This thesis seeks to trace domination theory back to the influential work done by Marx on commodity fetishism. Marx's work proves to be an original account of domination that explains how the dominated many accept the rule of the privileged few. The theory of commodity fetishism develops the idea that individuals come to adopt beliefs that bolster and reproduce the status quo of capitalism. For Marx, the way that individuals experience capitalism is different from the way that it actually works because, in fact, lived experience is actually false. Oppression, inequality and exploitation are thus hidden and the main source of conflict between the oppressed many and the privileged few is obscured. I seek to develop this insight of Marx's into a more comprehensive account of how dominating capitalism self maintains. Lukács' theory of reification explains how capitalism has become all-embracing because capitalism has developed its own type of rationality. This specific rationality shapes thought, which in turn, generates false beliefs that favour the continuation of the status quo. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that capitalism extends its influence by means of its deep involvement in modern culture. Today, culture has become an massive industry which inculcates the logic and principles of capitalism into individuals. For these theorists, capitalism has penetrated all areas of life; experience, knowledge and thought have become extensions of capitalism itself. Marx, Lukács, Horkheimer and Adorno give accounts of how false beliefs are put into practice. Hence the importance of the work of Bourdieu. Bourdieu's theory of distinction describes how the status quo in capitalism is maintained by the behaviour of individuals through their daily acts of consumption. I argue that the consumption of commodities reproduces the status quo in two ways: firstly, establishing an upper-class which takes the lead in patterns of consumption, and, secondly, by creating a middle class that follows its example. Finally, I relate Bourdieu's insights to the theories of Marx, Lukács, Horkheimer and Adorno and Bourdieu in order to arrive at a more inclusive account of how.

A questão agrária acompanha a história do país, marca a base da organização da sociedade brasileira e permanece distante de ser resolvida. Tendo como pano de fundo essa questão, vários movimentos sociais surgiram ao longo da história, inclusive aquele que é considerado hoje o mais importante e vigoroso movimento social que luta pela transformação da sociedade: o Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST). Neste trabalho, pretendemos observar as relações que se estabelecem dentro do movimento social, em sua atuação concreta em um assentamento de reforma agrária, analisando os aspectos que contribuem e os que atrapalham o desenvolvimento de práticas emancipatórias e a construção de uma nova sociedade, utilizando para isso a psicologia social de T.W. Adorno. Como metodologia de pesquisa, optamos por uma abordagem qualitativa, um estudo de caso. Os dados indicam que frente à totalidade reinante nesta sociedade, o MST se constitui em uma possibilidade de que os indivíduos tenham uma experiência (Erfahrung), ou seja, que se coloquem de uma maneira reflexiva frente ao mundo administrado, que tenham uma possibilidade de desenvolvimento do pensamento não tutelado e questionador, ao mesmo tempo em que criam um conteúdo coletivo e um significado partilhado para suas ações. Por outro lado, com a entrada da lógica da mercadoria e do princípio do equivalente no assentamento, a vivência (Erlebnis) tende a tomar o lugar da experiência (Erfahrung), e os indivíduos tendem a voltar a se adaptar ao mundo administrado, o que causa uma série de rompimentos e desencontros. Isso, somado ao ingresso dos agentes estatais no assentamento, faz com que o MST passe a ter dificuldade de manter sua influência junto aos assentados, o que pode levá-lo a assumir uma postura que incentiva a adesão não refletida aos seus princípios e, portanto, remete ao pensamento em bloco, à mentalidade do ticket. Finalizamos salientando que para o MST continuar contribuindo para a emancipação dos sujeitos no assentamento, deve atentar para a importância da autodeterminação e da liberdade dos indivíduos, problematizando o já dado, explicitando as contradições e fomentando a construção de espaços coletivos que contribuam com o esclarecimento, com a autonomia. / The property of the land question is a permanent issue in the history of the country. It characterizes the basis of the organization of the Brazilian society, and remains as an issue far from being solved. Having this question as a background, several social movements have emerged. Among them, there is one which today is considered the most important and vigorous social movement struggling for a change in society; that is the Landless Rural Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra MST). This study attempts to observe the relations that are established within the social movement, in its concrete action in a land reform settlement. It will also analyze the different aspects that contribute or hinder the development of their emancipation and the construction of a new society. This study is based on the social psychology theories of Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno. As a methodology of research, a qualitative approach and case study were used. All informations, gathered through interviews and practical observation, indicate that in relation to the reigning totality in this society, the MST has become a possibility in which the individuals may have a experience (Erfahrung). This is to say, that these individuals assumed a reflective position in relation to the administered world, and that they had the possibility of developing their own thinking and questioning. At the same time, they created a collective content and a shared meaning for their activities. On the other hand, with the upcoming of the logic of merchandise and the equivalent principle in the settlement, the apprehension of reality (Erlebnis) tends to take the place of experience (Erfahrung) and the individuals tend to go back and adapt themselves to the administered world. This fact causes a series of misunderstanding and ruptures. In addition, the participation of government representatives in this new reality of the settlement, causes problems to the MST. The Movement has difficulties in keeping its influence on the settler. Such a situation may take the MST to assume a position which leads to non-reflective actions not in agreement with its principles, and therefore leads to mass thinking, the so-called ballot mentality. To finish up, the study emphasizes that the MST should continue to contribute towards the emancipation of the individual in the settlement; it should ponder the importance of autodetermination and freedom, pointing out the real cause of problems; it should explain all contradictions; and it should motivate the construction of collective spaces which will contribute to enlightenment, and lead to more autonomy.

