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Critical Theory (critical + theory)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	64%
Information Science and Computing	9%
Psychology	6%
Medical Sciences	6%
Education	6%
2 Other Domains	9%

Distribution within Humanities and Social Sciences

General & Introductory Political Science	34%
General & Introductory Anthropology	9%

Selected Abstracts

Critical Theory of World Risk Society: A Cosmopolitan Vision

CONSTELLATIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRITICAL AND DEMOCRATIC THEORY, Issue 1 2009
Ulrich Beck
First page of article [source]

A Critical Theory of Reparative Justice

CONSTELLATIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRITICAL AND DEMOCRATIC THEORY, Issue 2 2008
Ernesto Verdeja
First page of article [source]

Artist of Dissonance: Albrecht Wellmer and Critical Theory

CONSTELLATIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRITICAL AND DEMOCRATIC THEORY, Issue 3 2007
Axel Honneth
First page of article [source]

Toward a New Critical Theory with a Cosmopolitan Intent

CONSTELLATIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRITICAL AND DEMOCRATIC THEORY, Issue 4 2003
Ulrich Beck
In this article I want to outline an argument for a New Critical Theory with a cosmopolitan intent. Its main purpose is to undermine one of the most powerful beliefs of our time concerning society and politics. This belief is the notion that "modern society" and "modern politics" are to be understood as society and politics organized around the nation-state, equating society with the national imagination of society. There are two aspects to this body of beliefs: what I call the "national perspective" (or "national gaze") of social actors, and the "methodological nationalism" of scientific observers. The distinction between these two perspectives is important because there is no logical co-implication between them, only an interconnected genesis and history. [source]

Kinds of Thinking, Styles of Reasoning

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2007
Michael A. Peters
Abstract There is no more central issue to education than thinking and reasoning. Certainly, such an emphasis chimes with the rationalist and cognitive deep structure of the Western educational tradition. The contemporary tendency reinforced by cognitive science is to treat thinking ahistorically and aculturally as though physiology, brain structure and human evolution are all there is to say about thinking that is worthwhile or educationally significant. The movement of critical thinking also tends to treat thinking ahistorically, focusing on universal processes of logic and reasoning. Against this trend and against the scientific spirit of the age this paper presents a historical and philosophical picture of thinking. By contrast with dominant cognitive and logical models the paper emphasizes kinds of thinking and styles of reasoning. The paper grows out of interests primarily in the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and in the extension and development of their work in Critical Theory and French poststructuralist philosophy. The paper draws directly on some of this work to argue for the recognition of different kinds of thinking, which are explored by reference to Heidegger, and also the significance of styles of reasoning, which are explored by reference to Wittgenstein and to Ian Hacking. [source]

Kafka, Critical Theory, Dialectical Theology: Adorno's Case against Hans-Joachim Schoeps

GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 2 2010
Margarete Kohlenbach
ABSTRACT Theodor Adorno derived from his reading of Kafka some of the central assumptions that inform the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. He opposed theological Kafka interpretations in general, and in particular rejected Hans-Joachim Schoeps's reading of Kafka in the context of Karl Barth's dialectical theology. Adorno and Schoeps thus came to exemplify the dichotomy with which we still characterise the early reception of Kafka's work as either secular (sociological or political) or theological and religious. The disintegration of religion as a comprehensive social system in twentieth-century Germany means that writers can agree with traditional theology and religion in some regards while opposing them in others. This article argues that any unqualified adoption of the dichotomy between the secular and the religious is detrimental to our understanding of both Kafka's work and its early reception. First, the article outlines some of the major discrepancies in Kafka's heterogeneous engagements with religion. Second, it places Adorno's rejection of Schoeps's interpretation in the political context of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Finally, it compares Adorno's notion of ,inverse theology' with Schoeps's inversion of salvation history. Throughout, the article aims to ascertain the differences as well as the underlying commonalities between Adorno's and Schoeps's Kafka reception. Wesentliche Richtlinien der Kritischen Theorie der Frankfurter Schule verdanken sich der Kafka-Rezeption Adornos, die theologische Deutungen Kafkas im allgemeinen abweist und insbesondere Hans-Joachim Schoeps' Verständnis von Kafkas Werk im Kontext der Dialektischen Theologie Karl Barths verwirft. Adorno und Schoeps repräsentieren die Pole einer Dichotomie, mit der noch heute die Beiträge der frühen Kafka-Rezeption entweder als soziologisch und politisch oder als theologisch und religiös klassifiziert werden. Die Desintegration religiösen Lebens in der deutschen Gesellschaft des 20. Jahrhunderts bringt es mit sich, dass Schriftsteller in jeweils bestimmten Hinsichten traditionelle Theologie und Religion verwerfen,und,übernehmen können. Der vorliegende Beitrag argumentiert, dass jede nicht-spezifizierte Vorstellung einer Dichotomie von religiösem und weltlichem Leben und Denken aufgegeben werden muss, wenn wir Kafkas Werk und seine frühe Rezeption verstehen wollen. Der Beitrag skizziert zunächst zentrale Diskrepanzen in Kafkas heterogenen Bezugnahmen auf Religiöses. Im Anschluss stellt er Adornos Schoeps-Kritik in den politischen Kontext von Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust. Wie der Beitrag als ganzer soll der abschließende Vergleich der Begiffe ,inverse Theologie' (Adorno) und ,Unheilsgeschichte' (Schoeps) ein angemessenes Verständnis der Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten in der Kafka-Deutung der beiden Autoren ermöglichen. [source]

