Der Artikel stellt eine der allerersten Beiträge von Alfonso de Toro zu Postmoderne und zum Postkolonialismus in den romanischen Studien sowie den ersten Beitrag zum Postkolonialismus und zu Postmoderne in Beziehung zum Werk von Jorge Luis Borges dar. Hier wird eine grundlegende und wegweisende Auseinandersetzung mit der postmodernen und postkolonialen Theorie und Praxis, die die Sprache, Terminologie, die zeitlich-historische Entwicklung, die Eingrenzung der Theorien sowie die Verschränkung beider Gebiete erfasst und in die Einführung der Konzepte ‚Postmodernität‘ und ‚Postkolonialität‘ einmündet. Als Basis für ein neues Verständnis von ‚Postkolonialität‘ dient das Essay von Borges, „Der argentinische Schriftsteller und die Tradition“ (1955) und für die neue Auffassung von ‚Postmodernität‘ greift de Toro v.a. auf die französische postmoderne bzw. poststrukturale Philosophen wie Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, aber auch auf Vattimo und auf Borges Erzählungen, u.a. wie „El Aleph“, „Tlön, Uqbar, Tertius Orbis', Pierre Menard Autor von Don Quichotte'. / This article represents one of the very first contributions by Alfonso de Toro to Postmodernism and Postcolonialism in Romance studies, as well as the first contribution to postcolonialism and postmodernism in relation to the work of Jorge Luis Borges. Here is a fundamental and pioneering examination of postmodern and postcolonial theory and practice, covering language, terminology, temporal-historical development, the delimitation of theories, and the intertwining of the two fields, culminating in the introduction of the concepts of ‘Postmodernity’ and ‘Postcoloniality’. Borges’ essay “The Argentinian Writer and the Tradition” (1955) serves as the basis for a new understanding of ‘Postcoloniality’. For a new conception of ‘Postmodernity’, de Toro draws primarily on French post-modern or post-structural philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, but also on Vattimo and on Borges’ narrations, such as “El Aleph”, “Tlön, Uqbar, Tertius Orbis”, “Pierre Menard author of Don Quixote”. / Este artículo representa una de las primeras aportaciones de Alfonso de Toro al postmodernismo y al poscolonialismo en los Estudios Romances, así como la primera contribución al poscolonialismo y al posmodernismo en relación con la obra de Jorge Luis Borges. Aquí, un examen fundamental y pionero de la teoría y la práctica posmodernas y poscoloniales que recoge el lenguaje, la terminología, el desarrollo temporal-histórico, la delimitación de las teorías, así como el entrelazamiento de ambos campos, culmina con la introducción de los conceptos de ‘posmodernidad’ y ‘poscolonialidad’. El ensayo de Borges “El escritor argentino y la tradición” (1955) sirve de base para una nueva comprensión de la “poscolonialidad”. Para una nueva concepción de la ‘posmodernidad’, de Toro se basa principalmente en filósofos franceses posmodernos o posestructurales como Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, pero también en Vattimo y en los cuentos de Borges, como “El Aleph”, “Tlön, Uqbar, Tertius Orbis”, “Pierre Menard autor del Quijote”.

Der Artikel stellt eine der aller ersten Beiträge von Alfonso de Toro zu Postmoderne und zum Postkolonialismus in den romanischen Studien sowie den ersten Beitrag zum Postkolonialismus und zu Postmoderne in Beziehung zum Werk von Jorge Luis Borges dar. Hier wird eine grundlegende und wegweisende Auseinandersetzung mit der postmodernen und postkolonialen Theorie und Praxis, die die Sprache, Terminologie, die zeitlich-historische Entwicklung, die Eingrenzung der Theorien sowie die Verschränkung beider Gebiete erfasst und in die Einführung der Konzepte ‚Postmodernität‘ und ‚Postkolonialität‘ einmündet. Als Basis für ein neues Verständnis von ‚Postkolonialität‘ dient das Essay von Borges, „Der argentinische Schriftsteller und die Tradition“ (1955) und für die neue Auffassung von ‚Postmodernität‘ greift de Toro v.a. auf die französische postmoderne bzw. poststrukturale Philosophen wie Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, aber auch auf Vattimo und auf Borges Erzählungen, u.a. wie „El Aleph“, „Tlön, Uqbar, Tertius Orbis', 'Pierre Menard Autor von Don Quichotte' / This article represents one of the very first contributions by Alfonso de Toro to Postmodernism and Postcolonialism in Romance studies, as well as the first contribution to postcolonialism and postmodernism in relation to the work of Jorge Luis Borges. Here is a fundamental and pioneering examination of postmodern and postcolonial theory and practice, covering language, terminology, temporal-historical development, the delimitation of theories, and the intertwining of the two fields, culminating in the introduction of the concepts of ‘Postmodernity’ and ‘Postcoloniality’. Borges’ essay “The Argentinian Writer and the Tradition” (1955) serves as the basis for a new understanding of ‘Postcoloniality’. For a new conception of ‘Postmodernity’, de Toro draws primarily on French post-modern or post-structural philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, but also on Vattimo and on Borges’ narrations, such as “El Aleph”, “Tlön, Uqbar, Tertius Orbis”, “Pierre Menard author of Don Quixote” / Este artículo representa una de las primeras aportaciones de Alfonso de Toro al postmodernismo y al poscolonialismo en los Estudios Romances, así como la primera contribución al poscolonialismo y al posmodernismo en relación con la obra de Jorge Luis Borges. Aquí, un examen fundamental y pionero de la teoría y la práctica posmodernas y poscoloniales que recoge el lenguaje, la terminología, el desarrollo temporal-histórico, la delimitación de las teorías, así como el entrelazamiento de ambos campos, culmina con la introducción de los conceptos de ‘posmodernidad’ y ‘poscolonialidad’. El ensayo de Borges “El escritor argentino y la tradición” (1955) sirve de base para una nueva comprensión de la “poscolonialidad”. Para una nueva concepción de la ‘posmodernidad’, de Toro se basa principalmente en filósofos franceses posmodernos o posestructurales como Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze/Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, pero también en Vattimo y en los cuentos de Borges, como “El Aleph”, “Tlön, Uqbar, Tertius Orbis”, “Pierre Menard autor del Quijote”