Abstract not available

This thesis is about the depth of colonisation through translation. I develop an analytic framework that explores colonisation and translation using the trope of romantic love and an experimental textual construction incorporating translation and historical reconstruction. Utilising both the first and the final drafts of “Chapter X, Songs of Human Beauty and Love-charms” in Songs of Central Australia, by T. Strehlow, I show how that text, written over thirty years and comprised of nine drafts, can be described as a translation mediated by the colonising syntax and grammar. My interest lies in developing a novel textual technique to attempt to illustrate this problem so as to allow an insight into the perspective of a colonised person. This has involved a re-examination of translation as something other than a transtemporal structure predicated on direct equivalence, understanding it instead as something that fictionalises and reinvents the language that it purports to represent. It begins by establishing an understanding of the historical context in which the translated text is situated, from both objective and personal viewpoints, and then foregrounds the grammatical perspective of the argument. Utilising the techniques and processes of multiple translation, Internet-based translation software, creative writing and historical reconstruction, it continues to consider the role of imagination and begins the construction of a visceral argument whereby the reader is encouraged to experience a cognitive shift similar to that understood by the colonised other, which is revealed in a fictional autobiography written by an imagined other. It concludes by considering the coloniser within the same context, using, as an example T. Strehlow, who had a unique understanding of the Arrernte language. Tracking his extensive alterations, revisions and excisions within his drafts of Chapter X, this thesis traces a textual history of change, theorising that the translator, no matter how "authentic", is as much translated by the text as she or he is a translator of the text. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre et Sol LeWitt sont parmi les principaux représentants de l'art minimal aux Etats-Unis. Les oeuvres analysées dans cette thèse sont majoritairement tirées de leur pratique des années soixante et soixante-dix, et se rattachent à la sculpture. À partir de ces oeuvres, notre recherche se propose de montrer les rapports entre l'esthétique et le politique, en regard d'un questionnement sur la rationalité que ces oeuvres induisent. Dans les premier et second chapitres, nous présentons une analyse initiale des oeuvres en exergue, et une mise en situation contextuelle. Celle-ci s'établit en regard d'un corpus critique et d'un commentaire sur le climat épistémologique de l'époque étudiée. Le troisième chapitre renvoie aux sources formelles et théoriques, en maintenant l'idée de filiation -et d'infléchissement de ces mêmes filiations -qui se dégagent des chapitres précédents. Les deux derniers chapitres reprennent les principaux éléments théoriques que nous avons retenus pour les besoins de notre analyse. Nous y étudions, à l'aune des pensées de Deleuze et d'Adorno, l'articulation particulière de l'esthétique et du politique dans l'art minimal. Le politique s'y appuie sur une interrogation de la rationalité qui travaille l'idée de totalité et d'immédiateté de la perception. Avec la prémisse de la reconduction dans l'oeuvre d'instances paradoxales basées sur une synthèse connective ou une répétition profonde qui sous-tend la répétition sérielle première. En somme, il s'agit dans le commentaire critique des oeuvres et des artistes choisis, d'étudier des notions qui se posent comme paradigmes de l'ambiguïté de l'oeuvre minimale. L'ancrage théorique privilégié en découle. L'investigation de concepts prégnants dans l'oeuvre minimale, tels la différence et la répétition, le matériau et les rapports forme/contenu, et la mimésis qui renvoie aux problématiques du simulacre ou du reflet, qualifient la représentation dans l'oeuvre minimale. Une analyse renouvelée de ces termes récurrents demandait un champ théorique inusité. Ce dernier ouvre à une qualification de l'oeuvre minimale basée, non pas uniquement sur les certitudes de ce que l'on voit, mais également sur ce qui échappe à la perception immédiate. Cette conjonction spécifique reconduit une oeuvre déterminée par ce qui l'indétermine. Et une interrogation de l'esthétique et du politique à travers celle d'une rationalité où perce le sensible. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Art minimal, Esthétique, Politique, Rationalité, Éléments.