Epistemological and theoretical challenges for studying power and politics in information systems

INFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2007
Leiser Silva
Abstract., The study of the role of power in managing information systems (IS) still offers a major epistemological challenge to researchers in the field. Although significant work has been done, there is yet to emerge a research approach that permits a penetrating study of the phenomenon of power by virtue of adopting a Machiavellian stance. This paper proposes such an approach in the form of an interpretivist position combined with a theoretical framework whose origin lies in political science and the sociology of technology. In developing its philosophical argument, the paper compares three meta-theories that have been applied to study IS: Phenomenology, Critical Theory and Structuration Theory. All three are compared in terms of their epistemological position regarding the relationship between power and IS. We argue that, although enlightening, those meta-theories fail to unravel the hidden and strategic nature of power. The paper concludes by proposing a particular theoretical formulation that, rather than censoring power and politics, will provide the epistemological means for unravelling them. [source]

Critical Theory and its Practices: Habermas, Kosovo and International Relations

POLITICS, Issue 3 2008
Naomi Head
Developing the ,applied turn' in critical theory and Habermasian discourse ethics, this article explores whether a communicative ethics approach enables us to examine the justifications for and legitimacy of actions taken by states during NATO's intervention in Kosovo. By focusing on the deliberations which took place in the UN Security Council over Kosovo from March 1998 to June 1999 and the negotiations at Rambouillet in 1999, it will be shown that there are patterns of exclusion, coercion and illegitimacy which not only challenge the claims to legitimacy of the intervention and of the interveners, but indicate the critical power of a communicative framework. [source]

The Influence of Social Critical Theory on Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of Suffering for Others

THE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 2 2001
Elizabeth K. TillarArticle first published online: 16 DEC 200
Edward Schillebeeckx has consolidated the theoretical and practical dimensions of the Christian approach to human suffering in his theological method, specifically his theology of suffering for others. The various elements and sources of his method can be gleaned from his later writings, especially those published during the 1970s and 1980s. Schillebeeckx's theology is anchored in (1) the Thomist-phenomenological approach of Flemish philosopher Dominic De Petter; (2) the historical-experiential theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu; and (3) the social theory of the Frankfurt School. De Petter's perspective on Aquinas integrated a Thomist epistemology with the phenomenological notion that concepts cannot ultimately capture the reality of human experience. From Chenu, Schillebeeckx acquired his commitment to both solid historical research and engagement with socio-political problems facing church and world. The problem of suffering, which constitutes an essential dimension of Schillebeeckx's theological ethics with its dual emphasis on theory and praxis, raises the question of human responsibility in the face of unjust and needless suffering. His theoretical-practical approach to the alleviation of human suffering evolved within the framework of social critical theory, specifically: (a) Schillebeeckx's theological integration of Theodor Adorno's negative dialectics into his own method of correlation, which promotes various forms of critical resistance to socio-political injustice rather than a single program; and (b) the unification of theory and praxis, a priority of Jürgen Habermas's ,new' critical theory that Schillebeeckx endorses. Both principles of critical theory , negative dialectics and the union of theory and praxis , inform Schillebeeckx's eschatological orientation and his conception of liturgy as a form of social ethics. [source]

