In this study, I explored critical approaches to social justice in student affairs. I sought to understand how student affairs administrators understand and communicate about social justice. Furthermore, I studied how a critical paradigm informs the work of student affairs practitioners in their everyday lives, and what we might learn from the experiences of professionals who ground their work in such paradigms. This was a qualitative study, in which I used snowball sampling as the method for recruiting participants. I conducted semi structured interviews with 14 full time student affairs administrators, who I refer to as critically-oriented student affairs administrators. Consistent with critical theory, I employ a language of critique and a language of possibility in this dissertation. The findings in this study suggest that there is much work to be done in more productively addressing social justice in student affairs. The lived experiences the participants in this study shared provide insight into living out critical commitments to social justice in the student affairs field. Furthermore, there is space in the student affairs field for more in-depth analysis and consideration for what it means to be "critical" in the student affairs profession.

This dissertation seeks to identify the purposive force that determines the form and function of commercial stereophony in capitalist society, and the ways in which this force affects the productive and consumptive activities of stereophonic practitioners and listening audiences. Employing dialectical materialism, I examine three social processes that either historically established or continue to influence the mediative potential of stereophonic sound: the invention and industrial standardization of the stereophonic apparatus, the professionalization of stereophonic practitioners, and the social construction of stereophonic listeners as a mass consuming audience. These interrelated studies reveal perceived economic necessity as the dominant causal force that governs all stereophonic processes and practices under the capitalist economic system. Informed by my chapter findings, which complicate Karl Marx’s materialist base and superstructure schema – a coarse conceptual abstraction of capitalist production, I construct a more refined and flexible schematic diagram that offers a distinctive bird’s eye view of the universal interplay between capitalists, producers and consumers. This novel conceptual schematic depicts productive forces and productive relations as coterminous expressions of the dual-purpose of capitalism: to produce surplus-value for accumulation by capitalists, and to do so in perpetuity.

Divisiveness routinely turns violent, thus making research into alternative means of dealing with conflict an urgent necessity. This dissertation focuses on the politics of divisiveness and the techniques of conflict transformation. In this, I offer a robust and operable theory of reconciliation. I argue that reconciliation is the first principle of justice. In this sense, the ideal of justice is enacted through the improvement and coordination of social-political relations, which requires the development of trust and institutions that facilitate the ever emergent demos. This is not to suggest that alternative approaches to justice, such as distributive models, are useless or wrong. Rather, justice requires a consensus which cannot be realized when persons see their neighbors as enemies. In conflicts, activities that benefit the enemy Other, such as the redistribution of wealth, will be taken as an injustice by other embattled social groups. As I demonstrate through various cases, interpersonal and institutional responses, like redistribution, often escalate discord and rarely create a shared sense of justice. Thus, conflict becomes a cyclical and multilevel problem. I explore how we can better respond to the cycle of conflict at individual, social, and systemic levels, in order to realize a legitimate notion of justice. I use an interdisciplinary approach to defend my arguments, drawing on iv philosophy and conflict resolution (CR). CR is an emerging field that emphasizes practical responses to conflict, often with advocacy for reconciliation. However, more theoretical work needs to be done to explain the ideal of reconciliation that directs CR practices. Within philosophy, little work has been done on the topic of reconciliation. A vast literature exists on the topic of justice, but this literature offers few practical descriptions of how persons come to agree upon the terms of justice. Thus, theories of justice are often labeled as 'ideal' simply because they are disconnected from the fragmented and conflict-ridden reality most people experience. This dissertation, as a project in non-ideal political theory that is empirically informed by cases and concerns in CR, fills these gaps in both philosophy and CR.