The September 11, 2001 Jihadists attack on the West and the subsequent wars on terrorism indicate that war may be a permanent condition of life in the contemporary world. This implies that to understand contemporary society, culture and communication requires an understanding of war because war could perhaps provide a perspective through which to understand the world. The aim of this study is to provide such a perspective and to critically explore the link between war and communication. However, in approaching a study of war one is confronted with a pervasive pacifist anti-war ideological bias. To overcome the bias the study adopts a critical strategy: firstly it deconstructs the taken for granted assumptions about the positive value of peace and then it reconstructs and traces the contours of a Western tradition of philosophical thought that considers war as being an integral and formative aspect of human identity and communication. Chapter 2 uncovers the limitations of the pacifists' discourse on war. Chapter 3 traces the Western tradition originating in Heraclitus that considers war as formative experience of being human. Chapter 4 traces war and killing as formative of language and communication. Using these insights a careful reading and interpretation of how war informs the thought and functions in the texts of selected social theorists of the twentieth century. Chapter 5 traces war as an agonistic structure in the works of Johan Huizinga on the role of play and in the political theory of Carl Schmitt. Chapter 6 explores the idea of war as a model of society in the works of Foucault. Chapter 7 investigates the central influence of real and imagined war on Marshall McLuhan’s theory of the media. Chapter 8 explores the way war structures the thought of Lyotard on the postmodern condition. Chapter 9 concludes by drawing implications on how a perspective on war contributes to development of communication theory and understanding life in the postmodern condition. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. Communication )

The thesis examines the evolving realtions of the aesthetic and conceptual aspects in exhibition-making after the 'conceptual turn' that took place in the late-1960s and instigated key transformations in the aesthetic condition of art and contemporary curatorial practice. Drawing on a broadly construed and variously manifested conceptualism pervading the growing field of curating since 1990s, the thesis focuses on investigating the relation between the aestheti and conceptual dimensions of three exhibitions that have had a significant impact on the postconceptual development of curating. In doing so, it aims to construct an alternative genealogy that reaffirms the significance of the aesthetic element, and so to reconstruct curatorial practice from the perspective of an Aesthetics of Curating. This trajectory unfolds a non-unitary Curatorial Aesthetics that emerges and develops together with the conceptual shift offering a revisionist perspective to dominant practices and discourses today that tend to devalue or repress aesthetic modes of production. The driving force of the thesis is neither to affirm aestheticism nor simply reversing the received positions. Instead, the investigation of aesthetics - as the poetics of an exhibition and a philosophical understanding of the experience offered - provides a reading that contests the emphasis placed upon conceptualism in order to revise those relations and established assumptions, and enable us to understand contemporary aspects of curating that have been downgraded. The thesis focuses on three case-studies, which mark important shifts in the conceptual development of curating from 1969 to 2007: When Attitudes Become Form: Works-Processes-Concepts-Situations-Information (Live in Your Head), curated by Harald Szeemann. Kunsthalle Bern (1969); Les Immateriaux, co-curated by Jean-Francois Lotard and Thierry Chaput, Centre George Pompidou, Paris (1985); Documenta 12, under the artistic directorship of Roger Buergel and chief curatorship of Ruth Noack, Kassel (2007). By exploring the different ways in which these exhibitions accommodate, engage with, and define aesthetic experience in relation to their conceptual modes, the study provides an alternative account of Curatorial Aesthetics that attains its transformative potential and political efficacy in the present through the invention of new sensations that incite new modes of thinking and acting.

No description available.