An Appropriating Aesthetic: Reproducing Power in the Discourse of Critical Scholarship

COMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 3 2003
Helene A. Shugart
Critical theory and cultural studies have articulated a substantial and vital challenge to the very foundations of traditional scholarship, which remains rigidly scientistic in its orientation. One outcome of this challenge is that claims of subjectivity on the part of the critic are accommodated. The stylistic dimensions of critical scholarship, however, also are noteworthy, and their political implications are perhaps no less significant. The aforementioned relative latitude in content has not been accompanied by a concurrent loosening of aesthetic mores. In this article engaging critical rhetoric as a case study, I argue that the aesthetic conventions of scholarship, as imposed upon the unique, ideologically overt character of critical scholarship, constrain and even undermine the critical project. [source]

The ethical nature of critical research in information systems

INFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2008
Bernd Carsten Stahl
Abstract., Critical research in information systems is based on and inspired by ethics and morality. In order to support this proposition, this paper will suggest a way of classifying critical research that differs from definitions common IS research. According to the current definition, research is critical when it is motivated by the intention to change social realities and promote emancipation. Based on this critical intention, critical research is furthermore characterized by critical topics, critical theories, and critical methodologies. Using these criteria of critical research, the paper argues that critical research is ethical in nature. To support this view, the paper introduces the concepts of ethics and morality by analysing two traditions of moral philosophy, here called the ,German tradition' and the ,French tradition'. Using three examples of current critical research in information systems, the paper will show that ethics and morality strongly influence critical intention, topics and theories. Having thus established the ethical nature of critical research, the paper concludes by discussing the weaknesses of critical research from the point of view of ethics and morality. [source]

Power law specific heat divergence in Sr3Ru2O7

PHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI (B) BASIC SOLID STATE PHYSICS, Issue 3 2010
A. W. Rost
Abstract We present measurement and analysis of field-dependent specific heat measurements on Sr3Ru2O7, showing that, at low temperatures, an incipient divergence is cut off by the formation of a new phase previously identified to show the transport properties of an electronic nematic. We discuss how to interpret a specific heat divergence in a system with van Hove singularities, and caution against a simple-minded comparison of experimentally determined power laws with the predictions of quantum critical theories. [source]

Custom Contestations: Lowriders and Urban Space

CITY & SOCIETY, Issue 1 2010
BEN CHAPPELL
Abstract This article examines the production of space and contestation of spatial governmentality that occurs in the everyday cruising practices of lowrider car customizers in Austin, Texas. Lowrider style, practiced mostly, but not exclusively, by Mexican Americans, is a form of automotive aesthetics which carries associations with working-class, Latino/a barrio communities. Drawing on critical theories of the production and governance of space, I trace the politics inherent in lowrider cruising and the confrontations with police it occasions. From the perspective of lowriders, I present a critique of community policing as a practice of government, which has the effects of criminalizing lowriders and subjecting them to heightened levels of surveillance. [source]

Kafka, Critical Theory, Dialectical Theology: Adorno's Case against Hans-Joachim Schoeps

Researching human resource development: emergence of a critical approach to HRD enquiry

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2006
Claire Valentin
This paper argues that mainstream research in management and human resource development (HRD) is dominated by a positivist paradigm. In a theoretical discussion and review of literature on management, human resource management, HRD and organization studies, it explores critical perspectives in research, which draw on postmodernism and critical theory. It examines how they have contributed to the emergence of a critical HRD and discusses the features of a critical HRD research. [source]

The International Relations of Middle-earth: Learning from The Lord of the Rings

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 4 2008
Abigail E. Ruane
This article demonstrates how by using J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (LOTR) as a text in the classroom instructors can relay the international relations (IR) "Great Debates" and feminist "waves" to students through the framework of "where you stand depends on where you sit." It overviews how J.R.R. Tolkien's acclaimed trilogy is relevant to learning about IR and then presents a number of "cuts" into using LOTR to inform IR teaching of both problem solving and critical theory. It begins by parsing the three "Great Debates" of IR theory and three "waves" of feminist theory in terms of different worldviews by relating them to characters from the trilogy. Next, the paper suggests that a critical evaluation of this analysis conveys that concerns, goals, and understandings of problems and insecurities are influenced (although not determined) by context, such as gender, race, class, sexuality, and postcolonial position. It concludes by suggesting that further use of popular culture and the humanities can help IR teaching both illustrate and critically reflect on IR scholarship. [source]

