Political Theory Commons^™

Panopticism And Pan-Oticism: Sound-Power From Foucault To Deleuze, Eric Dillenberger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From Muzak to long range acoustic devices (LRADs), the contemporary proliferation of sonic technologies for governing moods, behaviors, and potentialities complicates the virtual absence of sound within Michel Foucault's primarily visual modality of disciplinary power in Discipline and Punish, exemplified by his central conceptual model of the panopticon. This thesis develops the corollary concept of pan-oticism to theorize the transformation of sound-power and its political function within administered sonic ecologies from Foucault's disciplinary societies to Gilles Deleuze's societies of control. Within the enclosed spaces constitutive of disciplinary societies, sound-power remains subordinated to Foucault's visual logic of panopticism, extending …

Winnie's Feminism: A Tribute To Mama Dr. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela As A Radical Feminist From 1986-2018, Anna Lefatshe Moagi

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Growing up in South Africa and having read several “tell-all” biographies by influential women have made this researcher aware of the struggles of women to be recognised and valued within their social environments. The many names that come to mind, when speaking of women’s voices that challenged their position in our society, belong to those of struggle veterans such as Adelaide Tambo, Ruth First, Lilian Ngoyi, Albertina Sisulu, Thandi Modise, Baleka Mbethe, Leymah Gbowee, Ruth Mompati, Charlotte Maxeke, Joice Majuru, Thuli Madontsela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Their as women leaders roles remain undervalued (Shekhawat 2015). These phenomenal influential women and many …

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.

Gramsci’S ‘Democratic Philosopher’ And The Concept’S Foundations In Marxian Social Ontology, Eli Recht-Appel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis deals with the term ‘democratic philosopher’ from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. In order to lay the groundwork for my distinct interpretation of the ‘democratic philosopher,’ I begin by providing an overview of Gramsci’s theory of the role of intellectuals in civil and political society. I then argue that the ‘democratic philosopher’ emerges from Gramsci’s typology of intellectuals but is a category which is both temporally and ontologically distinct from his more well-known concept of ‘organic intellectuals.’ ‘Organic intellectuals,’ intellectuals who co-develop alongside their fundamental social group or class, occupy a variety of cultural and political roles in …

Rethinking The Canon: A Conceptual History Of The Layered Foundations Of Western Politics, Dembael Seidi, Muhammad Andi Firmansyah

Jurnal Wacana Politik

Many accounts of Western political history suggest a direct, straight line from Ancient Greece to modern democracy. This article argues that this “Great Books” narrative is a myth that ignores how political ideas actually change over time. Using Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history) framework, we demonstrate that key terms such as “law” and “citizenship” were not merely preserved but fundamentally transformed as they moved through Greco-Roman, Islamic, and Judeo-Christian civilizations. We call this transformation “conceptual alchemy”: a series of semantic translations through which Greek rationalism was retheorized via Islamic metaphysics and later synthesized by medieval scholasticism. Consequently, rather than a …

How Religion, Morality, And Worldview Impact Public Policy, Adam Opp

Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy: Briefs and Commentaries

It is important to examine the intersection between religion, morality, and worldview when analyzing the creation of public policy. Faith and spiritual beliefs play a key role in how an individual behaves as a policymaker and how they view the role of government. Religion considers the critical role of authority, which the government must analyze if the people have given it the authority to take a course of action. Morality asserts that the purpose of government is to maintain a system of justice that protects individual rights. Worldview highlights the framework individuals take in approaching the role of government and …

Toward A Corporeal Materialism. Response To Reviewers, Banu Bargu

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Embodying The Masses. Review Of Banu Bargu's Disembodiment: Corporeal Politics Of Radical Refusal (Oxford University Press, 2024), James Martel

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Worldmaking Against Disposability: Review Of Banu Bargu’S Disembodiment: Corporeal Politics Of Radical Refusal (Oxford University Press, 2024), Daniel Loick

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Toward A Non- Or Post-Historical Materialism. Review Of Banu Bargu'sdisembodiment: Corporeal Politics Of Radical Refusal (Oxford University Press, 2024), Amy Allen

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Initial Type Craft, Micah Angelus

Theses and Dissertations

What kinds of objects can still think when the self-contained aesthetic object can no longer be taken for granted? The historical ruptures that have placed painting under crisis have also brought into view the fallacy of artistic autonomy, raising questions about how value, contemplation, and meaning persist under conditions of deconstruction.

