Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Oct. 1, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-90).

The concept of the common, found in Hardt and Negri, provides the possibility of theorising struggle that avoids the critiques that suggest Empire remains intangible, ethereal and postmodern. The concept, however, remains fragmentarily developed by the authors themselves, and is rarely the subject of sustained analysis in the secondary literature. Therefore, in order to substantiate the concept, I consider the common through three distinct moments which I identify as the urban, digital and political moments. This task is achieved through theoretical interlocutions and reflections on the 2011 Occupy movement. Throughout this thesis, and through each moment of the common, I argue that the concept must be understood as distinctly physical. Firstly, struggles over the urban common revolve around the physical (re)production of ideas, knowledge, culture and relationships in urban environments. Whilst the digital common often implies a lack of physicality, I argue that the common offers a means of thinking social media and perpetual connectivity primarily as a process of transforming the way humans engage with one another and their environments, and the radical possibilities therein. I argue that these moments of the common necessitate the development of an appropriate political moment of the common. Through centring on the physicality of struggle, Hardt and Negria's concept of the common is substantiated whilst contributing to wider debates in the field of radical theory and social movements.

Esta pesquisa vai às obras filosóficas de Michael Hardt e Antonio Negri a fim de investigar possibilidades de organização de lutas contra o presente estado de coisas, ou seja, de lutas revolucionárias. Hardt e Negri desenvolvem o tema a partir de uma apreensão do leninismo, entendido não como fórmula de organização de um partido de vanguarda, mas como adequa-ção da composição política dos trabalhadores (forma da organização) à sua composição técni-ca (forma hegemônica da produção). Nesta chave, acompanhamos a investigação que fazem das novas formas de produção, chamadas por alguns de pós-fordistas e, por eles, recorrendo à terminologia foucaultiana, de produção biopolítica, que consiste num trabalho socializado que produz o que chamam de comum. Esse novo paradigma da produção tem por sujeito e objeto a vida, cuja principal força é o desejo. Posto isso, a questão que eles nos oferecem e que tomamos como central para nossa pesquisa é: como organizar o desejo? Seguimos sua trilha em busca dessa renovação do leninismo, a fim de compreender o que entendem por de-sejo tal que possa ser organizado, e o resultado disso, que vem a ser o conceito de multidão. A multidão, como desejo organizado, luta contra o presente estado de coisas, isto é, dentro de e contra um mercado mundial totalizante que Hardt e Negri chamam de império. / This dissertation goes to Michael Hardts and Antonio Negris philosophical works in search of possibilities for the organization of struggles against the present state of things, or for the organization of revolutionary struggles. Hardt and Negri develop this subject from a unique approach of Leninism, understood not as some party of vanguard formula but as an adequacy between workers technical and political compositions (or between the way people work and the way they struggle). In this sense, we follow the inquiry Hardt and Negri make on the new forms of production, post-fordist produc-tion to some and biopolitical production to them, resorting to Foucaults terminology. Such production consists on a socialized work that produces that which they call the common. This new paradigm of production takes life itself both as its subject and ob-ject, and its main strength is desire. From this point, the questioning they offer us and that we take as central in this research is: how to organize desire? We follow their tracks on this renewal of Leninism, trying to understand what desire is in order to be organized, and its outcome, i.e., the concept of multitude. Multitude, as organized de-sire, struggles against the present state of things, inside and against a totalizing world market that Hardt and Negri call empire.

