<p> This dissertation applies what David Miller has called &ldquo;the third wave of Jungian thought&rdquo; to a favorite depth psychological story: &ldquo;Cupid and Psyche.&rdquo; Through close examination of previous efforts to interpret Apuleius&rsquo; text, the dissertation displays the essential syntax and assumptions of textual interpretation practiced by &ldquo;first&rdquo; and &ldquo;second&rdquo; wave Jungians. Mythological interpretation from a Depth Psychological perspective has long relied on two assumptions to justify its efforts: first, myths can be interpreted as &ldquo;collective dreams&rdquo; in which character and plot can be searched for clues to the meaning of the composite dream-myth and secondly, that there is a deep link between the &ldquo;meanings&rdquo; discovered in such examinations and the everyday world in which we live. In this view, myths are archetypal lessons. The leading proponent of the third wave, Wolfgang Giegerich, explicitly challenges both of these assumptions. With respect to character and plot, Giegerich believes we need to see through not only to the archetype that guides a character or action but rather &ldquo;all the way&rdquo; through to the structure or syntax of the entire tale as the positions displayed by the characters move along their trajectories. He applies Hegel&rsquo;s dialectical logic of position-negation-sublation-restoration to the logical structure of a tale under examination. This move results in interpretations that are less about theories, morals, or advice on psychological issues and more about aesthetics and the artistic expression of a truth. The final section of this dissertation is a performance of a &ldquo;third-wave&rdquo; interpretation that views the &ldquo;Cupid and Psyche&rdquo; tale as a portrait of beauty in which Venus, Psyche, and Proserpina&rsquo;s box of beauty represent positions in a dialectic displaying the notion of Beauty refining and developing itself. Rather than seeking a tidy conclusion or supporting a specific theory, this reading attempts to satisfy on aesthetic grounds. It is a tale, after all, about Beauty. In the way that the development and display of art refines both the artist and its viewer, this style of mythological interpretation, by avoiding the concretizing reduction common to imagistic readings, deepens the subtlety of thinking in both performer and audience.</p>

The political term "totalitarian" (totaliltario) was coined by Italian Fascism in 1925, and adopted almost simultaneously as a pejorative by the regime's opposition. This language of the Italian stato totalitario was soon adopted by the theorists of National Socialism to describe the German totale Mobilmachung and totale Staat. Postwar discussions continued to categorize Fascism by its own "totalitarian" myth of identity--of the group, race, or nation as self-constituting subject. Some other, more politically ambiguous features, however, may be discerned in fascist discourse than this "totalitarianism" which served as both fascism's narcissistic boast, and its critique. First, fascist rhetoric attempted to exclude those mimetic elements which threatened its presumed autonomy, while repressing its own implicit mimetic structure. The fascist "chameleon" represents the symptomatic re-emergence of this repression, the eruption amid a discourse of identity and autonomy of a personified figure of mimicry and deceit. The first part of the dissertation examines various accusations, denials, and examples of political chameleonism in the writings of Sorel, Gramsci, Gadda, and Malaparte, and confronts this paradigm with that of the fascist "narcissist" or "peacock" (pavone). The camaleonte/pavone relation introduces a discussion of imitation, narcissism, and identification in Freud's theorization of individual and group identity, and leads to a more directly political consideration of the relation between chameleonism, fascism, and democracy. Second, "totalitarian" regimes also characterized themselves as states in motion, referring both their "dynamism" and "modernity," and to their promotion of communication and transportation media. But this term also implies a destructuring kinetic logic contradictory to the totalitarian goal of national identity. The second part of the dissertation describes the ambiguity of political "movement" in Bertolucci's filmic rendition of Italian Fascist architecture, in the Futurist "style of movement," and in the relation between Bewegung and Bewegtheit in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit. Despite what may be considered the critique of fascism begun in Sein und Zeit, Heidegger's overlooking of the ambiguity of the book's own "movement" illustrates the inconclusiveness of the gesture by which he, as well as those who have formally identified fascism and totalitarianism, have separated their own practice from their historical object.

This dissertation investigates Shakespeare as a thinker and views the stage as a place of linguistic and philosophical questioning. As Charles Schmitt and Quentin Skinner suggest in Renaissance Philosophy, "the Renaissance was one of intense philosophical activity" (1), and I suggest that Shakespeare's use of language, his tool of trade, engages with these contemporary philosophical debates. Language becomes for Shakespeare an epistemologic site of investigation: What is the nature of language? How does language both construct and challenge the understanding of what is known? Simultaneously, how does language contribute to the evolution of knowledge, and can language itself be one of the forms that knowledge takes? This dissertation explores the complex ways in which Shakespeare dramatizes on stage this profound early modern preoccupation on the nature of language.

No description available.