This project is centered on two primary concerns. First, to reformulate Adornos notion of ethical subjectivity in a way that allows for a clearer articulation of his normative position, and second, to make it more relevant to our contemporary social context and advances in social theory. My claim is that we can achieve this by rejecting Adornos philosophical method (negative dialectics and constellations) by reading his ethics through the lens of ieks method which I am calling autoprohibition. As I will show, autoprohibition is ieks strategy for breaking the deadlock of the dialectic of enlightenment and its accompanying defeatist politics by developing a dialectical theory that neither rests on pure negation nor falls into the totalising and reifying trap of orthodox Marxism. It is in the context of autoprohibition that one can rearticulate Adornos normative imperatives (specifically, the imperative to end suffering, and to recognise the truth-content of the body) without these imperatives being negated by the totalising dictates of the dialectic of enlightenment. The best way to redeem the important normative components of Adornos formulation of ethical subjectivity is to reject its underlying philosophical method and resituate it in another. I frame this methodological shift as one from constellations to autoprohibition, which allows for a more positive articulation of Adornos ethics; a plan for actively practising an ethical life vs. one premised on the rejection of participating in an unethical system (which Adornos ethics amounts to on my account).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2008. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Sept. 14, 2009). Thesis advisor: Thomas Haddox. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The September 11, 2001 Jihadists attack on the West and the subsequent wars on terrorism indicate that war may be a permanent condition of life in the contemporary world. This implies that to understand contemporary society, culture and communication requires an understanding of war because war could perhaps provide a perspective through which to understand the world. The aim of this study is to provide such a perspective and to critically explore the link between war and communication. However, in approaching a study of war one is confronted with a pervasive pacifist anti-war ideological bias. To overcome the bias the study adopts a critical strategy: firstly it deconstructs the taken for granted assumptions about the positive value of peace and then it reconstructs and traces the contours of a Western tradition of philosophical thought that considers war as being an integral and formative aspect of human identity and communication. Chapter 2 uncovers the limitations of the pacifists' discourse on war. Chapter 3 traces the Western tradition originating in Heraclitus that considers war as formative experience of being human. Chapter 4 traces war and killing as formative of language and communication. Using these insights a careful reading and interpretation of how war informs the thought and functions in the texts of selected social theorists of the twentieth century. Chapter 5 traces war as an agonistic structure in the works of Johan Huizinga on the role of play and in the political theory of Carl Schmitt. Chapter 6 explores the idea of war as a model of society in the works of Foucault. Chapter 7 investigates the central influence of real and imagined war on Marshall McLuhan’s theory of the media. Chapter 8 explores the way war structures the thought of Lyotard on the postmodern condition. Chapter 9 concludes by drawing implications on how a perspective on war contributes to development of communication theory and understanding life in the postmodern condition. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. Communication )

No description available.

Present Perfect is part intellectual history of the discourse of humanism in twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century Russian culture, and part cultural history of the New Man in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, looking primarily at works of Soviet and post-Soviet fantastika (science fiction and fantasy). The study employs a critical posthumanist methodology drawn from the work of Jean-François Lyotard, and his concept of “rewriting” modernity (here transformed into “rewriting humanism”), and the posthumanist theorization of scholars like Rosi Braidotti and Stefan Hebrechter. The first chapter covers the pre- and post-revolutionary periods, the second chapter the post-Stalinist period, and the third the post-Soviet. The first chapter looks at critiques of humanism in the non-fictional works of religious philosophers and writers (Fedorov, Berdiaev, Ivanov, Merezhkovsky), Soviet ideologues and writers (Lunacharsky, Trotsky, Bukharin, Gorky), and some writers who fall between the two poles (Blok, Mandelshtam, Lezhnev), and covers texts published between 1906 and 1934. The second chapter deals with the works of the Strugatsky brothers’ Noon Universe series (1961-86) and the figure of the “Progressor” as the New Man. The third chapter looks at novels by three authors: Petrushevskaya’s Nomer Odin (2004), Pelevin’s S.N.U.F.F. (2011), and Sorokin’s Ice trilogy (2002-05). These works attest to the inextricable interpenetration of the posthuman with the human, of posthumanism with humanism, of the post-Soviet with the Soviet. The study demonstrates how humanism and posthumanism function dialectically: in the best-case scenario, they negate one another to come to a more whole understanding of the human; in the worst-case scenario, this dialectic creates an increasingly more exclusive humanism that reserves the title of ideal subject for fewer and fewer. Moreover, Present Perfect argues that the New Man (that “ideal subject”) in Soviet and post-Soviet fiction is best conceptualized as a field of competing discourses, which fall along three lines of development: the animal-man, the machine-man, and the god-man, each with their own critical orientation toward humanism. In both the Soviet and post-Soviet context, writers like the Strugatsky brothers, Petrushevskaya, Pelevin, and Sorokin employ a critical posthumanism to demonstrate, on the one hand, how the New Man is used as a tool for discursive domination that denies otherness, and on the other, how the New Man can be reconceptualized as a tool for a liberatory ethics that affirms it.