DOCSLIB.ORG

International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics Edited by Marieke de Goede International Political Economy Series General Editor: Timothy M. Shaw, Professor of Commonwealth Governance and Development, and Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Titles include: Hans Abrahamsson UNDERSTANDING WORLD ORDER AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE Poverty, Conflict and the Global Arena Morten Bøås, Marianne H. Marchand and Timothy M. Shaw (editors) THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGIONS AND REGIONALISMS Sandra Braman (editor) THE EMERGENT GLOBAL INFORMATION POLICY REGIME James Busumtwi-Sam and Laurent Dobuzinskis (editors) TURBULENCE AND NEW DIRECTIONS IN GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY Martin Doornbos GLOBAL FORCES AND STATE RESTRUCTURING Dynamics of State Formation and Collapse Bill Dunn GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING AND THE POWER OF LABOUR Myron J. Frankman WORLD DEMOCRATIC FEDERALISM Peace and Justice Indivisible Barry K. Gills (editor) GLOBALIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF RESISTANCE Marieke de Goede (editor) INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POSTSTRUCTURAL POLITICS Richard Grant and John Rennie Short (editors) GLOBALIZATION AND THE MARGINS Graham Harrison (editor) GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS International Political Economy, Development and Globalization Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili (editors) CONFRONTING GLOBALIZATION Humanity, Justice and the Renewal of Politics Axel Hülsemeyer (editor) GLOBALIZATION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Convergence or Divergence? Helge Hveem and Kristen Nordhaug (editors) PUBLIC POLICY IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION Responses to Environmental and Economic Crises Takashi Inoguchi GLOBAL CHANGE A Japanese Perspective Kanishka Jayasuriya STATECRAFT, WELFARE AND THE POLITICS OF INCLUSION Dominic Kelly and Wyn Grant (editors) THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN THE 21st CENTURY Actors, Issues and Regional Dynamics Mathias Koenig-Archibugi and Michael Zürn (editors) NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN THE GLOBAL SYSTEM Exploring Publicness, Delegation and Inclusiveness Craig N. Murphy (editor) EGALITARIAN POLITICS IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION George Myconos THE GLOBALIZATION OF ORGANIZED LABOUR 1945–2004 John Nauright and Kimberley S. Schimmel (editors) THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SPORT Morten Ougaard THE GLOBALIZATION OF POLITICS Power, Social Forces and Governance Richard Robison (editor) THE NEO-LIBERAL REVOLUTION Forging the Market State Timothy J. Sinclair and Kenneth P. Thomas (editors) STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL MOBILITY Fredrik Söderbaum and Timothy M. Shaw (editors) THEORIES OF NEW REGIONALISM International Political Economy Series Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71708–2 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71110–6 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics Edited by Marieke de Goede University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Editorial Matter and Selection, and Introduction © Marieke de Goede 2006 Chapter 1 © Marysia Zalewski 2006 Chapter 2 © Michael J. Shapiro 2006 Chapter 3 © Martin Coward 2006 Chapter 4 © Rob Aitken 2006 Chapter 5 © Earl Gammon and Ronen Palan 2006 Chapter 6 © V. Spike Peterson 2006 Chapter 7 © J. Magnus Ryner 2006 Chapter 8 © Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum 2006 Chapter 9 © Glyn Daly 2006 Chapter 10 © Wendy Larner 2006 Chapter 11 © Matt Davies 2006 Chapter 12 © Bice Maiguashca 2006 Chapter 13 © Louise Amoore 2006 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–4932–5 hardback ISBN-10: 1–4039–4932–8 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data International political economy and poststructural politics / edited by Marieke de Goede. p. cm. – (International political economy series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–4932–8 (c1) 1. International economic relations. 2. International finance. 3. Globalization. I. Goede, Marieke de, 1971- II. International political economy series (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm)) HF1411.I51758 2006 337–dc22 2005056371 10987654321 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne Contents List of Figures vii Acknowledgments viii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction: International Political Economy and the Promises of Poststructuralism 1 Marieke de Goede Part I: Poststructural Interventions 21 1. Survival/Representation 25 Marysia Zalewski 2. Adam Smith: Desire, History, and Value 43 Michael J. Shapiro 3. Securing the Global (Bio)Political Economy: Empire, Poststructuralism and Political Economy 60 Martin Coward 4. Performativity, Popular Finance and Security in the Global Political Economy 77 Rob Aitken 5. Libidinal International Political Economy 97 Earl Gammon