Orientador: Paula Ramos de Oliveira / Banca: João Virgílio Tagliavini / Banca: Vera Tereza Valdemarin / Resumo: O presente trabalho consiste num estudo sobre as origens e os motivos da valorização atribuída atualmente ao acúmulo de saberes enquanto aquisição de informações de maneira rápida e superficial. Esta valorização vem sendo afirmada como condição necessária ao desenvolvimento do processo de formação, e as teses da sociedade do conhecimento têm sido sua maior expressão. Este discurso que se dissemina amplamente em meio à sociedade capitalista atual - aqui compreendida como sociedade administrada -, que possui o neoliberalismo como sua política econômica, tem sido muito bem recebido e ao mesmo tempo reproduzido amplamente pelas pessoas em práticas cotidianas e intelectuais. Diante desta constatação, abordamos os meios pelos quais o acúmulo de saberes se constitui em uma exigência e, ao mesmo tempo, em uma imposição social, influenciando negativamente a construção da experiência formativa dos indivíduos. Analisamos os dispositivos que se encontram instalados na sociedade como instrumentos para a formação, mas que, na realidade, negam a possibilidade de desenvolvimento da experiência formativa. Apresentamos ainda as possíveis contradições que podem conduzir à superação desta problemática permitindo atingir o contexto de uma formação em que o desenvolvimento da experiência constitua o cerne de um movimento de emancipação. Para os estudos procedemos, primeiramente, à análise do discurso neoliberal acerca da educação, situando neste a valorização do acúmulo de saberes e a defesa da qualidade da educação. Em seqüência, recorremos aos estudos dos filósofos Theodor W. Adorno e Max Horkheimer procurando investigar em que medida a valorização do acúmulo de saberes na sociedade administrada contribui para o fortalecimento da... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This paper consists of a study about the origins and the purposes of the great importance that, nowadays, is ascribed to knowledge accumulation understood as a fast and superficially information acquisition. This importance has been considered as a necessary condition to the development of the formation process, and the theses of the knowledge society have been the most noticeable expression of such importance. This discourse that is largely spread through the current capitalist society - here understood as administered society -, whose economic policy is the neoliberalism, has been well accepted and widely reproduced by the people in their intellectual and everyday practices. Faced with this observation, we aim to approach the ways through which the knowledge accumulation consists of a requirement and, at the same time, of a social imposition, negatively affecting the construction of the individuals formative experience. We analyze devices that are set up in the society as instruments for formation, but that, in reality, deny the possibility of a formative experience development. We even present the possible contradictions that may lead to the overcoming of this problematic and letting reach the situation of a formation in which the experience development may be the heart of an emancipation movement. For our studies, we first proceed to the analysis of the neoliberal discourse concerning the education, placing at it the great importance of the knowledge accumulation and the defense of the quality of education. Then, we turn to the researches of the philosophers Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, aiming to investigate how the knowledge accumulation inside the administered society contributes to the strengthening of the semi-formation and to the negation of the main condition of social emancipation that is the formative experience / Mestre

Le célèbre débat qui, dans les années soixante, opposa l’herméneutique à la Théorie critique, par l’intermédiaire de leurs principaux représentants respectifs, H.-G. Gadamer et J. Habermas, met en scène une alternative tranchée entre « conscience herméneutique » et « conscience critique » (P.Ricoeur). L’histoire de la Théorie critique montre cependant que sa volonté de s’immerger dans lacrisis qu’est l’histoire, son refus de se constituer en « science traditionnelle » l’amènent à tisser avec l’herméneutique des relations plus complexes qu’il n’y paraît. Ainsi Adorno érige-t-il« l’interprétation » en paradigme de la réflexion philosophique. La théorie habermassienne, dans sa volonté d’assurer à la critique ses fondements de droit, marque une rupture avec un tel paradigme, au profit de celui de la reconstruction. Mais ce tournant, qui vient bouleverser la Théorie critique dans sa conception initiale, n’a-t-il pas pour prix une approche moins pénétrante des phénomènes de domination ? La question est posée par A. Honneth, qui, pour pallier ce déficit critique, élabore une philosophie sociale moins soucieuse de la question de la fondation philosophique et plus hospitalière au thème herméneutique.Cette interrogation ouvre la possibilité d’une relecture de la pensée adornienne, attentive aux accomplissements critiques dont peut se prévaloir la singulière « herméneutique allégorique » qu’elle met en oeuvre. / In the Sixties took place a famous debate setting against each other hermeneutics, represented byGadamer, and Critical theory, represented by Habermas. It embodied a deep-seated antagonismbetween « hermeneutical conscience » and « critical conscience » (P. Ricoeur). However, its historyshows that Critical theory’s decision to merge within history, conceived as crisis, and its refusal of« traditional science » lead it to establish complex connections with the hermeneutical trend. ThusAdorno sets up « interpretation » as a paradigm for philosophical thinking. Because he is concernedwith giving Critical theory its philosophical foundation, Habermas breaks with this paradigm, followinginstead the path of reconstruction. This turn undermines the initial conception of Critical theory; andone might ask - as does A. Honneth - if it does not weaken its ability to detect social dominationphenomena. In order to remedy to the critical shortcomings of habermasian theory, Honneth worksout a social philosophy which is less concerned about the question of philosophical foundation andmore open to the hermeneutical motives.This questioning opens the way for a new reading of Adorno’s philosophy, focused on the criticalachievements of « allegorical hermeneutics ».