Crosscurrents: against cultural narration in nursing

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 2 2000
Dawn Freshwater PhD BA RNT RN
Crosscurrents: against cultural narration in nursing Nurses, like other groups throughout history, have been described as an oppressed group. Writers who describe nurses as lacking in self-esteem, autonomy, accountability and power support this view in the literature. Indeed the cultural narration of nursing is for nurses to be subordinate. This article explores the emergence of horizontal violence within nursing and suggests that it is a result of unexpressed conflict within an oppressed group. The author aims to raise the awareness of horizontal violence in nursing so that practitioners come to understand how this in itself can be an expression of power. Drawing upon theories of reflective practice, the article examines how the educational system in nursing may have contributed to the felt oppression within the group by colluding with the cultural narrative. The crosscurrents of cultural narration are strong and it is argued here that the nurse needs to feel empowered in order to take action to swim against the tide. The author proposes that a model of transformatory learning based upon critical theory creates the possibility of emancipatory action in nursing, both locally and globally. [source]

Concepts and semantic relations in information science

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 10 2010
Wolfgang G. Stock
Concept-based information retrieval and knowledge representation are in need of a theory of concepts and semantic relations. Guidelines for the construction and maintenance of knowledge organization systems (KOS) (such as ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005 in the U.S.A. or DIN 2331:1980 in Germany) do not consider results of concept theory and theory of relations to the full extent. They are not able to unify the currently different worlds of traditional controlled vocabularies, of the social web (tagging and folksonomies) and of the semantic web (ontologies). Concept definitions as well as semantic relations are based on epistemological theories (empiricism, rationalism, hermeneutics, pragmatism, and critical theory). A concept is determined via its intension and extension as well as by definition. We will meet the problem of vagueness by introducing prototypes. Some important definitions are concept explanations (after Aristotle) and the definition of family resemblances (in the sense of Wittgenstein). We will model concepts as frames (according to Barsalou). The most important paradigmatic relation in KOS is hierarchy, which must be arranged into different classes: Hyponymy consists of taxonomy and simple hyponymy, meronymy consists of many different part-whole-relations. For practical application purposes, the transitivity of the given relation is very important. Unspecific associative relations are of little help to our focused applications and should be replaced by generalizable and domain-specific relations. We will discuss the reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity of paradigmatic relations as well as the appearance of specific semantic relations in the different kinds of KOS (folksonomies, nomenclatures, classification systems, thesauri, and ontologies). Finally, we will pick out KOS as a central theme of the Semantic Web. [source]