and Ronen Palan Part II: Discourse, Materiality and Economy 115 6. Getting Real: The Necessity of Critical Poststructuralism in Global Political Economy 119 V. Spike Peterson 7. International Political Economy: Beyond the Poststructuralist/Historical Materialist Dichotomy 139 J. Magnus Ryner v vi Contents 8. Towards a Cultural International Political Economy: Poststructuralism and the Italian School 157 Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum 9. The Political Economy of (Im)Possibility 177 Glyn Daly Part III: Politics of Dissent 195 10. Neoliberalism: Policy, Ideology, Governmentality 199 Wendy Larner 11. Everyday Life in the Global Political Economy 219 Matt Davies 12. Rethinking Power from the Point of View of Resistance: The Politics of Gender 238 Bice Maiguashca 13. ‘There is No Great Refusal’: The Ambivalent Politics of Resistance 255 Louise Amoore Index 275 List of Figures 4.1 ‘See You Next Saturday – in Hongkong’ 89 8.1 From Foucauldizing Gramsci to Gramscianizing Foucault 165 8.2 The Five Discursively Selective Moments in the Production of Hegemony 168 vii Acknowledgments Many thanks to all contributors, who made this volume possible. Many thanks to Tim Shaw and Jen Nelson at Palgrave, who were enthusiastic about this project from the very beginning. I am indebted to an anonymous referee for Palgrave, who helped shape this volume in important ways. For comments on my introduction, as well as general help and advice, I am grateful to Louise Amoore, David Campbell, Martin Coward, Matt Davies, Christiane Hiley, Paul Langley and Erna Rijsdijk. Special thanks to Gunther Irmer, who contributed to the volume in innumerable ways. Chapter 2 previously appeared as part of Michael J. Shapiro (1993) Reading ‘Adam Smith’: Desire, History, and Value. London: Sage. Many thanks to Rowman Littlefield for permission to reprint. Chapter 10 previously appeared in Studies in Political Economy 63 (2000). Many thanks to Studies in Political Economy for permission to reprint. Marieke de Goede, Amsterdam July 2005 viii Notes on Contributors Rob Aitken currently teaches in the Division of Social Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. His research focuses on cultural economy and performativity in the context of private financial spaces. His research has appeared in the Review of International Political Economy and Consumption, Markets and Culture. Louise Amoore is Lecturer in Political Geography at the University of Durham. She is author of Globalisation Contested (2002) and editor of the Global Resistance Reader (2005). Martin Coward is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex. His recent work includes ‘The Imperial Character Of Our Times’ (Theory and Event 8 (1), 2005) and ‘Urbicide in Bosnia,’ in S. Graham (ed.) Cities, War and Terrorism: Towards an Urban Geopolitics (2004). Glyn Daly is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Sociology at the University of Northampton. He is author (with Slavoj Zˇizˇek) of Conversations with Zˇizˇek (2004). His research engages widely with the theory of ideology, the notion of the political and the question of impossibility. Matt Davies is a
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A–Z Glossary
    Page 279 16 A–Z Glossary Adorno A critical theorist, essayist, philosopher, musicologist and social critic, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (Frankfurt am Main 1903 – Visp 1969) is best known as a leading member of the Frankfurt School. Following the submission of his doctoral thesis on Husserl he studied composition and sought a career in music. Though by the end of the 1920s his essays on music had become more popular, Adorno’s early work as a composer and music critic was not well received and he came to devote more energy to philosophy, beginning his association with the Institute for Social Research in 1928. For Adorno, thought generally misrepresents reality by making it con- form to the instrumental human interests which dominate under capitalist modernity. Under Adorno’s analysis, modern society falsely understands the world as a totality of facts, when it can never be fully described or cognized in general terms. He was deeply critical of what he saw as the political conservativism of scientific positivism, and argued for dialectical method in philosophical research. Rejecting the idea that philosophy pro- vides access to a direct or unmediated set of truths, Adorno suggests that only dialectics can escape ‘identity thinking’: thought distorted by relations of social power which attempts to make objects conform to inadequate con- cepts. It is therefore in the anomalous – or ‘non-identical’ – that Adorno finds the strongest indictments of the poverty of the present state of things. Dialectics is ‘the consistent consciousness of nonidentity’, he writes in Negative Dialectics (1966). Though heavily indebted to Marx, Adorno remained sceptical about the revolutionary potential of the working class, preferring to speak of the way in which late capitalism permeates all levels of society with its own instru- mental logic.