<p> Murakami Haruki's primary readership consists of Japan's four million born between 1978 and 1990&mdash;an Ice Age of hiring freezes and layoffs. Murakami's cynical antiheroes modeled a blas&eacute; and passive cool. Japanese youth assimilated his tenor and tone. A moral struggle was missing. Following Tokyo's 1995 cult-instigated gas attacks, the repatriating author delved into his 1997-98 reportage, <i>Underground</i>. Despairing apocalyptic outlooks among the economically abandoned respondents rocked Murakami's insularity. The shock engendered his unprecedented compassion.</p><p> This thesis arises from phenomena revealed by current events' intersection with moral philosophy and disposition theory. This thesis claims that Murakami's compassion for Japan's stymied youth triggered his transformation from creating detrimental art to work of engaged responsibility, and that his moral turn manifests first as the 2002 didactic novel, <i>Kafka on the Shore</i>. Murakami's ensuing integration of moral values in his postmodernist narratives has led to the short-list for the Nobel Prize.</p>

<p> This dissertation explores Martin Luther King, Jr.'s (1929-1968) ideas and philosophy in the context of dialogue with the moral and literary imagination. King was a leading thinker and voice for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States.</p><p> Two fundamental philosophical ideas for King were love and empathy. This dissertation explores these ideas through discussion and dialogue. Notably, King's philosophy and claims are contrasted with the writings of John Dewey and Martha Nussbaum. The dialogue between the three scholars should afford readers the opportunity for different and perhaps meaningful questions related to the teachings and philosophy of King.</p>

<p> This thesis explores Derrida&rsquo;s engagement with Plato, primarily in the texts &ldquo;How to Avoid Speaking: Denials&rdquo; and <i>On the Name.</i> The themes of participation and performance are focused on through an analysis of the concepts of <i>mystery</i> and <i> metaxy</i> (&mu;&epsi;&tau;&alpha;&xi;&nu;). The crucial performative aspects of Plato and Derrida&rsquo;s texts are often under appreciated. Neither author simply <i>says</i> what he means; rather their texts are meant to <i>do</i> something to the reader that surpasses what could be accomplished through straightforward reading comprehension. This enacted dimension of the text underscores a participatory worldview that is not just intellectually formulated, but performed by the text in a way that draws the reader into an event of participation&mdash;instead of its mere contemplation. On this basis, I propose a closer alliance between these authors&rsquo; projects than has been traditionally considered.</p>

This thesis presents a critical analysis of Deleuze’s philosophy of language, using and examining Russian and Italian futurist manifestos to draw out the ‘futurist’ aspects of Deleuze’s language and thought. These aspects constitute a poetics of Deleuze as well as a poetics of the avant-garde, presenting in both areas the celebrated, utopian state of language as dynamic, performative matter. The way in which futurist manifestos often attempt to perform and demand their aims simultaneously, and the temporal problems which arise due to this, is an operation which can be perceived in Deleuze’s writing. The difference between writing which describes a linguistic practice and writing which performs this linguistic practice is a temporal gap requiring a double operation of description and enactment, which the performative manifesto purports to fulfil. In both Deleuzian and futurist poetics, however, the fulfilment of this double operation can lead to problematic territory. Deleuze presents several linguistic practices in The Logic of Sense which can also be located in the writings of both Russian and Italian futurists, despite the differing political and aesthetic programmes of these variants of the movement. The common element identified and examined in this thesis is an accelerative drive to eliminate the temporal gap between items in an analogical equation so that synonymy is no longer an inexact science; the conjunction and the copula are truncated and cleave together, resulting in radical linguistic becoming. My argument is that minute technical linguistic modifications such as these operate synecdochically within futurist and Deleuze’s poetics, standing for their creators’ entire conceptual systems. Ultimately, the paradoxes inherent in the relationship between the radical fluidity of futurist nonsense and the radical fixity of its ensuing formalism provide a new way of thinking about Deleuze’s approach to language.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1940. / Lithoprinted. "Private edition, distributed by the University of Chicago Libraries, Chicago, Illinois." "Select bibliography": p. 86-89.

<p> Antipoetry, a form of poetry developed by the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra, instances a privileged example of a self-regulatory trait of the poetic genre which responds to poetry&rsquo;s need to destroy itself in order to renew itself. This need reveals a structural mechanism or a logic of autoimmunity, which informs the possibility of language and, moreover, of all living beings. </p><p> Antipoetry&rsquo;s departure from the Nerudean poetic tradition justifies the use of a colloquial language that also preserves and continues Neruda&rsquo;s interest in opening a space for the &ldquo;popular&rdquo; in poetry. Against Neruda, Antipoetry also consciously repels romantic and heroic aesthetic principles and ideas. </p><p> Parra&rsquo;s aesthetic principles, however, do not result solely from avoidance. Parra is a realist poet heavily influenced by physics. His poetry needs to mirror reality. The principles of relativity and indetermination play major roles in his poetic experimentations, and will come to the aid of Antipoetry&rsquo;s need to create in times of censorship. Parra&rsquo;s experiments with language are in large measure interpretations of the laws of physics. In this regard, his scientific realism is related to Gertrude Stein&rsquo;s work. The poetry and poetics of the latter provides a touchstone and a constant reference in <i>Autoimmunity in Antipoetry</i>. </p><p> Like all artistic expressions during the Chilean military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Antipoetry was forced to negotiate what could be said with what the poet wanted to say. The necessary negotiation that Parra&rsquo;s poetry needed to undergo gave rise to many experiments with language, including systematic ambiguity, contestation of the authority of the author, and of his own authorial control over his poetry. The use of masks, the multiplication of referents, and the systematic use of contradiction name some of Antipoetry&rsquo;s tools for obstructing the univocal determination of meaning. </p><p> Antipoetry&rsquo;s systematic explorations toward the creation of a poetry that attempts to fight all forms of dogmatism nevertheless reaches a limit in its figuration of gender. Antipoetry&rsquo;s gender politics makes concessions to a type of gender dogmatism (sexism and homophobia) that contradicts the antipoetic program and reveals an inherent fear of gender contamination that jeopardizes Antipoetry&rsquo;s most fortunate aspects.</p><p>