression, including dramatization, or television and social media, text and subtext, as well as the inspiration of Anders’s poem as a work of art continuing in our times: the ongoing exclusion(s) of certain names and certain thinkers as of certain musical modes, including electronic musical works, as of voices and of collective memory, or oblivion. Reading Raymond Williams along with Anders and Adorno on television updated in today’s era …

Hegel And The Problem Of Affluence, Thimo Heisenberg

Philosophy Faculty Research and Scholarship

It is widely known that Hegel’s Philosophy of Right recognizes poverty as one of the central problems of modern Civil Society. What is much less well-known, however, is that Hegel sees yet another structural problem at the opposite side of the economic spectrum: a problem of affluence. Indeed, as I show in this paper, Hegel’s text contains a detailed – yet sometimes overlooked – discussion of the detrimental psychological and sociological effects of great wealth, as well as of how to counter them. By bringing this discussion to the fore, we get a more complete picture of Hegel’s theory …

Care Working Conditions: The Ethics And Politics Of Social Reproductive Labor From Aristotle To Marxist Feminism, Andrew R. Van't Land

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

The spectre of an inescapably divided working class has haunted every generation of marxist theorists, including the latest wave of marxist feminists engaged in the research programme known as Social Reproduction Theory (SRT). In this dissertation, I will explain how Marx’s clear theoretical debt to Aristotle extends into the marxist feminist analysis of social reproductive labor and of the exploitation, class interests, and normative demands which condition such care workers. I will demonstrate how SRT can follow Marx’s own example in reading Aristotle, critically yet charitably, in order to resolve three problems. First, Aristotle’s original concept of use value (built …

Nietzsche: Metaphysician, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Perhaps the most fundamental disagreement concerning Nietzsche’s view of metaphysics is that some commentators believe Nietzsche has a positive, systematic metaphysical project, and others deny this. Those who deny it hold that Nietzsche believes metaphysics has a special problem, that is, a distinctively problematic feature which distinguishes metaphysics from other areas of philosophy. In this paper, I investigate important features of Nietzsche’s metametaphysics in order to argue that Nietzsche does not, in fact, think metaphysics has a special problem. The result is that, against a longstanding view held in the literature, we should be reading Nietzsche as a metaphysician.

Difficult Paintings, Hao (Damien) Ding

Theses and Dissertations

The sublime as a concept has a fraught and racist history. However, it remains the single most helpful idea in describing the deeply felt state of being when one comes across something ineffably powerful. From an art-making perspective, this thesis, and the accompanying exhibition of installations and paintings, proposes an alternative construction of the concept of the sublime. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis as a conceptual point of departure, a painter can manipulate the relationship of the viewer and paintings to create paradoxical moments of simultaneous intimacy and distance, which interact to create an alternative path towards the sublime. Through descriptions of …