    [Show full text]
  • Download (8Mb)
    A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/110900 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications THE BRITISH LIBRARY BRITISH THESIS SERVICE COPYRIGHT Reproduction of this thesis, other than as permitted under the United Kingdom Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under specific agreement with the copyright holder, is prohibited. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. REPRODUCTION QUALITY NOTICE Th e quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the original thesis. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the highest quality of reproduction, some pages which contain small or poor printing may not reproduce well. Previously copyrighted material (journal articles, published texts etc.) is not reproduced. THIS THESIS HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FLATLINE CONSTRUCTS: GOTHIC MATERIALISM AND CYBERNETIC THEORY-FICTION Mark Fisher Presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Warwick July 1999 Numerous Originals in Colour Abstract FLATLINE CONSTRUCTS: GOTHIC MATERIALISM AND CYBERNETIC THEORY- FICTION Cyberpunk fiction has been called “the supreme literary expression, if not of postmodernism then of late capitalism itself.” (Jameson) This thesis aims to analyse and question this claim by rethinking cyberpunk Action, postmodernism and late capitalism in terms of three - interlocking - themes: cybernetics, the Gothic and fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • Samo Tomšič Laughter and Capitalism in This Time of Crisis
    Samo Tomšič LAUGHteR AND CAPitAlisM n this time of crisis, interest in Marx’s economic thought has once again found its way to the core of international political-economic debates. Only a good decade ago, many voices claimed this figure’s attempts to think the capitalist mode of production no longer sufficed to explain our financialised techno- Icapitalist societies, but he has now made a triumphal comeback from the annals of political philosophy. In the same move, another old alliance that had vanished from the political agendas, Freudo-Marxism, has now re-emerged, reformulated through its Lacanian developments. Marx and Freud, the critique of political economy and psychoanalysis (one could also write, the critique of libidinal economy) are no longer treated as ways of thinking that belong to some tamed “cultural heritage” (which is to claim that they do not need to be taken seriously). Instead, they are resuming their roles as critical and radical voices, addressing the question, in all its necessity and complexity, of how to break out of capitalist structures. The official transcription of Lacan’s seminarD’un Autre à l’autre, which contains his most direct contribution to the critique of political economy, was published in 2006, only a little more than a year before the outbreak of yet another fundamental crisis of capitalism. The seminar in question, too, was a crisis seminar, held in the tur- bulent moment of 1968-69, directly after the student and workers’ protests, which had reached their well-known climax in May 68. Yet Lacan’s seminar contains more than a confrontation with the political events of its time.
    [Show full text]
  • Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy Of
    Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of ‘Becoming- Revolutionary’ Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of ‘Becoming- Revolutionary’ By Raniel S.M. Reyes Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of ‘Becoming-Revolutionary’ By Raniel S.M. Reyes This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Raniel S.M. Reyes All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4865-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4865-7 For Gino, Nhie, and all the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic CONTENTS Foreword ................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xi List of Abbreviations ............................................................................... xiii Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One .............................................................................................. 20 The ABCs of the Deleuzian Philosophy and Politics of Difference A. The Power of Simulacrum and Anti-Hegelianism .......................