The Digital Logic of Death analyzes recent reconfigurations in our relationship to death which have emerged in response to the rupture of the digital, as glimpsed through the films, television shows, and digital games which so often inform and influence our understanding of mortality. Considered as both a series of technological advancements and a new set of cultural assumptions, this project argues that the digital cannot but shift our understanding of death in general, and our recognition of our own finiteness in particular. As such, it presents four observations about the appearance, function, and conception of death in contemporary moving images. First, that our dissatisfaction with inaccurate representations of death and increased interest in autonomous simulations reveals an attempt to reinstate the knowledge and painful pleasure once found only through witnessing the death of others. Second, that the seemingly inconsequential nature of death in digital games – where the traumatic is easily rewound and re-animated – serves not to deny death but rather to make it more present, providing an opportunity for gameplayers to contemplate and craft their own unique ‘path to death.’ Third, that contemporary society, engulfed in the binary logic of the digital, has come to fetishize the frightening possibility of death at the expense of recognizing its potential impact on our lives and culture, leading to experiential relays through which we attempt to reencounter that potential, namely a narrative Being-towards-death and a splitting of subjectivity into actual and virtual components with their own relationship to mortality. And fourth, that contemporary narratives of seemingly ‘immortal,’ artificially-intelligent machines are concerned less with the fantasy of immortality than they are with what it means to be mortal, thereby positioning death as the most essential and fundamental component of the human experience. Together, these observations look to renew an existential undercurrent of critical theory, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and metaphysics, which has the potential to greatly inform key conversations in film and media studies, cultural studies, and posthumanism, as well as the capacity to reveal the essential argument of the digital logic of death: that to be human is to know that you will die.

Soundpainting is the method of "live composition" invented by New Yorkbased composer and saxophonist Walter Thompson. Using physical gestures for the spontaneous creation of music, Soundpainting therefore shares similarities with other types of gesture-based systems for music performance, such as orchestral conducting. Thompson himself (2006) describes his Soundpainting system as a "universal live composing sign language for the performing and visual arts," and therefore Soundpainting can be considered as a subset of other communication systems such as verbal and written language, kinesics, and paralanguage. This thesis outlines the general principles of Soundpainting as a system for setting into motion spontaneously created music. The author's aim is to describe Soundpainting in relation to the linguistic turn in Thompson's own definition. This opens the way to a sociosemiotic analysis, in which it is susceptible to examination in the light of some theories of language that have emerged in the course of the twentieth century. A theoretical framework is developed drawing on the work of such pioneers of semiotics as Saussure and Peirce, as well as the later work in philosophy of language of Wittgenstein, Barthes, Eco, Derrida, and others. The eclectic concerns of Soundpainting suggest situating Thompson's language in the context of current debates in critical theory about tonality, jazz, and improvisation as strategies for constructing identity. Soundpainting, by demonstrating that musical signification can be negotiated through consensus, problematizes the convention of the composer as the sole legitimating authority of the work. Considering Soundpainting as a processual activity, this dissertation outlines the general principles of Soundpainting as a system for the spontaneous creation of music. Emphasizing the process-based character of Soundpainting (and its affinity with other forms of improvised music) suggests that such categories of musical activity need to be studied from a different vantage point from that of historical musicology. / Thesis (PhD (Music))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Music / PhD / unrestricted

The impact of micro-finance on the lives of the poor is a hotly debated issue filled with controversies and inaccuracies. The literature review on the benefits of micro-finance indicates that early debates were mostly based on heart-warming anecdotes and case studies, with little empirical study on its actual impact. Thus, despite the heated debate on micro-finance, there is still little understanding on the true empirical impacts of microfinance, particularly its psychological impacts on the poor. This study investigated the relationship and impact of micro-finance on self-esteem and self-efficacy. The study was conducted using a non-experimental research strategy (within-subjects design) and quasiexperimental strategy (pre-post-test non-equivalent control group). Two sampling methods, systematic and convenience sampling were used to select participants. A total of 264 pre-test and 159 post-test participants took part in this study. Data were collected using the Rosenberg self-esteem scale and General self-efficacy scale. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was employed to measure the relationship between micro-finance, self-esteem and self-efficacy. The MANCOVA was used to investigate the impact of the provision of micro-finance on self-esteem and self-efficacy. The results not only showed that micro-finance is positively related to self-esteem and self-efficacy, but also showed that the provision of micro-finance led to an increase in the self-esteem of the recipients. The study further revealed a decline in the self-esteem of those who were declined micro-finance and highlighted the covariates that influenced this relationship. In light of these results, practical and theoretical implications affecting micro-finance practitioners, researchers and recipients are identified. Suggestions for future research are made based on the improvement of current methodologies, inclusion and use of valid control groups, the use of different sampling methods and larger sample sizes. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Psychology / PhD / Unrestricted

