Dissertation Abstract Introduction to the conceptual basis of Vratislav Effenberger's thought (Dialectics of the genesis of the concept of idea models) Mgr. Šimon Svěrák The thesis introduces a reader to the basic aspects of the theoretical system of Vratislav Effenberger, the main theoretician of post-war Czech surrealism. It does so through the construction of a developmental dialectic of the main concepts of Effenberger's work of the 1960s, which culminates in the concept of so-called idea models. In this period, Effenberger primarily addresses the question of the nature of the existential forms of the concept of total meaning in the post-war social and psychological situation. He formulates his reflections as a critical reassessment of the theoretical legacy of Karl Teige and a question of the possibility of further continuity of the Surrealist worldview. The thesis demonstrates that Effenberger first rejects the notion of ultimate meaning, through which psychosocial reality can be grasped as a meaningful whole, and replaces it with a notion of conflict. However, the internal logic of his theoretical system gradually leads him to the conclusion that human consciousness cannot exist without the idea of ultimate meaning and that such meaning exists only in the form of the idea model. The idea model is...

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Le projet proposé est le suivant : d’abord tenter de comprendre quelle place joue l’indicible dans le langage et quelle forme prend — au niveau fondamental — la violence exercée à son endroit en suivant l'oeuvre d'Emmanuel Levinas et de Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ensuite, poursuivre l’analyse des formes de violence du langage en se penchant sur les conditions de possibilité d’une telle violence ou plutôt sur certaines manifestations historiques d’un tel exercice à l'aide du Différend (1983) de Jean-François Lyotard. Et finalement, appliquer les distinctions établies dans les deux chapitres précédents pour mettre en place les conditions d’établissement d’un espace discursif ouvrant à la possibilité du témoignage non-violent visant à reconnaître l’expérience de la survivante auparavant réduite au silence. / The current project aims to understand the role played by the “unspeakable” in language and what form—at a fundamental level—does the violence perpetrated towards it take by following the works of Emmanuel Levinas and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Then, the analysis of linguistic violence continues by examining the different manifestations of this wrong and their conditions of possibility or more precisely, by scrutinizing certain historical incidences of such a reproduction of violence by proposing a close reading of Jean-François Lyotard’s Le Différend (1983). Finally, an attempt will be made at establishing the conditions necessary for the construction of a discursive safe-space opening the possibility of a non-violent witnessing and testimony oriented towards the recognition of the experience of the once silenced survivor.

This work addresses the historically-read despotism Genesis 1.28 has often received in its subordination of nature for the interests of human enterprise and counters the notion of reading the entire Bible as an anti-environmental, anthropocentric text. In using a combined literary lens of eco-criticism and new historicism, this work examines the Hebrew Bible with particular attention to the books of Genesis and Exodus, offering within the Torah’s oldest literary tradition (the J source) an environmental connection between humanity and the divine that promotes a reverence of natural world and, conversely, a rejection of rampant urbanization and its cultural departure from nature. It is the goal of this research to create a discourse by bridging the gap between religious and green studies and forging a connection with the works of the early biblical writers and environmental thought of the modern world.

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In the United States, the community food movement has been put forward as a potential solution for a global food system that fails to provide just and equitable access to nutritious food. This claim has been subject to the criticism of a variety of scholars and activists, some of whom contend that the alternative food movement is complicit in the re-production of neoliberalism and is therefore implicated in the making of the unjust system. In this dissertation I use theories of Deleuze (and Guatarri) and science and technology scholars to enter the middle of this dichotomy. I argue that both readings of community food work, as just and unjust, rely on realist epistemologies that posit knowledge as representative of an existing reality. I alternatively view knowledge as much more contingent and plural, resulting in a multiplicity of realities that are much less fixed. The idea that reality is a product of knowledge, rather than the inverse, raises the question of how reality might be made differently, or of ontological politics. This is the question I set out to interrogate: how might the realities of community food work be read and made differently, and how this reading might open new possibilities for transformation? To explore this question, I conducted interviews with 18 individuals working for three different non-profit community food organizations in central Appalachia. I used and appreciative inquiry approach to capture stories that affected these individuals' stories about their work captured their visions and hope for food system change. I then used a (non)method, rhizoanalysis, to code the data affectively, reading for the interesting, curious, and remarkable, rather than attempting to trace a strong theory like neoliberalism onto the data. Drawing on Delueze and Guattari, I mapped excerpts from the data into four large narrative cartographies. In each cartography, the narrative excerpts are positioned to vibrate against one another; my hope is that these resonances might open lines of flight within the reader and space for new ontological possibilities. For adult and community educators, I posit this rhizoanalysis as a poststructuralist contribution to Freire's concept of the generative theme and of use to broader project of agonistic pluralism. / Ph. D.