    [Show full text]
  • NOTES & COMMENTS for JF Lyotard Seminar, EGS (For June, 2008)
    NOTES & COMMENTS for J-F Lyotard Seminar, EGS (for June, 2008) Victor J. Vitanza ([email protected]) (Sources range, in an olio, from JFL himself and my readings of and publications on his works, but also from such commentators as Bill Readings, David Carroll, Geoffrey Bennington, Roger Mckeon, Julian Pefanis, Keith Crome and James Williams, Avital Ronell, et al.) In the Syllabus for this seminar I promised the following: We will read—through an economy of hesitations—three major works of Lyotard: • Just Gaming (with J-L Thebaud), for JRL's development of speech act theory into hesitations, or rather, deformatives, to oppose performatives, which allow Lyotard to rethink-reconfigure contemporary philosophy in terms of paganisms. He actually calls Aristotle a Sophist! • Libidinal Economy, for Lyotard's radical reconfiguration of Marx (through the perverse topological figure of a Mobius strip), creating a libidinal economic reading of Marx as a hesitant, sophistic hermaphroditic thinker (raising the question of political action becoming stalled), and • The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, for Lyotard's notion of the "differend," which I see as an Event of Hesitation itself within "a case of conflict, between two parties, that cannot be equitably resolved for lack of a rule of judgment applicable to both arguments. One side's legitimacy does not imply the other's lack of legitimacy." In our hesitations, we will bear witness to new idioms. There will be additional brief works in .pdf files. E.g., Wolfgang Schirmacher's "Homo Generator in Artificial Life: From a Conversation with Jean-Francois Lyotard," from Lyotard's Peregrinations (ch.
    [Show full text]
  • DESIRE, ABSENCE and ART in DELEUZE and LYOTARD Kiff Bamford
    PARRHESIA NUMBER 16 • 2013 • 48-60 DESIRE, ABSENCE AND ART IN DELEUZE AND LYOTARD Kiff Bamford In an undated letter, Giles Deleuze writes the following to Jean-François Lyotard: One thing continues to surprise me, the more it happens that we have shared or close thoughts, the more it happens that an irritating difference comes into sight which even I don’t succeed in locating. It is like our relationship: the more I love you, the less I am able to come to grasp it, but what is it?1\ There is a proximity between the work of these two thinkers that remains little considered, it is one that also hides a subtle, but significantly different attitude to desire. The proliferation of interest in Deleuze, particularly since his death, is accompanied by new considerations of desire which echo Lyotard’s libidinal writings very strongly—Elizabeth Grosz’s 2008 Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth is one example.2 Because of the close proximity of Lyotard and Deleuze, it is rewarding to carefully consider the differences among their many similarities (and here I am consciously making no distinction between those writings authored singly by Deleuze and those written collaboratively with Guattari). The manner in which both Lyotard and Deleuze write on art might be described as writing with art and artists rather than about them, insomuch as they give prominence to the ideas, statements and working methods described, and privilege the role of the artist as enacting a different type of thought.3 In Anti-Oedipus this attitude is clear: “the artist presents paranoiac machines, miraculating-machines, and celibate machines […] the work of art is itself a desiring-machine.”4 It is not that they write in two genres: art criticism and philosophy, but that their writings cross the circumscribed boundaries of these genres to ask questions of each.
    [Show full text]
  • Libidinal Economies: Art in the Age of Bull Markets —
    LIBIDINAL ECONOMIES: ART IN THE AGE OF BULL MARKETS — Juli Carson — Michael Moshe Dahan LIBIDINAL ECONOMIES: ART IN THE AGE OF BULL MARKETS YAEL BARTANA MAURA BREWER HOLLIS FRAMPTON MIKE KELLEY PAUL MCCARTHY CHRISTOPH MEIER CONSTANZE RUHM MICHAEL SNOW AXEL STOCKBURGER BENJAMIN VAN BEBBER BASTIAN ZIMMERMANN OCT. 3 TO DEC. 12, 2015 University Art Gallery University of California, Irvine LIBIDINAL ECONOMIES: ART IN THE AGE OF BULL MARKETS 3 As he sat before what Hollis Frampton would term the ON ORIGINS AND AFTERWARDNESS ‘polymorphous camera’1 Nixon, who had a dubious relationship with TOWARDS A THEORY recording devices of all sorts, addressed a nation longing for a better past—one of economic and political supremacy bolstered by a clear OF LIBIDINAL AESTHETICS Manichean world-view. During the president’s first term in office, inflation outpaced economic growth, making American goods less competitive Michael Moshe Dahan overseas and leading to unprecedented balance-of-payment trade deficits. Add to that the overabundance of U.S. dollars overseas caused by outlays—bolstered by a zealous production of paper currency—for the Marshall Plan, Johnson’s Great Society programs and the Vietnam War. An unfortunate result of this confluence was the waning confidence on the part of international trade partners—who held this plenitude of dollars— “The development of money is the striving towards the ideal of a that the U.S. actually had the reserves to support the convertibility of pure symbol of economic value which is never attained.” paper money into gold (as dictated by the Bretton Woods Agreement).2 Nixon assured the populace that by finally uncoupling the —George Simmel, The Philosophy of Money dollar from gold he was looking out for their jobs, addressing mounting inflation and the value of the dollar in one fell swoop.
