<p> <i>Pigs is Pigs: The Ideology of Violence</i> aims first to establish a theoretical framework whereby a model of Ideology can be apprehended, a model through which the phenomenon of violence can be&mdash;as it were&mdash;filtered. Relying heavily on the work of both Classical and Post-Marxist philosophers&mdash;from Engels to &#142;i&#158;ek&mdash;the text attempts to describe a model for understanding Ideology that is underlined by two critical distinctions: firstly, that Ideology should be understood to constitute one&rsquo;s more or less spontaneous relationship with a culture&rsquo;s Symbolic Order, and, secondly, that one of Ideology&rsquo;s most critical functions is to behave as an apparatus whereby the very meaning of an event or image can be suddenly fixed (if only ephemerally) amid the experience of phenomena&rsquo;s unravelling along a metonymic chain of many possible meanings. </p><p> Thereafter, the text endeavors to consider the origins of what human beings consider to constitute &ldquo;violent behaviors,&rdquo; exploring both the biological and socio-cultural roots of violent phenomena through the research of experts such as Richard Wrangham, Sara Mathew, Adrian Raine, and Steven Pinker. This exploration culminates in a defense of the importance of differentiating violence from power, concluding with an interrogation of the sophisticated ways in which these two phenomena overlap and interact&mdash;fixing violence as a phenomenon that can be understood in terms of an ideological category, an elaborate psychosocial apparatus whereby consent for the use of force is manufactured by quasi-Foucauldian &ldquo;regimes of knowledge.&rdquo; </p><p> In other words, how is it that one comes to differentiate between the &ldquo;freedom fighter&rdquo; and the &ldquo;terrorist&rdquo;? What ideological mechanisms are in action at those points where there emerge disagreements as to whether certain actions are heroic or barbaric? <i>Pigs Is Pigs </i> makes the claim that such distinctions are in large part manufactured in the workshops of our ideas.</p>

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

<p> The dissertation looks beyond the dominant frames of Western epistemology and philosophy that largely determine the ways revolution and revolutionaries are conceptualized and remembered in modern society. Rather than focusing on historically grounded political projects that conform to a particular revolutionary doctrine, our focus will be on common people whose praxis posed, and still poses, an alternative to a social order premised on the separation and stratification of the commons and its people. The revolutionaries we will meet in these pages see through what we will unravel as the myth of separateness. They see through a mythic reality that veils people&rsquo;s interconnections with each other, with the commons, and with the cosmos from which all life emerges. Their praxis touches this deeper reality. </p><p> To ground our discussion, we will look deeply at three flashpoints of revolt against the myth as it manifested itself in the liberal capitalist regimes of the 19th and 20th centuries: The Paris Commune of 1871, the student protests of 1968 in Paris and Mexico, and a self-immolation in protest of the Vietnam War that occurred in 1970. We will thread these flashpoints together to see how, despite the distance that separates these revolts in time and space, they illuminate an alternative way of being that stands in contrast to the atomized, competitive, and militant existence that is formed in the crucible of liberal capitalist empire. Threading these flashpoints together, we will begin to reconceptualize what is meant by success and failure, beginnings and endings. Though these revolts may end with defeat and death, the way of being that they touched continues on past their historical or biographical endpoint. Like the light from a dead star or from an extinguished candle, their revolution travels across space and across time waiting for the right conditions to manifest itself again in renewed praxis. Cultural production, particularly art and literature, will serve as our vehicle for illuminating this revolution and its continuations.</p>