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Victorian Life Writing

LITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2007
Valerie Sanders
Author's Introduction The Victorian period was one of the great ages for life-writing. Though traditionally renowned for its monumental ,lives and letters', mainly of great men, this was also a time of self-conscious anxiety about the genre. Critics and practitioners alike were unsure who should be writing autobiography, and whether its inherent assertiveness ruled out all but public men as appropriate subjects. It was also a period of experimentation in the different genres of life-writing , whether autobiography, journals, letters, autobiographical novels, and narratives of lives combined with extracts from correspondence and diaries. Victorian life-writing therefore provides rich and complex insights into the relationship between narrative, identity, and the definition of the self. Recent advances in criticism have highlighted the more radical and non-canonical aspects of life-writing. Already a latecomer to the literary-critical tradition (life-writing was for a long time the ,poor relation' of critical theory), auto/biography stresses the hidden and silent as much as the mainstream and vocal. For that reason, study of Victorian life-writing appeals to those with an interest in gender issues, postcolonialism, ethnicity, working-class culture, the history of religion, and family and childhood studies , to name but a few of the fields with which the genre has a natural connection. Author Recommends A good place to start is the two canonical texts for Victorian life-writing: George P. Landow's edited collection, Approaches to Victorian Autobiography (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979) and Avrom Fleishman's Figures of Autobiography: The Language of Self-Writing in Victorian and Modern England (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1983). These two re-ignited interest in Victorian life-writing and in effect opened the debate about extending the canon, though both focus on the firmly canonical Ruskin and Newman, among others. By contrast, David Amigoni's recently edited collection of essays, Life-Writing and Victorian Culture (Aldershot: Ashgate 2006) shows how far the canon has exploded and expanded: it begins with a useful overview of the relationship between lives, life-writing, and literary genres, while subsequent chapters by different authors focus on a particular individual or family and their cultural interaction with the tensions of life-writing. As this volume is fairly male-dominated, readers with an interest in women's life-writing might prefer to start with Linda Peterson's chapter, ,Women Writers and Self-Writing' in Women and Literature in Britain 1800,1900, ed. Joanne Shattock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 209,230. This examines the shift from the eighteenth-century tradition of the chroniques scandaleuses to the professional artist's life, domestic memoir, and spiritual autobiography. Mary Jean Corbett's Representing Femininity: Middle-Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women's Autobiographies (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992) begins with material on Wordsworth and Carlyle, but ,aims to contest the boundaries of genre, gender, and the autobiographical tradition by piecing together a partial history of middle-class women's subjectivities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries' (3). Corbett is particularly interested in the life-writing of actresses and suffragettes as well as Martineau and Oliphant, the first two women autobiographers to be welcomed into the canon in the 1980s and 90s. Laura Marcus's Auto/biographical Discourses, Theory, Criticism, Practice (Manchester and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 1994) revises and updates the theoretical approaches to the study of life-writing, stressing both the genre's hybrid qualities, and its inherent instability: in her view, it ,comes into being as a category to be questioned' (37). Another of her fruitful suggestions is that autobiography functions as a ,site of struggle' (9), an idea that can be applied to aesthetic or ideological issues. Her book is divided between specific textual examples (such as the debate about autobiography in Victorian periodicals), and an overview of developments in critical approaches to life-writing. Her second chapter includes material on Leslie Stephen, who is also the first subject of Trev Lynn Broughton's Men of Letters, Writing Lives: Masculinity and Literary Auto/biography in the Late Victorian Period (London: Routledge, 1999) , her other being Froude's controversial Life of Carlyle. With the advent of gender studies and masculinities, there is now a return to male forms of life-writing, of which Martin A. Danahay's A Community of One: Masculine Autobiography and Autonomy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993) is a good example. Danahay argues that nineteenth-century male autobiographers present themselves as ,autonomous individuals' free of the constraints of social and familial contexts, thus emphasizing the autonomy of the self at the expense of family and community. Online Materials My impression is that Victorian life-writing is currently better served by books than by online resources. There seem to be few general Web sites other than University module outlines and reading lists; for specific authors, on the other hand, there are too many to list here. So the only site I'd recommend is The Victorian Web: http://.victorianweb.org/genre/autobioov.html This Web site has a section called ,Autobiography Overview', which begins with an essay, ,Autobiography, Autobiographicality and Self-Representation', by George P. Landow. There are sections on other aspects of Victorian autobiography, including ,Childhood as a Personal Myth', autobiography in Dickens and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and a list of ,Suggested Readings'. Each section is quite short, but summarizes the core issues succinctly. Sample Syllabus This sample syllabus takes students through the landmarks of Victorian life-writing, and demonstrates the development of a counter-culture away from the mainstream ,classic male life' (if there ever was such a thing) , culminating in the paired diaries of Arthur Munby (civil servant) and Hannah Cullwick (servant). Numerous other examples could have been chosen, but for those new to the genre, this is a fairly classic syllabus. One week only could be spent on the ,classic male texts' if students are more interested in pursuing other areas. Opening Session Open debate about the definition of Victorian ,life-writing' and its many varieties; differences between autobiography, autobiographical fiction, diary, letters, biography, collective biography, and memoir; the class could discuss samples of selected types, such as David Copperfield, Father and Son, Ruskin's