Theodor Fontane’s famous novel Effi Briest (1895) has been widely discussed in secondary literature, and every single aspect of the novel’s complex content and style seems to have been analysed; however, the similarities in content and style between Fontane’s Effi Briest and his less known and discussed work Schach von Wuthenow (1882) have not yet been recognized. A remarkable and meaningful similarity between the two regarding the content is the portrayal of a close relationship between mother and daughter which is strongly influenced by the latter’s relation to the mother’s (former) admirer. The relationship of Josephine von Carayon and her daughter Victoire and that of Luise von Briest and her daughter Effi will be compared by means of an analysis based on Michel Foucault’s theories on discourse, truth and power; in particular, the discourse of beauty, illness, honour and love will be closely examined. A method based on Foucault’s theories facilitates an analysis of the female protagonists’ actions that is free of moral implications for the protagonists are understood in their non-freedom of action owing to their discourse-constructed identity. Since the constellations of power in which the female protagonists are living cannot be analysed without the male protagonists’ influence, the constitution of Schach and Innstetten’s characters will be closely examined, too. The analysis of the discourse of beauty and illness shows that those disourses are portrayed as inseparably connected. In the society outlined by Fontane in Schach von Wuthenow, Victoire is made an outsider due to the pockmarks in her face; during the private conversation at Prince Louis’ castle, however, the prince calls Victoire a beauté du diable whose beauty is based on the survival of a fatal disease which has resulted in a passionate character. Innstetten, on the contrary, considers Effi to be particularly beautiful when she looks pale, lethargic and frail for he connects Effi’s ill appearance with his wife finally becoming a woman. Beauty, however, is exposed as a construct in both of Fontane’s works: on the one hand, by the (in itself) contradictory argumentations of the characters; on the other hand, by the narrators who criticize and disprove the prince’s idea of Victoire, which is temporarily accepted by Schach, and Innstetten’s connection of illness, beauty and femininity. The examination of the discourse of honour and love reaches the conclusion that both of Fontanes’s works portray honour as a construct with changing truth. In Schach von Wuthenow honour is exposed and critiziced mainly by Josephine, in Effi Briest mainly by Innstetten and Luise because these characters are aware of the identity-constructing quality of the demands made by society. Nevertheless, Innstetten submits his love for Effi to the claims by the disourse of honour; Luise, however, realizes in her love for Effi a part of her human essence. Luise’s love for her daughter is completely accepted since it is considered natural; thus it turns out to be beyond the demands of honour. Josephine also acknowledges the greater truth of parental love and retreats from her strong wish to live a life in harmony with society in favour of her daughter. By means of their female protagonists, Fontane’s story Schach von Wuthenow and his novel Effi Briest demand a re-evaluation of the discourse of love. Not the love between a man and a woman but the love of a mother for her daughter is portrayed as natural and is thus considered beyond any demands of the disourse of beauty and honour.

No description available.

Theodor Fontane’s famous novel Effi Briest (1895) has been widely discussed in secondary literature, and every single aspect of the novel’s complex content and style seems to have been analysed; however, the similarities in content and style between Fontane’s Effi Briest and his less known and discussed work Schach von Wuthenow (1882) have not yet been recognized. A remarkable and meaningful similarity between the two regarding the content is the portrayal of a close relationship between mother and daughter which is strongly influenced by the latter’s relation to the mother’s (former) admirer. The relationship of Josephine von Carayon and her daughter Victoire and that of Luise von Briest and her daughter Effi will be compared by means of an analysis based on Michel Foucault’s theories on discourse, truth and power; in particular, the discourse of beauty, illness, honour and love will be closely examined. A method based on Foucault’s theories facilitates an analysis of the female protagonists’ actions that is free of moral implications for the protagonists are understood in their non-freedom of action owing to their discourse-constructed identity. Since the constellations of power in which the female protagonists are living cannot be analysed without the male protagonists’ influence, the constitution of Schach and Innstetten’s characters will be closely examined, too. The analysis of the discourse of beauty and illness shows that those disourses are portrayed as inseparably connected. In the society outlined by Fontane in Schach von Wuthenow, Victoire is made an outsider due to the pockmarks in her face; during the private conversation at Prince Louis’ castle, however, the prince calls Victoire a beauté du diable whose beauty is based on the survival of a fatal disease which has resulted in a passionate character. Innstetten, on the contrary, considers Effi to be particularly beautiful when she looks pale, lethargic and frail for he connects Effi’s ill appearance with his wife finally becoming a woman. Beauty, however, is exposed as a construct in both of Fontane’s works: on the one hand, by the (in itself) contradictory argumentations of the characters; on the other hand, by the narrators who criticize and disprove the prince’s idea of Victoire, which is temporarily accepted by Schach, and Innstetten’s connection of illness, beauty and femininity. The examination of the discourse of honour and love reaches the conclusion that both of Fontanes’s works portray honour as a construct with changing truth. In Schach von Wuthenow honour is exposed and critiziced mainly by Josephine, in Effi Briest mainly by Innstetten and Luise because these characters are aware of the identity-constructing quality of the demands made by society. Nevertheless, Innstetten submits his love for Effi to the claims by the disourse of honour; Luise, however, realizes in her love for Effi a part of her human essence. Luise’s love for her daughter is completely accepted since it is considered natural; thus it turns out to be beyond the demands of honour. Josephine also acknowledges the greater truth of parental love and retreats from her strong wish to live a life in harmony with society in favour of her daughter. By means of their female protagonists, Fontane’s story Schach von Wuthenow and his novel Effi Briest demand a re-evaluation of the discourse of love. Not the love between a man and a woman but the love of a mother for her daughter is portrayed as natural and is thus considered beyond any demands of the disourse of beauty and honour.