羅健明著. / 據手稿複印. / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學硏究院哲學部. / Ju shou gao fu yin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-166). / Luo Jianming zhu. / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue yan jiu yuan zhe xue bu. / Chapter 第一章 --- 導論 / Chapter 甲 --- 提出文學真理問題的理由 / Chapter 乙 --- 真理、文學和文學句子分類 / Chapter 第二章 --- 文學的特質和命題真理 / Chapter 甲 --- 文學的複義 / Chapter 乙 --- 命題真理 / Chapter 丙 --- 李察斯的詩是情緒語言說 / Chapter 第三章 --- 報導句的認知地位 / Chapter 甲 --- 指涉現實世界的報導句 / Chapter 乙 --- 虛構句 / Chapter 丙 --- 麥當奴氏的虛構故事說 / Chapter 第四章 --- 反省句的認知地位 / Chapter 甲 --- 明說反省句的認知地位 / Chapter 乙 --- 暗示反省句的認知地位 / Chapter 丙 --- 作品「具有」主旨是什麼意思？ / Chapter 丁 --- 主旨的檢証 / Chapter 第五章 --- 結論 / Chapter 甲 --- 命題理論的論旨 / Chapter 乙 --- 文學的雙重性格 / Chapter 丙 --- 命題真理與認識(realization) / Chapter 丁 --- 動機與斷言 / Chapter 戊 --- 約化論的批評 / Chapter 己 --- 結語

<p> Current readings of existentialism are overly negative. It is not without reason that existentialism has a reputation of pessimism preceding it, to the point that the uninitiated cannot help but picture beatnik poets chain-smoking by the first syllable of the name "Sartre." Existentialism, while a movement over one hundred and fifty years old, is often characterized in the light of the media popularity it was given in the decade following the Second World War--although much of the spirit of what is supposedly existentialism came more as a response to the First. The Great War brought with it devastation across Europe that it instilled a sense of malaise in an entire generation of survivors. In the face of such violence, one of the common responses was to wonder if there could truly be any sense of meaning or purpose to life. This movement, philosophically, was existentialism. </p><p> Existentialism as a movement is not a denial of meaning. That is the role of nihilism. Existentialism simply says there is no sense of predetermined meaning, and that, in a particular formation, we are verbs before nouns: "to be" rather than a being thing in any real sense. Of course, there is an obvious pessimistic reading of any text that bases its thought on the foundation that humans are existent before their essence&mdash;if there is no predetermined meaning in the world, there certainly is a possibility that there does not have to be meaning in the world at all. </p><p> The future of the study of existential philosophy in part depends on its continuing attractiveness to a new generation of scholars. One of the things holding existentialism back is the alienating effect it can have on people&mdash;in large part because of its perceived concurrence with negativity. The aforementioned lack of a predetermined essence can cause anxiety, angst or anguish depending on whether you ask S&oslash;ren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger or Jean-Paul Sartre. </p><p> Sartre explains anguish as the realization of the possibility of our own negation. If we imagine ourselves on the brink of a cliff or precipice, we can look down into the depth below and realize that, at that moment, there is nothing to prevent us from throwing ourselves over the precipice to our death. Freedom from meaning also implies there is a sense in which we do not have to live by any prescribed rules, or even at all. It can be intimidating. </p><p> A positive reading could bring stability to an otherwise dizzying discipline. Existential philosophy and literature both would benefit from a reimaging of certain thinkers' approaches. What is needed is not a new reading to replace the old, but to supplement the accepted framework of understanding with serious alternative possibilities. In this prospectus, I intend to expand the traditional reading of existentialism. </p><p> I will offer differing interpretations of familiar texts in an effort to breathe new life into the texts themselves along with the discipline more generally. Existentialism can be freed from its trappings of negativity and pessimism. It is with this goal of liberation in mind that I seek to offer a new interpretation of the existential movement. If existentialism is liberated from negativity, that does not mean that more traditional interpretations are not possible, but rather that these common readings of a complex system of thought cannot define it. </p><p> My reading will be an attempt at <i>an existential reading of existentialism. </i> At its heart, this is an existential idea. Labeling, along with the idea that a past interpretation dictates a present or future condition, is inherently essentialist. Existentialism has been, in effect, "playing at" existentialism for too long, to use a Sartrean formulation. There is a sense in which the prevailing interpretations of the prominent texts are so ingrained in the public consciousness that any new scholarship takes them for granted. </p><p> My existential reading will try to be consistent and liberating. Because much of existentialism is a philosophy of freedom, it only makes sense that providing alternative readings and interpretations is good. In fact, this may be the only way to prevent essentialism from overtaking existentialism and unfairly making it something it was never intended to be. </p><p> After explaining the roots of joy in Camus and Nietzsche, I will seek to find this same idea in other existentialist writers and show how this concept can be used to varying degrees in Sartre and Kierkegaard. Both of these authors, through their texts and styles, allow for the possibility of joy as Camus or Nietzsche do. </p><p> Despite these differences, there is an essential similarity amongst these authors that both qualifies them to be considered "existentialist" and preserves the possibility of joy. This similarity is the emphasis all of them place on freedom. The same freedom that characterized the post-war malaise as a freedom-from&mdash;freedom from meaning&mdash;can also be a freedom-to&mdash;freedom to act. That action, moreover, is entirely determined by the self, independent of the constraint of essence. While freedom can be terrifying, it can also be uplifting.</p>

