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.

Abstract not available

From the mid 20th century into the 21st, artists and musicians manipulated, cracked and broke audio media technologies to produce novel, unique and indeterminate sounds and performances. Artists such as John Cage, Nam June Paik, Milian Kn��k, Christian Marclay, Yasunao Tone, Oval and Otomo Yoshihide pulled apart the technologies of music playback, both the playback devices � phonographs and CD players � and the recorded media � vinyl records and Compact Discs. Based in the sound expansion of the 20th century musical avant garde, this practice connects the interdisciplinary Fluxus movement with late 20th century sound art and experimental electronic music. Cracked and broken media techniques play a significant role in 20th century music and sound, and continue to be productive into the 21st. The primary contribution of this thesis is to provide a novel and detailed historical account of these practices. In addition it considers theoretical approaches to this work. After considering approaches through critiques of recording media, and concepts of noise, this thesis proposes novel theorisations focusing on materiality and the everyday. Ultimately it proposes that these practices can be read as precursors to contemporary new media, as music and sound art cracked open the fixed structures of �old media� technologies for their own creative purposes.

‘Celebrity’ has become a growing field of critical inquiry and cultural interest in twenty-first century society. Celebrities embody a host of meanings and engender larger ideological and discursive practices, in which they articulate expressions of social, cultural and political power that attach meaning to public individuals. Beginning with the late-twentieth century, celebrities have come to occupy spaces that exist beyond popular culture platforms, most notably in politics and international diplomacy. In spite of its typical association with superficial discussions of gossip and cheap entertainment, celebrities have become the site of anxiety in a capitalist society. To come to terms with these growing anxieties concerning celebrity and its accoutrements, this thesis explores the embedded complexities and consequences of the celebrity system within the framework of what has dubiously been called ‘celebrity politics.’ Through a detailed examination of this phenomenon, this thesis explores the coalescing spheres of Hollywood and the White House, where ‘celebrity’ and ‘politician’ have become interchangeable monikers. In addition to examining the historical conditions that have given rise to the phenomenon, this study examines contemporary articulations of the ‘celebrity politician,’ focusing on Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and President Barack Obama. Discussion of these figures is framed by critical theory and media studies to better understand their location within the contemporary Western landscape.

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.

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.

Ce mémoire porte sur la relation de l'œuvre de Sade à la modernité. De Sade qui, en ce qu'il ne s'est pas laissé aveugler, qu’il a su voir l'obscurité immanente aux Lumières, doit être considéré comme un voyant. Ce que d'aucuns appellent sa folie, c'est-à-dire la raison naturelle, bourgeoise par lui chantée et exacerbée, c'est un miroir tourné dans notre direction, un miroir dans lequel nos sociétés refusent de voir leur propre raison instrumentalisée, leur propre raison mise au service de l'égoïsme, de l'autoconservation. Face à ce refus, l'œuvre de Sade apparaît comme le refoulé de notre modernité. Dans un premier temps, ce mémoire examine la filiation esthétique de Sade à Baudelaire et s'attache, par l'entremise d'une étude comparative des figures du libertin et du dandy, à démontrer comment l'esthétique négative de Baudelaire présuppose la conception sadienne du mal comme intimement lié à la nature et à la raison, comment elle la transfigure de sorte que c'est seulement à partir de cette conscience dans le mal que Baudelaire en arrive à penser le bien, qu'elle constitue pour lui la seule possibilité de se réformer, de devenir à la fois humain et lucide. Il faut toujours en revenir à de Sade pour expliquer le mal, écrit Baudelaire, qui fait ainsi de Sade ou du moins de son fantôme, puisque celui-ci n'est que rarement nommé, une figure clé de la conscience dans le Mal, condition sine qua non de la modernité baudelairienne. Dans un second temps, c'est à la notion de petite souveraineté que s'intéresse ce mémoire. Souveraineté par procuration qui interdit la réelle souveraineté, elle est le produit de l'assujettissement du libertin à la nature, à la Raison, cette Raison naturelle et bourgeoise. Et l'éducation naturelle par laquelle le libertin cherche à assujettir l'Autre, lui qui ne peut posséder qu'en soumettant autrui au système auquel lui-même s'est consciemment soumis, lui le possédé-possédant, le fantôme d'homme faiseur de fantômes lui-même, est reproduction à son compte de son propre assujettissement. Cette notion de petite souveraineté s'oppose à une tradition de critiques idéalistes, qui, se méprenant sur la parenté du dandy et du libertin, héroïsant ce dernier, voient en lui un sujet libre, souverain, sans se rendre compte que sa Raison est historiquement lourde de conséquences. / This essay examines the relation of de Sade's works with modernity. De Sade is a visionary: he wasn't blinded by the Enlightment, in which he saw an inherent darkness. What some perceived as his madness — the natural reason, the bourgeois reason which he celebrates and exacerbates — is a mirror of our own, a mirror in which our societies refuse to see themselves and their own utilitarian reason, guided by opportunism and self-conservation. This refusal shows de Sade's works as a part of our modernity which we seek to suppress — de Sade as le refoulé de notre modernité. First, this essay looks at the esthetic filiation from de Sade to Baudelaire and, by comparing de Sade's libertine and Baudelaire's dandy, shows how the negative esthetic of Baudelaire presupposes de Sade's conception of Evil as a product of nature and reason, and how it transfigures this conception in such a way that Good can only proceed of this awareness in Evil, through which lies the only possibility to become at once human and lucid. One must always go back to de Sade to understand Evil, writes Baudelaire, who thus highlights de Sade's — or rather a ghost of de Sade, as his name is seldom mentioned in Baudelaire's — key role in this concept of conscience dans le Mal, making him the sine qua non condition of his modernity. The second part of this essay analyzes the notion of petite souveraineté. This borrowed sovereignty, which forbids the real sovereignty, is the product of the libertine's subjection to nature and to Reason, i.e. to the bourgeois and natural Reason. The natural education by which the libertine — he who can only possess by submitting the other to the system to which he consciously submitted himself, the possessed yearning to possess, the man reduced to a ghost who create ghosts himself — wants to dominate the Other(s) is a reproduction for himself of his own subjection. This notion of petite souveraineté confronts a tradition of idealistic critics who see in the libertine the subject of a total liberty, a sovereign subject – and thus who don't notice that the historical meaning of his Reason is laden with consequences.