    [Show full text]
  • Wild Normativity: Lyotard's Search for an Ethical Antihumanism
    Wild Normativity: Lyotard’s Search for an Ethical Antihumanism Matthew McLennan Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD in Philosophy Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa ©Matthew McLennan, Ottawa, Canada, 2011 1 Abstract In spite of its thematic and stylistic heterogeneity, Jean-François Lyotard‟s corpus may be plausibly interpreted as, by and large, an attempt to grapple with the following problem set: a) In general: if we reject all transcendent/systematic philosophical frameworks, can we consistently make normative claims? Can we ground them in any way? Do we need to? b) In particular: if we reject the philosophical framework of humanism, what does this mean for ethics and/or politics? Can one be an antihumanist without abandoning ethics? The basic issue is over the titular possibility of a “wild normativity” – that is, a normativity that does not derive its force from any kind of transcendent guarantor. As I reconstruct him, Lyotard begins from a methodological rejection of transcendent guarantors in general; this plays itself out in particular terms as a rejection of humanism. Thus, beginning from a thought not of universality and totality but of singularity and difference, and wishing at a certain point in his career to ensure that the problem of justice stays firmly on the agenda, Lyotard gives us to think the very possibility of an ethical antihumanism. My dissertation is both an interpretation of Lyotard‟s work as it unfolds in time, as well as a contribution to thinking through the general-particular problem set that I argue is at play in his work.
    [Show full text]
  • Prostheses of Desire: on Bernard Stiegler's New
    PARRHESIA NUMBER 20 • 2014 • 2-14 PROSTHESES OF DESIRE: ON BERNARD STIEGLER’S NEW CRITIQUE OF PROJECTION1 Erich Hörl, translated by Arne De Boever The history of mankind seems to tend toward another turning point in the vicissitudes of the instincts.3 Herbert Marcuse (1955) I At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the factory replaces the theater. The regime of production follows the order of representation. The epochal prioritization of the production process that shaped the industrial modes of existence, as well as the related understanding of being and system of experiences, increasingly yields forces that can no longer be bound representationally—that are located at the limit of the unrepresentable, the inconceivable, or the uncontrollable. Michel Foucault has pointed out that “violence, life and death, desire, and sexuality will extend, below the level of representation, an immense expanse of shade which we are now attempting to recover, as far as we can, in our […] thought”.4 It is in any case the introduction of production into representation that forces thinking throughout the entire nineteenth century to comprehensive new descriptions to match the heavy industry. But this shift also took place for precise media-historical reasons. If, since the old empires the stage of writing has functioned as the great media-technical apriori, then we now find ourselves in the era of the machine that has finally interrupted this long scriptural fascination as well as its final form: the era of representation. These are generally speaking the characteristic features of the powerful historical transition from representation to production that, at least in my reading, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus draws out.
    [Show full text]
  • Symbolic Collisions: Short-Circuits in the Libidinal Economy
    Symbolic Collisions: Short-Circuits in the Libidinal Economy by Alexis Wolfe B.A., The University of British Columbia, 2017 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Humanities Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Alexis Wolfe 2019 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2019 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Alexis Wolfe Degree: Master of Humanities Title: Symbolic Collisions: Short-Circuits in the Libidinal Economy Examining Committee: Chair: Paul Dutton Professor Samir Gandesha Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Gary McCarron Supervisor Associate Professor, School of Communications Svitlana Matviyenko Internal Examiner Assistant Professor, School of Communications Date Defended/Approved: September 19, 2019 ii Abstract The logic of late capitalism is a logic of deterritorialization, spurning demythologized, denarrativized and desacralized social relations that emanate from a collapsing symbolic order. Austere neoliberal political governance and the business ontology characterizing neoliberal ideology reduces all that exists on the symbolic plane to mere exchange value where the only subject position available is that of the consumer- spectator – libidinally mined for their addictive, and therefore highly profitable, disposition. At nearly every hour of the day, the debtor-addict subject experiences their attention solicited and short-circuited. In this process, the parasitical metaspectacle of platform capitalism short-circuits desire as well as reason, giving way to reactionary modes of thinking and acting. The dissolution of symbolic frameworks for sociality and total immersion in imaginary realms of relating seeds the soil of a fraught, fragmenting and therefore politically reactive social bond.