Praeterita, and Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. Alternatively, why not just begin with Stave Two of Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843), in which the First Spirit takes Scrooge back through his childhood and youth? This is a pretty unique type of life-writing, with Scrooge ,laughing and crying' as his childhood and youth are revealed to him in a series of flashbacks (a Victorian version of ,This is Your Life?'). The dual emotions are important to note at this stage and will prompt subsequent discussions of sentimentality and writing for comic effect later in the course. Week 2 Critical landmarks: discussion of important stages in the evolution of critical approaches to life-writing, including classics such as Georges Gusdorf's ,Conditions and Limits of Autobiography', in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 28,47; Philippe Lejeune's ,The Autobiographical Pact', in On Autobiography, ed. Paul John Eakin, trans. Katherine Leary (original essay 1973; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 3,30; and Paul De Man's ,Autobiography as De-Facement', Modern Language Notes 94 (1979): 919,30. This will provide a critical framework for the rest of the course. Weeks 3,4 Extracts from the ,male classics' of Victorian life-writing: J. S. Mill's Autobiography (1873), Ruskin's Praeterita (1885,89), and Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864). What do they think is important and what do they miss out? How open or otherwise are they about their family and personal lives? Are these essentially ,lives of the mind'? How self-aware are they of autobiographical structures? Are there already signs that the ,classic male life' is fissured and unconventional? An option here would be to spend the first week focusing on male childhoods, and the second on career trajectories. Perhaps use Martin Danahay's theory of the ,autonomous individual' (see above) to provide a critical framework here: how is the ,Other' (parents, Harriet Taylor) treated in these texts? Weeks 5,6 Victorian women's autobiography: Harriet Martineau's Autobiography (1877) and Margaret Oliphant's Autobiography (1899): in many ways these are completely unalike, Martineau's being ordered around the idea of steady mental growth and public recognition, while Oliphant's is deeply emotional and disordered. Can we therefore generalize about ,women's autobiography'? What impact did they have on Victorian theories of life-writing? Students might like to reconsider Jane Eyre as an ,autobiography' alongside these and compare scenes of outright rebellion. The way each text handles time and chronology is also fascinating: Martineau's arranged to highlight stages of philosophical development, while Oliphant's switches back and forth in a series of ,flashbacks' to her happier youth as her surviving two sons die ,in the text', interrupting her story. Week 7 Black women's autobiography: how does Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (1857) differ from the Martineau and Oliphant autobiographies? What new issues and genre influences are introduced by a Caribbean/travelogue perspective? Another key text would be Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave-Girl (1861). How representative and how individual are these texts? Do these authors see themselves as representing their race as well as their class and sex? Week 8 Working-class autobiography: Possible texts here could be John Burnett's Useful Toil (Allen Lane, 1974, Penguin reprint); Carolyn Steedman's edition of John Pearman's The Radical Soldier's Tale (Routledge, 1988) and the mini oral biographies in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1861,62) (e.g., the Water-Cress Seller). There is also a new Broadview edition of Factory Lives (2007) edited by James R. Simmons, with an introduction by Janice Carlisle. This contains four substantial autobiographical texts (three male, one female) from the mid-nineteenth century, with supportive materials. Samuel Bamford's Passages in the Life of a Radical (1839,42; 1844) and Early Days (1847,48) are further options. Students should also read Regenia Gagnier's Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain 1832,1910 (Oxford University Press, 1991). Week 9 Biography: Victorian Scandal: focus on two scandals emerging from Victorian life-writing: Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) (the Branwell Brontë/Lady Scott adultery scandal), and Froude's allegations of impotence in his Life of Carlyle (1884). See Trev Broughton's ,Impotence, Biography, and the Froude-Carlyle Controversy: ,Revelations on Ticklish Topics', Journal of the History of Sexuality, 7.4 (Apr. 1997): 502,36 (in addition to her Men of Letters cited above). The biographies of the Benson family written about and by each other, especially E. F. Benson's Our Family Affairs 1867,1896 (London: Cassell, 1920) reveal the domestic unhappiness of the family of Gladstone's Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson, whose children and wife were all to some extent homosexual or lesbian. Another option would be Edmund Gosse's Father and Son (1907) in which the son's critical stance towards his father is uneasy and complex in its mixture of comedy, pity, shame, and resentment. Week 10 Diaries: Arthur Munby's and Hannah Cullwick's relationship (they were secretly married, but lived as master and servant) and diaries, Munby: Man of Two Worlds: The Life and Diaries of Arthur Munby, ed. Derek Hudson (John Murray, 1972), and The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick: Victorian Maidservant, ed. Liz Stanley (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984): issues of gender and class identity; the idealization of the working woman; the two diaries compared. Half the class could read one diary and half the other and engage in a debate about the social and sexual fantasies adopted by each diarist. It would also be sensible to leave time for an overview debate about the key issues of Victorian life-writing which have emerged from this module, future directions for research, and current critical developments. Focus Questions 1To what extent does Victorian autobiography tell an individual success story? Discuss with reference to two or three contrasting examples. 2,All life writing is time writing' (Jens Brockmeier). Examine the way in which Victorian life-writers handle the interplay of narrative, memory, and time. 3To what extent do you agree with the view that Victorian life-writing was ,a form of communication that appeared intimate and confessional, but which was in fact distant and controlled' (Donna Loftus)? 4,Bamford was an autobiographer who did not write an autobiography' (Martin Hewitt). If autobiography is unshaped and uninterpreted, what alternative purposes does it have in narrating a life to the reader? 5,Victorian life-writing is essentially experimental, unstable, and unpredictable.' How helpful is this comment in helping you to understand the genre? [source]