Esta pesquisa vai às obras filosóficas de Michael Hardt e Antonio Negri a fim de investigar possibilidades de organização de lutas contra o presente estado de coisas, ou seja, de lutas revolucionárias. Hardt e Negri desenvolvem o tema a partir de uma apreensão do leninismo, entendido não como fórmula de organização de um partido de vanguarda, mas como adequa-ção da composição política dos trabalhadores (forma da organização) à sua composição técni-ca (forma hegemônica da produção). Nesta chave, acompanhamos a investigação que fazem das novas formas de produção, chamadas por alguns de pós-fordistas e, por eles, recorrendo à terminologia foucaultiana, de produção biopolítica, que consiste num trabalho socializado que produz o que chamam de comum. Esse novo paradigma da produção tem por sujeito e objeto a vida, cuja principal força é o desejo. Posto isso, a questão que eles nos oferecem e que tomamos como central para nossa pesquisa é: como organizar o desejo? Seguimos sua trilha em busca dessa renovação do leninismo, a fim de compreender o que entendem por de-sejo tal que possa ser organizado, e o resultado disso, que vem a ser o conceito de multidão. A multidão, como desejo organizado, luta contra o presente estado de coisas, isto é, dentro de e contra um mercado mundial totalizante que Hardt e Negri chamam de império. / This dissertation goes to Michael Hardts and Antonio Negris philosophical works in search of possibilities for the organization of struggles against the present state of things, or for the organization of revolutionary struggles. Hardt and Negri develop this subject from a unique approach of Leninism, understood not as some party of vanguard formula but as an adequacy between workers technical and political compositions (or between the way people work and the way they struggle). In this sense, we follow the inquiry Hardt and Negri make on the new forms of production, post-fordist produc-tion to some and biopolitical production to them, resorting to Foucaults terminology. Such production consists on a socialized work that produces that which they call the common. This new paradigm of production takes life itself both as its subject and ob-ject, and its main strength is desire. From this point, the questioning they offer us and that we take as central in this research is: how to organize desire? We follow their tracks on this renewal of Leninism, trying to understand what desire is in order to be organized, and its outcome, i.e., the concept of multitude. Multitude, as organized de-sire, struggles against the present state of things, inside and against a totalizing world market that Hardt and Negri call empire.

This study intends to investigate British artist Anish Kapoor’s stylistic formation in relationship to globalization, positing its history as a multiplicity, comprised of several competing localisms, including: minimalism; the traditions of modern painting; and the artist’s own personal diasporic narrative. It will demonstrate how Kapoor is a transgressive global artist, concerned not only with rethinking the longstanding question of artistic form, but also with the enduring process central to the cultural formation of subjects. Overall, this thesis will propose that Kapoor’s art in particular can be comprehended by the special liminal position it occupies between such polarities as modern and postmodern art, painting and sculpture, East and West, national and trans-national, and local and global. By transgressing the borders that demarcate these discourses, Kapoor’s art enters an in-between state; through both formal and thematic strategies, his sculptural forms orchestrate viewers so they are able to move beyond distinct, fixed, and stabile meanings and view the works as eminently open to the different perspectives and radically diverse discourses they engage, making them truly global works of art.

O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar, por um viés etico-político, o pensamento dos autores contemporâneos Antonio Negri e Michael Hardt a partir da trilogia Império, Multidão e Comum. A questão filosófica subjacente a toda investigação é como o agir da multidão e a construção do comum contribuem para a construção de uma sociedade mais justa e solidária? A partir de uma pesquisa bibliográfica, o presente trabalho dissertativo está articulado em três capítulos: I) O Império: uma nova governança mundial; II) A Multidão: um novo sujeito éticopolítico; III) O agir ético da multidão: a construção do comum. Com a referida estrutura, tratase, pois, de apresentar a hegemonia do capital como o novo poder soberano, pois a soberania imperial, de acordo com a análise feita por Negri e Hardt, à luz das considerações de Foucault, procura exercer um domínio biopolítico sobre as pessoas, criando subjetividades baseadas no individualismo e no consumismo, capazes de alimentar o próprio sistema capitalista hegemônico e de enfraquecer as formas cooperativas de vida e de trabalho. Nesse cenário, por meio da tecnologia, o trabalho material parece se tornar cada vez mais imaterial, baseado na troca de informações em modelos de rede. Dessa nova configuração e maneira de refletir sobre o trabalho surge a multidão, um movimento de movimentos no qual as singularidades agem de forma cooperativa, trocando saberes e afetos para reconstruir a sociedade, trocando a competição pelo princípio ético da cooperação, inventando novas formas de vida e enchendo de significado os espaços que foram esvaziados pela cultura do individualismo e da competição. O agir ético da multidão procura construir o comum, isto é, distribuir de forma mais equitativa e justa o que é produzido por todos. No eixo filosófico formado por Maquiavel, Espinosa e Marx, Negri e Hardt encontram o fundamento para pensar o ser a partir de sua imanência e realidade histórica e política, aberta e em constante construção, e, por conseguinte, liberta de dogmatismos e de transcendentalismos. Um ser sempre aberto e em potência para agir diante de tudo o que possa impedir a conservação de sua existência. Por fim, tenta-se, portanto, mostrar como, para Negri e Hardt, o princípio ético da cooperação, que marca o agir da multidão, compreende um ser com uma subjetividade liberta de qualquer determinação e capaz de criar uma sociedade mais justa e solidária. / Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2015-05-11T17:02:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Darlan Silvestrin.pdf: 1011886 bytes, checksum: 2c7a1f8631aa31d2aa3c010171644b43 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-11T17:02:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Darlan Silvestrin.pdf: 1011886 bytes, checksum: 2c7a1f8631aa31d2aa3c010171644b43 (MD5) / This thesis aims analyzing, in an ethical-political line, the thought of the modern authors Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt through the trilogy Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth. The implicit philosophical question in every inquiry is how the multitude acting and the construction of the common contribute for constructing a society more fair and supportively? After a bibliographic research, this work was divided in three chapters: I) The Empire: a new global governance; II) The Multitude: a new ethical-political individual; III) The multitude ethical acting: building the common. With the referred structure, the capital hegemony is presented as the new sovereign power, as the imperial sovereignty, according to Negri and Hardt’s analysis, in light of Foucault’s considerations, seeks exerting a biopolitical domain over people, creating subjectivities based on individuality and consumerism, capable of feeding the hegemonic capitalist system itself and decreasing the cooperative forms of living and working. In this scenery, through technology, material work seems to become even more immaterial, based on information sharing at network models. From this new arrangement and way of reflecting about working emerges multitude, a move of movements in which singularities act cooperatively, sharing knowledge and warmth to reconstruct society, replacing competition with the cooperation ethical principle, creating new ways of life and filling in spaces emptied by individualism culture and competition with meanings. Multitude ethical acting seeks for constructing the common, i. e., sharing by the equal and fairest way what all produce. In a philosophical line formed by Maquiavel, Espinosa and Marx, Negri and Hardt find basis to think about the being from its immanence and political historical reality, open and in a continual construction, and, thus, free from dogmatisms and transcendentalisms. An always open being with power to act in face of anything that might restrain preserving its existence. Finally, it's tried, thus, to show how, for Negri and Herdt, the cooperation ethical principle, which sets the multitude acting, comprehends a being with subjectivity free from any determination and capable of creating a fairer and more supportive society.

