This thesis studies the creation of Bradford's Muslim communities, in particular the impact of migration on Islamic identity. To this end it begins by mapping the contours of Islamic expression in South Asia, especially the development of distinct maslak, discrete schools of Islamic thought and practice. These were, in part, a response to the imposition of British imperialism in India. The settlers from South Asia also came from a variety of areas, with their own histories, regional languages and cultures. The ethos and character of Islam, which is shared by different sects, is studied unselfconsciously at work in the establishment of Muslim communities in Bradford, generating separate residential zones and a network of businesses and institutions, religious and cultural, developed to service their specific needs. The leadership, resources and ethos which the different maslak could draw on, and the institutions they created to reproduce the Islamic tradition in the city are explored and the extent to which these connect with the new cultural and linguistic world of young British Muslims. Attention is then focused on the education, status, functions and influence of the 'ulama, critical carriers of the Islamic tradition in this new context. The role of the Bradford Council for Mosques is examined both as a bearer of the Islamic impulse to unity, transcending the regional, linguistic and sectarian differences, and as an emerging authority, locally and nationally. The study concludes by exploring the challenges facing Muslims - youth, gender, intellectual tradition, and da'wa, invitation to Islam - as British expressions of Islam struggle to birth.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The work of Gilles Deleuze presents us with problems that are directly relevant to the theorising of property. Deleuze's project is to establish a thought that does not base itself upon essential questions (such as 'what is it?' or 'what is this?') but instead locates thought within the circumstances through which it is capable of being thought. For this reason he is directly concerned with proprietary issues such as grounds, claiming, territory, and subjectivity. This thesis utilises aspects of Deleuze's work in order to think through some of these implications for property theory, meaning how property and the subject can be currently thought of. In so doing, it is critical of attempts to think property as a universal essence, whether as some particular aspect or function (e.g. alienation), or as a self-same mode or order premised upon dialectics and/or the feminine. Rather, it argues that property and subjectivity must be understood in terms of control, meaning the current regime of late or contemporary capitalism. Through this investigation it argues that both property and the subject are effects rather than essences. In such case, property is (paradoxically) the present assertion of what property will be, while the subject is effectively de-actualised and kept in a state of non-determination: a 'whatever' subject. The thesis utilises a number of writers and theorists in pursuing these lines, including David Hume, Jeanne Schroeder, Hegel, Hardt & Negri, Alain Pottage, Nietzsche, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault and Marilyn $trathem, amongst others.

This thesis aims to explore Nietzsche's concept of individuality. Nietzsche, a radical and innovative thinker who attacks Christian morality and proclaims the death of God, provides us with a self-interpreting way to understand humanity and affirm life through self-overcoming and self-experimentation. Nietzsche's concept of individuality is his main philosophical concern. I first compare his perspective on human nature in Human, All Too Human, Daybreak and Beyond Good and Evil with Charles Darwin's, Sigmund Freud's and St Augustine's in order to examine how his thinking differs from theirs with regard to the concept of human nature. Second, I turn to his On the Genealogy of Morals, in comparison with the thought of John Stuart Mill, analysing their criticism of Christian morality and discussing their different conceptions of individuality and the development of the self. The last chapter compares Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ, Twilight of the Idols and Ecce Homo with Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy of self-development, using this comparison to highlight the way in which Nietzsche expounds his concept of individuality and sets himself as a living example of an individual with autonomy and responsibility. Nietzsche attacks Christianity and argues that humanity can potentially be developed not through Christian morality but reflective self-interpretation. We shall not forget that being a self-developing individual is Nietzsche's chief aim although his arguments are too circuitous and controversial to be easily comprehended. His aim is not to offer some final, authoritative solution to these issues of the self and morality. In contrast, he offers us a new, uneven and perhaps dangerous way to understand humanity and modern culture. In order to achieve this, we need to interpret what he says from our own standpoints and also to interpret ourselves through self-reflection. Nietzsche's radical but insightful perspective is a means for guiding us to open our minds and affirm our lives through interpretation and experimentation. Then we might potentially overcome nihilism and become what we are: self-reflective individuals with free spirits.