Moral knowledge and responsibilities in evaluation implementation: When critical theory and responsive evaluation collide

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR EVALUATION, Issue 127 2010
Melissa Freeman
An external evaluation documented what occurred in an inaugural summer camp to teach high school students how to preserve religious freedom by learning about and acting on the history and current state of church,state separation and other first amendment issues. Camp designers hoped to promote religious diversity values and civic engagement in youth. An analytic vignette grounded in an inductive analysis of observations, interviews, and document collection represents the competing demands of responsive and critical approaches to evaluation. Balancing obligations to promote the social well-being of society with responsibilities to clients and other stakeholders presents challenges that can be met only by identifying priorities with clients in ongoing dialogue. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association. [source]

Academics and practitioners: nurses as intellectuals

NURSING INQUIRY, Issue 2 2002
Colin A. Holmes
Academics and practitioners: nurses as intellectuals In the author's experience, nurse educators working in universities generally accept that they are ,academics', but dismiss suggestions that they are ,intellectuals' because they see it as a pretentious description referring to a small number of academics and aesthetes who inhabit a conceptual world beyond the imaginative capacity of most other people. This paper suggests that the concept of the ,intellectual', if not the word itself, be admitted into nursing discourse through the adoption of a non-élitist Gramscian understanding, similar to the more recently formulated conception of the reflective practitioner. According to the Italian Marxist scholar Antonio Gramsci, intellectuals are those people who develop ways in which to construct the conditions of their own existence, a possibility he believed was open to all. It is suggested that, from a Gramscian perspective, all nurses are intellectuals to varying degrees, and nurse educators should not only be nurturing their own intellectualism but also the potential for intellectualism as it exists within each individual. The ways in which this project are related to Habermasian critical theory are also briefly outlined. [source]

Critical Theory and its Practices: Habermas, Kosovo and International Relations

"A Discovered Dissembler Can Achieve Nothing Great"; Or, Four Theses on the Death of Presidential Rhetoric in an Age of Empire

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2007
STEPHEN JOHN HARTNETT
Because of the explosion of mass media, we have entered a new age of white noise; because of the disastrous extension of U.S. imperial ambitions, we have entered a new age of political deception; when these two historical factors are combined with the peculiar communicative habits of President George W. Bush, Americans are left with what we call a post-rhetorical presidency. This is an anti-democratic condition wherein presidential discourse is not meant to mobilize, educate, and uplift the masses; rather, by marshaling ubiquitous public chatter, waves of disinformation, and cascades of confusion-causing misdirection, post-rhetorical presidential discourse attempts to confuse public opinion, prevent citizen action, and frustrate citizen deliberation. Under these new conditions, the president defines fantasy, not reality; he numbs citizens rather than energizing them; instead of informing and teaching, he chooses to dumb down and stupefy. We pursue this thesis by offering four philosophical theses and three rhetorical case studies of the president's public speaking, thus combining critical theory and rhetorical criticism to help map what may represent the death of democracy. [source]

Critical Remembrance and Eschatological Hope in Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of Suffering for Others

THE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 1 2003
Elizabeth K. TillarArticle first published online: 9 OCT 200
Biblical prototypes of suffering for others , the eschatological prophet and messianic high priest , are correlated in the present article with Edward Schillebeeckx's examination of two vital concepts to provide the basis for a critical praxis: anamnesis, or the critical remembrance of history, and eschatological hope. The dialectical opposites of anamnesis and hope, which Schillebeeckx deems crucial for solidarity with suffering and its alleviation, are embodied by the prototypical scriptural figures. Indeed, critical remembrance and hope are intrinsic to the images of Jesus as the ,suffering righteous one' and the eschatological messianic high priest in Schillebeeckx's theology of suffering for others. Both the images and the critical concepts prove essential in his historical reconstruction of the eschatological communities, religious figures, and symbols in Hebrews and 1 Peter, among other New Testament documents. Schillebeeckx's discernment of hope as an eschatological concept is predicated on the transformation of the history of suffering into a constructive and critical force. He understands Jesus' preaching about the coming kingdom of God as a message of hope that emerges from Jesus' consciousness of the contrast between the history of suffering and his experience of God as Abba. Schillebeeckx's exegesis of biblical passages , taken from the Beatitudes, narratives of Jesus' forgiveness of sins, and stories of his table fellowship , lays the foundation for the development of hope as the antidote to suffering and as a presentiment of eschatological salvation. He proposes that the transformation of failure and suffering into a critical and constructive force is Jesus' eschatological legacy to the world and a model for the suffering servants of any age. Moreover, Schillebeeckx's dialectical understanding of remembered history and hope attests to his deep engagement with the Frankfurt School of social critical theory. In his later work (published during the 1970s and 1980s), such critical ideas serve to cultivate an eschatological sensibility and an ethical praxis, made possible by grace mediated through voluntary suffering. [source]