O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar, por um viés etico-político, o pensamento dos autores contemporâneos Antonio Negri e Michael Hardt a partir da trilogia Império, Multidão e Comum. A questão filosófica subjacente a toda investigação é como o agir da multidão e a construção do comum contribuem para a construção de uma sociedade mais justa e solidária? A partir de uma pesquisa bibliográfica, o presente trabalho dissertativo está articulado em três capítulos: I) O Império: uma nova governança mundial; II) A Multidão: um novo sujeito éticopolítico; III) O agir ético da multidão: a construção do comum. Com a referida estrutura, tratase, pois, de apresentar a hegemonia do capital como o novo poder soberano, pois a soberania imperial, de acordo com a análise feita por Negri e Hardt, à luz das considerações de Foucault, procura exercer um domínio biopolítico sobre as pessoas, criando subjetividades baseadas no individualismo e no consumismo, capazes de alimentar o próprio sistema capitalista hegemônico e de enfraquecer as formas cooperativas de vida e de trabalho. Nesse cenário, por meio da tecnologia, o trabalho material parece se tornar cada vez mais imaterial, baseado na troca de informações em modelos de rede. Dessa nova configuração e maneira de refletir sobre o trabalho surge a multidão, um movimento de movimentos no qual as singularidades agem de forma cooperativa, trocando saberes e afetos para reconstruir a sociedade, trocando a competição pelo princípio ético da cooperação, inventando novas formas de vida e enchendo de significado os espaços que foram esvaziados pela cultura do individualismo e da competição. O agir ético da multidão procura construir o comum, isto é, distribuir de forma mais equitativa e justa o que é produzido por todos. No eixo filosófico formado por Maquiavel, Espinosa e Marx, Negri e Hardt encontram o fundamento para pensar o ser a partir de sua imanência e realidade histórica e política, aberta e em constante construção, e, por conseguinte, liberta de dogmatismos e de transcendentalismos. Um ser sempre aberto e em potência para agir diante de tudo o que possa impedir a conservação de sua existência. Por fim, tenta-se, portanto, mostrar como, para Negri e Hardt, o princípio ético da cooperação, que marca o agir da multidão, compreende um ser com uma subjetividade liberta de qualquer determinação e capaz de criar uma sociedade mais justa e solidária. / This thesis aims analyzing, in an ethical-political line, the thought of the modern authors Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt through the trilogy Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth. The implicit philosophical question in every inquiry is how the multitude acting and the construction of the common contribute for constructing a society more fair and supportively? After a bibliographic research, this work was divided in three chapters: I) The Empire: a new global governance; II) The Multitude: a new ethical-political individual; III) The multitude ethical acting: building the common. With the referred structure, the capital hegemony is presented as the new sovereign power, as the imperial sovereignty, according to Negri and Hardt’s analysis, in light of Foucault’s considerations, seeks exerting a biopolitical domain over people, creating subjectivities based on individuality and consumerism, capable of feeding the hegemonic capitalist system itself and decreasing the cooperative forms of living and working. In this scenery, through technology, material work seems to become even more immaterial, based on information sharing at network models. From this new arrangement and way of reflecting about working emerges multitude, a move of movements in which singularities act cooperatively, sharing knowledge and warmth to reconstruct society, replacing competition with the cooperation ethical principle, creating new ways of life and filling in spaces emptied by individualism culture and competition with meanings. Multitude ethical acting seeks for constructing the common, i. e., sharing by the equal and fairest way what all produce. In a philosophical line formed by Maquiavel, Espinosa and Marx, Negri and Hardt find basis to think about the being from its immanence and political historical reality, open and in a continual construction, and, thus, free from dogmatisms and transcendentalisms. An always open being with power to act in face of anything that might restrain preserving its existence. Finally, it's tried, thus, to show how, for Negri and Herdt, the cooperation ethical principle, which sets the multitude acting, comprehends a being with subjectivity free from any determination and capable of creating a fairer and more supportive society.

