Thesis (M.A.)--Wisconsin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-165).

In the late 1880s, the Boulanger Affair threatened to bring down the French Third Republic. The Boulangist movement, centered around General Georges Ernest Boulanger, capitalized on ultra-nationalist fervour for revenge against Germany, as well as widespread dissatisfaction with the current government among the French populace, to create a powerful mass-movement which had the potential to bring down the Third Republic. The reaction to this movement on the French Left varied. Some groups saw value in the continuation of the Third Republic and chose to ally with moderates to try and defeat Boulanger electorally. Others saw revolutionary potential in the Boulangist movement and chose to join his ranks. Much like the French left in general, reaction within the anarchist movement was not unified either. A majority of anarchists opposed the Boulangist movement through direct action but made the decision to abstain from electoral politics. Opposing this position were a minority of anarchists, who eschewed the anti-political stance and chose to oppose Boulanger at the ballot box, as they saw value in the continuation of the Third Republic. Additionally, the rise in patriotic fervour during the crisis influenced anarchist rhetoric and highlighted tensions between patriotism and internationalism in French anarchist theory. / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis advisor: Jean Luc Solère / In my dissertation, I aim (1) to render, from Spinoza’s philosophical system, a critique of the State form or, more broadly, of political coercion and (2) to supply, on the basis of the same, a positive account of the alternative. It is, in essence, my goal to derive anarchism out of the sources of Spinozism. My claim is that, in Spinoza’s work, there obtains a tension between force and freedom as models for political organization. While other interpreters have tended to synthesize these opposing tendencies in one manner or another, I endeavor to highlight their incompatibility and to show that, for Spinoza, they produce two distinct forms of political life. One, the passive foundation of political union, which grounds the State. Two, the active foundation of political union, which grounds the rational community. Having identified this theoretical breach, I proceed to examine the affective structure of each foundation as conceived by Spinoza. I find an inescapable contradiction in the first, which — contrary to the best intentions of the founders of State — tends not only to maintain citizens in a condition of perpetual minority, but progressively erodes their capacity for autonomy, thus inviting a parallel and equally progressive enhancement of coercive intervention. This result implies the moral necessity of revolution, the spinozian contours of which I examine in detail. In the second, which I consider in both affective and ontological terms, I discover the opposite movement. That is, a progressive escalation of reason together with its affective modalities that enhances the human capacity for political and social harmony, rendering political coercion obsolete.

Working with an approach to the interpretation and analysis of life stories based in the Marxist tradition this study looks at the lives of six teachers of literacy to adults who live and work on The Isle of Thanet in Kent. The study reviews points of divergence between postmodern theories based within a narrative constructionist approach to the interpretation of life stories and a Marxist approach. A case is made for a Marxist approach to life story work being both valid and informative. The first part of the study looks at considerations of methodology as these affect life story work in general and Marxist life story work in particular. Some work from Goethe and Balza is presented to show how Marx's own scientific worldview grew out of wider artistic and scientific traditions beyond those with which it is usually associated. Attention is drawn to the relationship between Marxism and humanism and how both can be brought together to provide a fertile and humane form of social science. The life stories of the six teachers are presented in a form agreed to by those whose stories are told. Three themes emerging from the stories are selected by the researcher for further investigation. These themes are class and identity, managerialism, and place. Each of these three themes is analysed to show the relationship of the six life stories to Marxism. On this basis the argument is then put forward that Marxism itself has an important contribution to make to the academic study of life stories. This final argument forms the substance of the concluding chapter.

No description available.

Thesis--University of California at Berkeley. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 256-282).

This thesis utilises the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze alongside theory from the field of 'utopian studies' in order to think through how the concepts of utopia and utopianism might be relevant in an age that seems to have given up on the future. It develops – and argues in favour of - a 'nomadic utopianism', which proceeds through non-hierarchical organisation, maximises what Deleuze calls 'difference-in-itself and creates new forms of living as it proceeds. From this, nomadic utopias are produced, meaning that the relationship between utopianism and utopia IS inverted, such that the former is ontologically prior to the latter. I show how such an approach maintains an etymological fidelity to the concept of utopia as 'the good place that is no place'. I also develop the concept of 'state utopianism', in which a utopian vision functions as a 'perfect', transcendent lack orienting political organisation to its realisation and reproduction. I argue that this is a dystopian politics, and consequently that the state utopia is a dystopia. Contrary to received wisdom - which sees today's 'capitalist realism' as anti-utopian – I argues that the contemporary world can be seen as a state utopia in which 'there is no alternative'. This makes utopia a central force in contemporary ideology. These two forms should not be seen simply as opposites, however, and this thesis also shows how nomadic utopias can ossify into state utopias through the emergence of tyrannies of habit. These theoretical concepts are then applied to works of utopian and dystopian literature (Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Albert Meister's The so-called utopia of the centre beaubourg and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed); and the practices of 'musicking' (with a focus on the symphony orchestra and collective improvisation) and education. It is hoped that this will offer a new way of theorising utopia and utopianism, as well as generating a productive political approach from the thought of Gilles Deleuze, and contributing to debates on the political function of musical and educational practice.