This examination of Kafka as philosopher will not concentrate on the selection of the "correct" approach to his work, but on his description of reality from all levels of approach. Socially, spiritually, psychologically, Kafka speaks not only as an artist, but also as a philosopher, who sees all levels of a man's existence as a part of reality. The definition of Kafka's prose as literature-philosophy will be based chiefly on an examination of his shorter fiction.

<p> This dissertation problematizes the notion of textuality. Textuality is a virtual object, which each text production actualizes. </p><p> The problem can be formulated as follows: How can one read textuality through one or several text(s)? How can one perceive more than a simple fixed object and appreciate problems that a writer encounters during the process of writing, when the text was still being elaborated, in a battle with virtualities? </p><p> Starting from recent statements of Todorov on how non-fictional texts can be considered as literature, I examine the development of the concept of literarity from the 1960&rsquo;s in France. I examine three conceptions of the text: as a structure that highlights its own materiality (with Ricardou); as a production undermining the structuralist dichotomy between signifier and signified (with Barthes); as an artwork (with Ricoeur, and Genette). </p><p> Henceforth, I articulate four theoretical problems, giving access to the following conclusions: - Texture is readable in a different way than the search for a meaning. - The world as a text and the world of the text entail two distinct conceptions; texts built as mirrors of themselves change and improve our understanding of textuality. - Reading should not be conceived as totally predetermined by writing and by the author&rsquo;s mastership. - Reading can be conceived as a virtualization (and not just an actualization) of the text. Virtualization is a &ldquo;rise&rdquo; from an actuality (such text) towards the problematic field where it emerged. </p><p> Those conclusions are supported by comparative studies and analyses of specific works: Mallarm&eacute;&rsquo;s poems and especially <i>Un coup de d&eacute;s</i>&hellip;, the relationship between some of his works and Edgar Allan Poe&rsquo;s, Godard&rsquo;s filmography as opposed to Bresson&rsquo;s, Ponge&rsquo;s poems in comparison with an poetical essay by Le Cl&eacute;zio, a play by Sarraute in the light of a text co-authored by Derrida and Leiris. </p>

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

In this thesis, we defend the view of works-as-interaction by developing three independent arguments: the anti-textualist, the actionalist and the ecological arguments. The anti-textualist argument has two parts. First, the uniform category of text does not cover the diversity of types of literary works, as it is shown by oral works, multiple-texts works, visual literary works and numerical literary works. Second, we reject the idea that the text is sufficient to give the identity conditions of the literary work. The latter argument forces us to include the history of production and, in particular, of the generative actions required for the apprehension and appreciation of the ontology of the literary work. This is the historicist argument. However, before defending an actionalist point of view, various alternatives are considered. Thus, we consider various textualist proposals that claim to be able to accommodate historical aspects of the production of a work. From the weaknesses of these views, we move to other, more historically inclined, positions, in particular Levinson's post-textualist position. However, the latter is based on a theory of types which we find to be incompatible with his historicist inclinations. Moreover, Levison's views do not meet the requirements of an epistemology of performance. Thus, the actional thesis seems to be the only alternative left. Using Davies theory of performance as a springboard, we develop and defend the idea of the work-as-interaction according to which a work consists in a relation between the generative action and the integrative action. We also include an ecological premise. We develop a further criticism of analytic aesthetics and the theory of performance, arguing that the actions composing the environment, the context of reception in which the generative action is integrated, have to be included. Our thesis of work-as-interaction explains, on the side of the generative act, a variety of li

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Language Education, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 20, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: A, page: 0916. Advisers: Martha Nyikos; Phil F. Carspecken.