This dissertation examines literary modernism as foremost an endeavor that concerns the imagination. Gaston Bachelard, whose studies on material and dynamic imagination provide the theoretical underpinning for the dissertation, defined the imagination as "nothing other than the subject transported inside the things." Reformulation of subject-object relations, clearly suggested in that definition, is indeed an important element in the aesthetics of Bachelard and that of Adorno, another thinker whose thought informs the dissertation. As the principle behind modernist responses to the crisis of the modern world, the crisis Georg Lukács captured in the phrase "transcendental homelessness," reformulation of subject-object relations impels the mobilization of creative energies in the way that may very well be called "the modernist imagination." I first state the premise for the dissertation and situates it in the present landscape of modernist scholarship. Then I examine Adorno and Bachelard at the intersections of their thoughts, in preparation for a theory of the modernist imagination. Next I consider Mrs. Dalloway as a modernist probing of the sensual, in which familiar dualisms – subject vs. object, the external vs. internal, life vs. death, mind vs. body – collapse. Following this, I examine The Magic Mountain as an attempt at what Adorno calls materialist metaphysics. The novel's preoccupation with death in all its aspects, its problematizing of the human body and the imagination of cold are examined in light of Adorno's view on reviving metaphysics in modernity. Then I read in Ulysses water's lyricism, a lyricism learned from water, into which important modernist themes (not least the ones considered previously in the dissertation) converge. Lastly I look at a film – Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris – and a science fiction novel from the 1950s – Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 – in light of what may be called the "philosophy" of modernism. The spirit of modernism – the primacy of the object as a modernist dictum, modernism‘s resistance to identity thinking and its dismantling of dualisms – is shown to continue in genres other than literature and in the period now called "post"-modern.

This thesis focuses on the anachronistic poacher-hero figure in late nineteenth-century German literature. Historian Hobsbawm has suggested that the symbolic endurance of "noble robber" figures (of which we can view poacher-heroes as a subset) takes place in an ideal imaginary "stripped" of the "local and social framework" (2000, 143). My thesis shows, in multiple examples across multiple genres, that in fact the poacher-hero is uniquely available for re-contextualization and renewal of social relevance, even under changed social and economic circumstances. The poacher-hero is not only a device for making statements about the past, but also for expressing claims on the future. It is perhaps this dynamism that makes the poacher-hero excellent carrier for different kinds of social critique as well. In my first chapter, I give a brief historical overview of the period and the motif. In the second chapter, I show how the poacher and his rural context are brought into contact with urban, imperial themes. In the chapter I read two novels, Der verlorene Sohn (The prodigal son, 1884-1886) and Quitt (Even, 1890), and the play Waldleute (Forest people, 1896) thematically to show how upward social mobility is associated with and adapted to the poacher figure. In the third chapter of the thesis, I examine narrative strategies and their employment in the construction of a socially critical viewpoint in Der verlorene Sohn and Quitt. I show how both high and low literary works, intended and written for different audiences, achieve similar results in their positioning of the poacher-protagonist through different narrative structures. This convergence shows the malleability of the societal frame for the poacher-hero. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I show regional adaptations of the motif, by examining different versions of a folk ballad "Das Jennerweinlied" ("The Jennerwein song"). This thesis furthermore shows how study of a motif can be used to bring together a diverse group of roughly contemporary texts. Viewing these texts in relationship with one another brings into question the scholarly focus on certain texts at the expense of others. / text