The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of academic interest in biopolitics: the often oppressive political power over human biology, human bodies and their actions that emerges when political technologies concern themselves with and act upon a population as a species rather than as a group of individuals. The publication of new works by theorists including Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri has furthered academic understanding of biopolitical attempts to ensure an orderly, productive society. Biopolitics bases these attempts upon optimising the majority population’s health and well-being while constructing simultaneously a subrace of unruly, unproductive bodies against which the majority requires securitising. However, despite the still-proliferating and increasingly diverse recent theoretical work on the subject, little material has appeared examining how literature represents biopolitics or how theories of biopolitics may inform literary criticism. This thesis argues for Salman Rushdie’s novels as an exemplary site of fictional engagement with biopower in their portrayal of the increasingly intense and pervasive biopolitical technologies used in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Rushdie has been considered frequently as a novelist who explores political discourses of race and culture. However, analysis of the ways in which he depicts these discourses animating recent biopolitical practices has proven scarcer in Rushdie Studies. This thesis asserts that Rushdie’s novels affirm consistently the desirability of non-racialising polities, but almost always suggest little possibility of constructing such communities. In the process, it will reveal that he represents more numerous and varied forms of racialisation than has been supposed previously. This study considers how Rushdie describes biopolitical racialisation by state and superrace alike, the massacres of subraces that often ensue, how biopower operates and is resisted in space, and the discursive and practical forms this resistance takes. Contrasting Rushdie’s early fiction with his less-studied more recent works, this analysis deploys, critiques and augments canonical theories of biopower in order to chart his generally growing disinclination to depict this resistance’s potential success. This study thus works towards a new biopolitical literary criticism which argues that although the theories of Foucault and others illuminate the ways in which literature represents power and resistance in contemporary politics, narrative fiction indicates simultaneously the limitations of these theories and the practices of resistance they advocate.

No description available.

Representations of female characters in cinema have the effect of othering the female in front of the viewer’s gaze. Women’s characters are constructed along the lines of their gender and race difference. In this paper I focus entirely on the character of the woman domestic worker in four films: Ilo Ilo, The Second Mother, The Maid, and At Home. The paper aims to provide a different reading of this mostly trivialized character and rethink its otherness by pinpointing it in biopolitical labor and homes of biopower, namely of affect and oppression. I am interested in how labor can reconfigure the domestic space to a heterotopia, or what I call a ‘heterooikos’, which is the space occupied by the other. Finally, I will attempt an analysis that reimagines otherness captured by cinema, by locating, in the film text, techniques of resistance as a countersuggestion to techniques of character identification. My aim is to provide a different way to interact with subaltern subjects in film by recognizing otherness as part of an ethical response.