Luja Volume 6: Issue 1 (Full Volume)

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Tolkien’S Thomist Triad: A High Medieval Response To Contemporary Jus Ad Bellum, Jeffrey S. Dixon

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This paper reviews the development of the component of just war theory dealing with whether it is just to wage a war in the first place (jus ad bellum) from the early medieval to early modern eras and compares its principles to J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels about Middle-Earth. Tolkien’s views on the concept of jus ad bellum can be dated to a specific point in the medieval era, just before a number of modern, consequentialist criteria were added to Catholic thought on just war. I conclude that Tolkien’s fictional works permit broader justifications for war than do most modern just war …

Competition And Community In Marx’S Alienation Theory: Addressing 21st Century Social Isolation Through A Laclauian Lens, Brett J. Zimmerman

Theses

Capitalism reorients human priorities by necessitating socio-economic competition and tying the preeminent priority of survival to the rate at which one accumulates material resources. The orientation of wage as the only means to survival has replaced the need for the working class to form tribes, build inter-group solidarity, and engage in their communities, resulting in a less fulfilling society. Marx is traditionally conceptualized as a political or economic thinker, and while much of his political and economic thought will be useful supplementary material, in Section I, I will be viewing Marx through a more interpersonal lens. The section will take …

Navigating Radical Indeterminacy In The Struggle For A Global Collective Consciousness: The Question Of Eco-Justice And Law Or Universalize The Pluriverse: A Manifesto, More Or Less, Omar Auf

Theses and Dissertations

The processes of interpretation, communication, and re-interpretation leads to the emergence of an approximated collective consciousness, for which it may be struggled and contested by hegemonic. The dominant forces of this contest, capitalism and nationalism, lead to an interdivided world: one that possesses the tools to empathize with each other but is instead leading people to keep their heads down and focus on surviving their own contexts, perceived as existing within different historical times on the same timeline. This leads to legal and justice systems that fail their claim to universality and/or impartiality. Incorporating an ecological lens to justice within …

Representation Of Indigenous Spiritualities In The Ontario Grade 11 World Religions Curriculum: A Discourse And Textual Analysis, Katelin A. Chavez

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Teacher Education For Religious Diversity In British Columbia: Policy Recommendations For Sikh And Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Inclusion, Ashton Kemper

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Embarrassment As A Signal: Feminist Affects And The Commodification Of Love, Bianca L. Schmitt

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Jenna Abdel-Kader, Hannah Desjardine

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Editors' Note, Jenna Abdel-Kader, Hannah Desjardine

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Just War Theory In The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’S Critique Of Violence, Power, And Rebellion, Laila Hannum

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis applies just war theory to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy, arguing that while the districts' rebellion satisfies the principles of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war), it systematically violates jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war) and jus post bellum (justice after war), and ultimately replicates the oppressive structures of the Capitol it sought to overthrow.

Drawing primarily on Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars and on Brian Orend's ideas on post-war justice, this thesis traces the rebellion's moral arc across all three novels. Chapter One shows that the rebellion meets the criteria …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces Prof.

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces Prof.