Orientador: Sinésio Ferraz Bueno / Resumo: Aprofundando-se nas análises do empobrecimento da razão e na falta de possibilidades do indivíduo em desenvolver uma autorreflexão crítica, Theodor W. Adorno em seus escritos de 1960, intitulado como Teoria da Semiformação, nos apresenta o conceito de formação, que perpassa toda a época iluminista até chegar à contemporaneidade, na qual se transforma em semiformação. Diante das reflexões precedentes, Adorno chama a nossa atenção para um fato psicossocial dinâmico, o fenômeno do ressentimento, que funcionaria como um verniz formativo, tendo como pressuposto o ódio pelo que se mostra diferenciado e, ligado ao declínio da individualidade, intensificaria a incapacidade de autorreflexão, tanto no sentido intelectual quanto no sentido emocional. Assim, diante de tais revelações, alguns anos depois, em seus escritos sobre educação, o filósofo enfatizou a necessidade de elaboração do passado no campo educativo, entendida como compreensão e dissolução desses elementos de frieza subjetiva. Visto como uma tarefa ética o ato de elaborar o passado fundamenta essencialmente os cuidados com a memória pressupondo a autorreflexão crítica. Desse modo entendendo a semiformação como esfera do ressentimento, o declínio do indivíduo como seu principal motivador e as interações entre passado e presente os objetivos do presente estudo é investigar os mecanismos subjetivos do movimento de ressentir-se e, por meio da sua relação com o campo educativo, as possibilidades preventivas contra tal afeto. / Abstract: Deepening in the analysis of the empowerment of reason and the individual's lack of possibilities to develop a critical self-reflection, Theodor W. Adorno in his 1960 writings, entitled Theorie der Halbbildung, introduces us to the concept of formation, which runs throughout the Enlightenment era until contemporaneity, in which it transforms into semiformation. Observing the preceding reflections, Adorno calls our attention to a dynamical psychosocial fact, the phenomenon of resentment, which would work as a formative varnish, having as premise the hatred for what is different and, tied to the decline of individuality, would intensify the incapacity of self-reflection, both in the intellectual as in the emotional sense. Thus, in the face of such revelations, a few years later, in his writings on education, the philosopher emphasized the need for elaboration of the past on the educational field, understood as comprehension and disintegration of the elements of subjective coldness. Seen as an ethical task, the act of elaboration of the past underlies essentially the care for memory, assuming the critical self-reflection. This way, understanding the semiformation as part of the resentment sphere, the individual decline as its main motivator and the interactions between past and present the purpose of the present study is to investigate the mechanisms of feeling resentful, and through its relationship with the educational field, the possibilities of preventing such drive. / Mestre

The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the perspectives of five participants representing the school district and community regarding the achievement gap between Black and White students. This study attempted to answer two major questions: 1. What are the components of their perspectives and how they are formed? 2. What beliefs support or hinder that perspective? In this study social conflict theory was used as the theoretical framework for this study, harnessing the concept of resiliency as a new paradigm shift looking at Black students and community not as "deficient" or "deficits" but implementing their unique cultural assets and strengths to help close the achievement gap. Trends show that academic disparities between Black students and White students are complicated by many factors, including family poverty, limited neighborhood resources, displacement of communities due to gentrification and/or government interventions, lack of power, placement into lower-track classes and often community hostility towards the current public education system in general. These disparities contribute to the academic achievement gap. Historically, these disparities have challenged, Black students ability to survive, cope and sustain resiliency. This study looked at resiliency can be used and embraced so that Black students can become their own advocates for change including inside the educational arena and in their external environments to help close the achievement gap. This study relied on qualitative research methods, which is an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry. The participants were selected according to the roles they play within the community and school district. Interviews were conducted two times with each of the participants regarding their perspectives. Other data was compiled from field notes and the researcher reflective journal. The data was coded and analyzed concerning the participants perception of the achievement gap. The major findings of this study reveal that organizational vision, a true collaborative partnership between the district and community and the political will to change is key to closing the achievement gap. Each of the participants have a dual vision for the future, one, that recognizes the centrality of closing the achievement gap. They also reveal that present and past political policies are contributing factors as well.