The Influence of Social Critical Theory on Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of Suffering for Others

Tribal synthesis: Piros, Mansos, and Tiwas through history

THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 2 2006
Howard Campbell
This article critically examines recent anthropological theorizing about indigenous tribalism using ethnographic and historical data on the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian tribe of New Mexico. Debates about constructionism, neo-tribal capitalism, and proprietary approaches to culture provide valuable insights into recent indigenous cultural claims and political struggles, but also have serious limitations. The approach taken in the article, ,tribal synthesis', emphasizes process, agency, interdependence, and changing political and cultural repertoires of native peoples who seek survival amidst political domination and internal conflict. Such an approach can apply the best of recent critical theory in an advocacy anthropology that supports indigenous struggles. [source]

Framing U.S. Redistributive Policies: Tough Love for Poor Women and Tax Cuts for Seniors

ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2009
Wendy M. Limbert
In recent years, income inequality in the U.S. has risen to historically high levels. Redistributive policies that differentially benefit lower- versus upper-income households play a significant role in the widening economic gap. A discourse analysis of 284 articles from five major U.S. newspapers was conducted to examine dominant media framing of the Bush administration's welfare reauthorization proposal and the 2003 dividend tax cuts. Guided by critical theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001;,Wing, 1997), we found that dominant issue frames favored reduced support for progressive welfare policies and increased support for tax cuts. Implications for pursuing an economic justice agenda are discussed. [source]

Vostell's Ruins: dé-collage and the mnemotechnic space of the postwar city

ART HISTORY, Issue 1 2000
Claudia Mesch
This essay considers Wolf Vostell's agenda of commemoration in his dé-collage performances Tour de Vanves. Theater is in the Street (Paris, 1958) and Cityrama (Cologne, 1961). Vostell's fully collaborative and performative notion of dé-collage reconfigured the avant-garde paradigms of performance and collage, once geared toward forgetfulness, in order to fix the specific importance of remembering destruction in the postwar period. Dé-collage marked the evacuation of the symbolic content these avant-gardist forms once possessed in connection with the modern city. While the dé-collage object may superficially resemble the déaffiche lacerée, it is clearly distinguishable from it through its collective and performative mode of production; the essential contradictions of the concept of dé-collage contained a critique of the modernist form of collage. Vostell's commemorative project in dé-collage resonates with the theorization of collage as a materialist paradigm of art by Louis Aragon and Walter Benjamin, who tied collage to revolutionary intent and even transcendence by means of its relation to remembrance and its function as allegory. Vostell turned to the spaces of the postwar German city in 1961 further to investigate the performative spatial mnemonics of dé-collage. Dé-collage staged the postwar city as ,mnemotechnic space', to recover Benjamin's term, thereby escaping the empty repetitions of ,neo-avant-gardism, in rethinking flânerie and collage to encompass the cultural necessity of remembrance. Tours de Vanves and Cityrama actively engaged the issue of collective memory that critical theory had foregrounded as a cultural and epistemological priority of the postwar world. [source]

Psychotherapy and postmodernism: agency, authenticity and alienation in contemporary therapeutic discourse

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND POLITICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 2 2006
Daniel Burston
Abstract Since the advent of postmodernism, terms like agency, authenticity and alienation have fallen into disuse in psychotherapeutic discourse. The causes and consequences of this profound semantic shift are examined. While postmodernism has contributed considerably to our understanding of the impact of language and of power relations on society, it has little or nothing to say on the subject of human needs, which provided the original impetus for ,critical theory', historically, and is still vital to fostering our patients' welfare. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]