The topic of this study is one specific area where the tension between instrumental rationality and value rationality becomes prominent: the question whether we have a rational responsibility for nature or not. Such a responsibility cannot be derived from instrumental reason, but it is argued that it can be derived from discourse ethics and communicative rationality. The study begins with an examination of Georg-Henrik von Wright's cultural criticism. It is argued that his subjectivist view of values limits reason to the realm of instrumental rationality. Horkheimer and Adorno's theory of instrumental reason is examined. They claim that instrumental reason, through the negative dialectics of the enlightenment, have created a vacuum with regard to values. Marcuse's anthropological solution to the problem of values, and his theory of an emancipatory science and technology, are examined and rejected as Utopian. The philosophy of Jürgen Habermas is examined, and it is shown how he solves the problem of his predecessors through the dual framework of work and interaction. His hypothesis of three knowledge- constitutive interests is analyzed, and it is concluded that a general theory of communication is needed in order to solve the problem of value rationality. It is shown how Habermas later theory of communicative rationality and discourse ethics overcomes the shortcomings of his earlier theory. It is argued, among other things, that his theory of communicative rationality is compatible with a correspondence theory of truth, ontological realism and epistemological fallibilism. Discourse ethics makes a rational discussion of values and norms possible. It is argued that it solves the problem of value rationality, but without providing a definition of the good or the right. It is shown that revisabilty is an important part of discourse ethics. This is manifested in the hypothetical status of discourse ethics, and in the revisability of the norms proposed. It is argued that we are in fact able to rationally propose a norm, which demands responsibility for nature within the framework of communicative rationality and discourse ethics, although such a norm must be the result of the outcome of a rational discourse and is itself, revisable. / digitalisering@umu

Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka kulturtidskrifternas roll och status i det svenska samhället idag, bland annat genom intervjuer med verksamma redaktörer på olika kulturtidskrifter. Som problembakgrund presenteras den paradoxala situation som kulturtidskrifterna ställs emot: de anses som viktiga för yttrandefrihet, demokrati och mångfald men blir ändå försummade och underprioriterade inom politik och forskning. Utifrån detta formuleras tre frågeställningar: Hur ser redaktörerna på den politik som drivs kring kulturtidskriften? Vad anser redaktörerna att kulturtidskriften har för roll och status i samhället? Hur kan kulturtidskriftens roll och status tolkas utifrån de intervjuade redaktörernas svar, den rådande kulturpolitiska diskussionen, kulturteorier och tidigare forskning? Dessa frågor analyseras utifrån intervjusvaren, tidigare forskning, Horkheimer och Adornos teoretisering av kulturindustrin, Habermas teorier om det offentliga rummet samt Bourdieus fältteori och teori om ekonomiskt och kulturellt kapital. Uppsatsens metodologiska utgångspunkt är i kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med tio verksamma redaktörer på olika kulturtidskrifter. I slutsatserna bekräftas den inledande problemformuleringen – kulturtidskrifterna är viktiga men försummade. Statens kulturråd har stor makt över kulturtidskrifterna eftersom de styr över ett årligt tidskriftsbidrag. Få kulturtidskrifter klarar sig enbart på prenumerant- och annonsintäkter, vilket gör det statliga stödet livsviktigt för många. Kulturtidskrifterna har flera viktiga roller i samhället. Framförallt har de som roll att fördjupa och vidareutveckla det offentliga samtalet och bidra till så att obundna, oetablerade och alternativa röster kan komma till tals som inte är påverkade av kommersiella intressen. I förlängningen kan man säga att det leder till en ökad mångfald, yttrandefrihet och demokrati. Kulturtidskrifternas har generellt sett låg status bland allmänheten, vilket leder till att den får låg status i andra sammanhang också, bland annat inom kulturpolitiken. Den låga statusen verkar hänga ihop med uppfattningen om att kulturtidskrifterna är finkulturella och exkluderande snarare än lättillgängliga och kommersiella.

Theodor Adorno’s view of Arnold Schoenberg can be seen in light of his criticism of Immanuel Kant. Critiquing Kant’s concept of Enlightenment and his dualist philosophy, Adorno also critiques common misconceptions about Kant's work in bourgeois society. Similarly, in Schoenberg's oeuvre Adorno finds radical musical creation but also a reversion to formulaic composition in its reception by Richard Hill among others. In both Kant and Schoenberg, Adorno identifies a tripartite movement: (1) A radical work (philosophical or musical) is created by a member of bourgeois society. (2) The work adopts the function of a societal critique. (3) However, bourgeois society is incapable of understanding the work as critique and erases its radical nature. Seen in light of Adorno's thought, the thesis explores the transactional nature of idea production and reception in society.