    [Show full text]
  • Lyotard, Education, and the Problem of Capitalism in the Postmodern Condition
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 408 657 EA 028 377 AUTHOR Peters, Michael TITLE Lyotard, Education, and the Problem of Capitalism in the Postmodern Condition. PUB DATE Mar 97 NOTE 31p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Chicago, IL, March 24-28, 1997) . PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) Opinion Papers (120) Speeches /Meeting Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Capitalism; Critical Theory; Developed Nations; Epistemology; Foreign Countries; Language Dominance; *Language Usage; Marxism; Modernization; *Phenomenology; *Philosophy; Technological Advancement IDENTIFIERS *Lyotard (Jean Francois); *Postmodernism; *Poststructuralism ABSTRACT Jean-Francois Lyotard is considered by many as the pre-eminent non-Marxist philosopher of the "postmodern condition." This paper offers Lyotard's intellectual biography, describes his political writings and subsequent turn to philosophy, and discusses his views on capitalism in the postmodern condition and the problem of the legitimation of knowledge. Lyotard offers a critical account of the status of knowledge and education in the postmodern condition that focuses on the most highly developed societies. The major working hypothesis of "The Postmodern Condition" is "that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age" (1984:3). Specifically, Lyotard maintains that the leading sciences and technologies have all been based on language-related developments and their miniaturization and commercialization. In this context, the status of knowledge is permanently altered: its availability as an international commodity becomes the basis for national and commercial advantage within the global economy; its computerized uses in the military provide the basis for enhanced state security and international monitoring.
    [Show full text]
  • Luke Caldwell, “Schizophrenizing Lacan: Deleuze, [Guattari], and Anti-Oedipus,” Intersections 10, No
    intersections Volume 10, Number 3 (Autumn 2009) Luke Caldwell, “Schizophrenizing Lacan: Deleuze, [Guattari], and Anti-Oedipus,” intersections 10, no. 3 (2009): 18-27. ABSTRACT In 1972, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus unleashed an extended polemical attack on the foundations of Marxist and psychoanalytic orthodoxy. While the primary target of the book was Sigmund Freud, the innovative theories of Jacques Lacan did not emerge unscathed. Because of the brevity of their critique, many have interpreted Deleuze and Guattari’s relationship to Lacan as one of antagonism and rejection. This, however, obscures many important connections that they maintained with Lacan. Deleuze and Guattari insisted that they were actually extending Lacan’s theories to their necessary conclusions. Through an analysis of Anti-Oedipus in relation to core Lacanian theories, I investigate how Deleuze and Guattari transform Lacan, both faithfully and unfaithfully, to give support to their utopian project. http://depts.washington.edu/chid/intersections_Autumn_2009/Luke_Caldwell_Schizophrenizing_Lacan.pdf © 2009 Luke Caldwell intersections Autumn 2009 Schizophrenizing Lacan Deleuze, [Guattari], and Anti-Oedipus By Luke Caldwell University of Washington, Seattle n 1972, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus1 exploded like a I bombshell on the French intellectual scene. Unleashing an extended polemical attack upon the foundational elements of orthodox psychoanalysis and Marxism, it quickly became a bestseller. While the primary target of the book was Freud, the innovative theories of Jacques Lacan did not emerge unscathed. Because of the brevity of their critique, many have interpreted Deleuze and Guattari’s relationship to Lacan as one of antagonism and rejection. This, however, obscures many important connections that they maintained with Lacan and their insistence that they were actually extending Lacan’s theories to their necessary conclusions.
    [Show full text]