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Works Of Love From Russia, Alisa Gorshenina

International Dialogue

This reflective artist’s statement by Alisa Gorshenina (Alice Hualice) intertwines autobiographical narrative with the creative context of four works produced during and after her politically forced displacement from Russia. Gorshenina recounts a lifelong pattern of resisting external pressures—from expectations to relocate for education and career advancement to demands that she flee Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. She frames her continued desire to live in her hometown of Nizhny Tagil as an act of personal agency and a “new language of resistance,” grounded not in state loyalty but in an authentic, non-nationalistic love of place. Increasing censorship, denunciations, canceled …

Introduction And Letter To Firas And Ali, Joanna Zabielska

International Dialogue

In this deeply personal and politically charged epistolary essay, Joanna Zabielska reflects on the intersecting forms of erasure occurring within European cultural institutions and at the continent’s militarized borders. Framed as a letter to two men—Firas and Ali—whom the author met during the humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, the piece recounts their experiences of pushbacks, violence, detention, and survival, contextualizing their stories within a broader critique of European migration regimes. Zabielska juxtaposes this with her account of institutional censorship in Austria, where the names of the two men were removed from her VR installation Über das Neue at Belvedere …

Fragments, Najlaa Attaallah

International Dialogue

In Fragments (شظايا), Najlaa Attaallah offers a poetic, intimate, and devastating meditation on exile, trauma, and the unrelenting violence endured by Palestinians in Gaza. Written from Reykjavík yet emotionally tethered to her homeland, Attaallah narrates the psychic rupture caused by witnessing war from afar—the guilt of safety, the suffocating pull of memory, and the sense of existing as “a body without certainty.” Across lyrical vignettes, she explores the collapse of ordinary life under the weight of collective horror: sleeplessness, paralysis, obsessive monitoring of news, and the disintegration of routine maternal roles. The text moves between present anguish and childhood …

Political Discoveries In A Žižek Substack Project Critical Digital Studies, Edward Sankowski, Betty J. Harris

International Dialogue

This review essay analyzes Slavoj Žižek’s recent turn to Substack as a publishing platform, examining both his motivations and the philosophical and political implications of this medium for contemporary critical theory. Sankowski and Harris argue that Žižek’s Substack writings continue long-standing themes in his work—anti-capitalism, ecological crisis, updated Communism, and the cultural dimensions of ideology—while also revealing notable shifts, including heightened pessimism about historical progress and new reflections on environmental catastrophe. The authors assess the advantages and pitfalls of Substack for intellectual discourse, including its circumvention of traditional editorial “censorship,” its contribution to information glut, and its role in fostering …

Of The Freedom Famine In Palestine, Ibtisam Barakat

International Dialogue

In this searing essay, poet and author Ibtisam Barakat bears witness to what she names the “Freedom Famine” in Gaza—a deliberate, decades-long deprivation of basic human rights culminating in the catastrophic conditions of 2025. Writing from the United States while in conversation with Gazan author Omar Hammash, Barakat juxtaposes their drastically unequal realities: her safety and his daily encounters with death, displacement, and starvation. Through Hammash’s testimony—delivered amid constant bombardment and interrupted by news of a friend’s killing—Barakat documents the collapse of Gaza’s infrastructure, the mass targeting of aid workers, the lethal failures of international relief, and the killing of …

Dear Belvedere, Rabbya Naseer

International Dialogue

In this powerful open letter—originally delivered as a video message—artist Rabbya Naseer explains her decision to cancel her 2025 solo exhibition at Belvedere 21 after the museum refused to allow her proposed works addressing Palestine, colonialism, and contemporary violence. Framed as both personal testimony and institutional critique, the letter meditates on the ethics of waiting, perseverance (sabr), and the responsibility of artists amid geopolitical crisis. Naseer recounts months of stalled communication and escalating curatorial restrictions that ultimately rendered any engagement with the Israel–Palestine conflict “not possible.” Rejecting the museum’s demands for neutrality, depoliticization, and the substitution of existing …

On The Indispensability Of Natural Law On The Moral Theory Of The State, David W. Bolton

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Natural Law is widely regarded as a set of universal moral standards in which the acknowledgement of the differences between right and wrong are inherent in people, not created by society or lawmakers. It is based on the consistent nature of man as opposed to varying cultural standards and is unchanged by time or circumstance. Many thinkers throughout history have offered their educated opinions on the matter of Natural Law and the moral theory of the State. The Social Contract theory of the Modern Secular thinkers of the 17^th century was considered a break with classical and traditional Christian …