There is extensive literature that indicates animals suffer considerably in the practices of factory farming and animal experimentation. In the light of the evidence of this suffering there is an urgent need to answer the question whether our current use of animals is ever morally justifiable. The aim of this thesis is to provide a critical examination of the moral status of animals and of our treatment of animals in these practices. My objective is to assess whether these practices are ever justifiable and whether we have a moral obligation to revise our attitudes towards our use of animals. Animals are often denied moral standing on the basis that they lack certain capacities, such as rationality, language and the ability to think. Further, it is often thought that animals' supposed lack of such capacities could be used as a defence for our use of them in intensive farming and animal experimentation. Thus, in examining the moral status of animals this thesis also examines animals and their capacities in order to determine whether any of the arguments given against the moral standing of animals are sound. In seeking to discover the extent of our moral obligations towards animals and the necessary conditions for moral standing, I will demonstrate that, although animals used in factory farming and experiments do have moral standing, the only consistent course is to extend moral standing to all living things (not just animal life or sentient life). I will conclude that although the possession of certain much-prized capacities is not necessary for moral standing, many animals do indeed possess such capacities, including the ability to use language. Centrally this thesis calls for a re-evaluation of our attitudes towards animals, particularly in respect of our beliefs about animals used in factory farms and experiments.

The two research questions of this thesis are: 'What is the aesthetic' and 'What is the relationship of the aesthetic to art' These questions launch an argument that seeks to challenge and reverse some recent 'deflationary' accounts of the aesthetic. The research uses the foundational aesthetics of Hume, Baumgarten and Kant to counter the arguments of deflationary aesthetics, then, drawing upon evolutionary theory and cognitive neuroscience, it highlights the power of the aesthetic in both nature and art. The 'deflationist' George Dickie called the aesthetic attitude a 'myth' and dismissed the concept of 'disinterestedness'. Gombrich doubted whether shared aesthetic values are possible, while Danto initially argued that aesthetic properties are merely imputed to artworks through context. For Carroll, historical precedence determines the identity of art, with the aesthetic reduced to a contingency. However, Hume and Kant testified to the realism of both disinterestedness and the aesthetic attitude, while Baumgarten proposed a new science of aesthetics to underscore the centrality of the senses to epistemology, rhetoric and art, notably through his postulated 'imaged concepts', the apparent source for Kant's 'aesthetic ideas'. Danto's final acknowledgment of the artistic role of enthymeme and metaphor signalled his acceptance of art's essentially aesthetic character. Evidence from Darwin confirms that the aesthetic is a shaping force in evolution, rather than a construct of human culture, and much congruence is revealed between the aesthetics of Baumgarten and Kant, and recent cognitive neuroscience. It is argued that philosophical aesthetics needs to integrate the findings of science into its metaphysics. Accordingly, this thesis offers some new definitions of the aesthetic attitude, rhetoric and art, principally influenced by Baumgarten and biology. The arguments are further evaluated through three case studies: 'bowerbird art', the 'nexus of art, power and crime', and 'sound sculpture'.

The topic of my thesis is the complicated interconnection between deconstruction and structuralist semiotics, developed around the problematic of the sign and its limits. I argue that Jacques Derrida's project of deconstruction can be seen as an extension of the project of structuralist semiotics in two ways: on the one hand, it extends the applicability of its principles beyond the semiotic realm on the other, it investigates its conditions of possibility. Thus, to a significant extent, deconstruction develops on the basis of structuralist semiotics it needs structuralism both as its own foundation and as its exemplary object. I investigate the way deconstruction affects the structuralist definition of signification and its epistemological implications. Louis Hjelmslev and the linguistic Circle of Copenhagen occupy an exceptional position in this context. Derrida's quasi-meta-theory of signification looks in some ways very much like Hjelmslev's stratification, put into motion and thrown out of balance, flattened or multiplied ad infinitum. Moreover, glossematics is probably the closest semiotics can get to posing the question of its limits without exceeding a strictly immanent point of view. Throughout the history of Western metaphysics, signification was defined in terms of mediation and exteriority. Structuralism retains the structure of this definition, while completely emptying it of any metaphysical import. Derrida proceeds to question that same structure nevertheless, he also retains a residue of dualism so as not to fall back into metaphysics. In a dualistic structure, the question of bridging is of utmost importance. Having defined the object of knowledge as constituted by the semiotic articulation, both structuralist semiotics and deconstruction are faced with the structural impossibility of bridging the epistemological gap. Therefore my thesis, which begins as a study of the limits of semiotics, epistemological and other, turns out also to concern the semiological limits of epistemology.