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This dissertation is a fundamental critique of the Western discourse using an Afrocentric critical reading of major Western constructions of knowledge. As such the study examines both the origins and dehumanizing consequences of the European project of Modernity. The study departs from the thesis that Afrocentricity, a philosophical paradigm conceptually rooted in African cultures and values, brings renewed ethical and social significance to a sustained project of human agency, liberation, and equality. Thus the dissertation explores how each major Western idea is understood within the context of the revolutionary philosophical paradigm and epistemological theory of social change. Concepts like individualism, domination, colonialism, race and ethnicity, universalism, progress and supremacy that Molefi Kete Asante calls the “infrastructures of dominance and privilege” are reviewed against the backdrop of agency, community, commonality, cultural centeredness, and ma’at. Indeed, employing critical ideas from the works of Afrocentrists this study highlights the inadequacy of Westernity in overcoming the various forms of oppression. Modernism, Marxism, Existentialism, Feminism, Post-modernism, and Post-colonialism, are addressed in dialogue with Afrocentricity as an exploratory part of a two-way relationship between theoretical understanding and practice which challenges established and hegemonic approaches to knowledge. In fact, the study argues for a rational approach to conceptual “rupture” that would allow the scholar to navigate the shattered ideologies of Western thought, and to contribute to the exposure of the imperialistic ambitions that worked at the backstage of the political and economic philosophies of Europe since the early fifteen century. In effect, the dissertation can be viewed as an intellectual journey moving from an epistemological location in Western epistemology towards an Afrocentric paradigm and theory of knowledge in the quest to defeat the inhuman. Ultimately, the aim is the search for a more humanistic and ideologically less polluted mind and for a more human humanity. / African American Studies

The resurgence of interest in James Joyce's politics over the past decades reveals Joyce as a politically astute, if not active, writer. But Joyce's politics were never easily codifiable or traceable to a set of ideologically fixed positions. Instead, this dissertation argues, Joyce uses the novel as a space where political debate can be dramatized, and the novel becomes a form of deliberative rhetoric regarding future possibilities. For Joyce, the practices of rhetoric and aesthetics are complexly intertwined and interdependent, though they remain, in many ways, oppositional and contrary. Joyce and other modernist writers often viewed rhetoric as a discursive form that limited rather than expanded possibilities. But at other moments, Joyce presses rhetoric into the service of aesthetic (and vice-versa) since deliberative rhetoric and poetics (as defined by Aristotle) both attend to the possibilities of future action. This dissertation traces Joyce's evolution from a young socialist writer engaged in rhetorical experiments with the essay to his later dramatization of Irish political oratory in Ulysses. Joyce began his career as a self-described "socialist artist" in 1904, but would consciously eschew socialism within the next few years. This dissertation locates Joyce's early political rhetoric in his essay "A Portrait of the Artist" and the abandoned novel Stephen Hero as unconscious remainders reemerging in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In the later text, aesthetics attempt to replace rhetoric as a means of creating radical materialist consciousness, but the later text also re-incorporates and reimagines its earlier incarnations. The earlier texts remain as "symptoms" around which the later is written. Drawing on the definitions of "symptom" in psychoanalytic and Marxist theoretical practice, this dissertation argues that A Portrait of the Artist functions as a text because it includes, even though it attempts to rewrite, the political and rhetorical work of its antecedents. In crafting the "Aeolus" chapter of Ulysses, Joyce returns to the art of rhetoric to dramatize the arguments surrounding Irish labor, politics, and language in 1904 Dublin. Unlike his work in A Portrait of the Artist, Joyce presents oratory as a staging ground for reasoned debate and discussion regarding the future course of Irish history. Whereas rhetoric was an unconscious remainder of socialist politics in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, rhetoric is consciously applied in the work of the characters in the episode who are preoccupied with the consequences of the Irish language movement and middle-class industrialization. This dissertation ultimately argues against positions that view rhetoric as a weak surrogate for aesthetics or as a discursive limitation that must be overcome for aesthetics to produce valuable contemplative effects. Aesthetics in Joyce's fiction has productive rhetorical purposes: to lead readers to contemplate false oppositions, consider the means by which history is produced, to attend to the process of political decision-making, and to deliberate about the consequences of actions. / English

A juxtaposition of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion. The two novels are analyzed from a Marxist theoretical perspective.

This project critically evaluates liberal development plans created for Central Appalachia by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) through a historical materialist lens. It demonstrates that these plans and their explicitly liberal origins are not sufficient for the working classes in the region to achieve a sustainable 'post-coal' future. Central Appalachia is one of the most impoverished regions in the United States and its political economy was shaped largely by coal mining that was overseen by absentee proprietors. This mono-economic structure has bred unique political conditions in the region. The economics of coal have historically influenced most political decisions. As the coal industry has declined, the region has been subjected to multitudes of economic development plans from the ARC. However, Central Appalachia still exists as an impoverished peripheral zone within the United States' political economy. This thesis is motivated by the decline of coal and the economic and ecological hardships this has created for the region's working-class, and the urgent need to begin envisioning a post-coal future for the region which avoids the insufficiency of liberal economic development. The thesis is not purely an attack on the ARC as an organization, but is rather a critique of the methods they use to enact economic development and shows how these methods are not only inadequate for the Appalachian working class, but all working classes subjected to the liberal economic development model. / Master of Arts / This paper evaluates the efficacy of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) economic development plans. The ARC is the federal agency tasked with reducing poverty in the Appalachian region and was created in 1965. They have enacted over 28,000 development plans and spent $4.5 billion since 1965, but Appalachia is still relatively impoverished in comparison to the rest of the United States. This impoverishment is largely due to the prevalence of the coal industry in the region and the fact that most political and economic decisions were influenced by the coal industry. However, the industry has been declining for several decades now, and this has created economic hardship for many in the region, as there are very few industries that have taken its place, leading to widespread unemployment. This paper focuses specifically on the Central Appalachian region of Southeastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, Northeastern Tennessee, and West Virginia. These states had the highest amount of people employed in the coal industry during its heyday, so they have borne the brunt of its decline. I offer a critique of the ARC's model of development and suggest solutions for mitigating the difficult situation in Central Appalachia and explore how the region can achieve a 'post-coal' future that does not rely on the current mechanisms of the ARC's model of development. This critique is informed by historical perspectives that highlight how Central Appalachia was structured as a peripheral zone in the larger US economy that served only to enrich the metropolitan areas of the US and world at great cost to the people of Central Appalachia and their natural environment. I perform my analysis through a historical overview of the economic structure of Central Appalachia as well as a content analysis of six ARC documents that outline their frameworks and methodologies for achieving economic development. While the paper is a critique of the ARC, the emphasis is more so on the particular method that the ARC uses to achieve economic development in the region.

As the systemic nature of the multiple crises humanity is currently facing grows ever clearer, an increasing number of scholars have developed alternative socioeconomic visions to address and redress the shortcomings of capitalism. One such vision is “Human Rights Economics” (HRE), an emerging alternative branch of economics which seeks to harness the normative and legal power of human rights as a means of rendering the economic system human rights consistent in both its processes and outcomes. This thesis subjects HRE to a close and critical examination from the perspective of Marxist Theory with the objective of identifying potential limitations in achieving its declared goal. A detailed analysis guided by Bacchi’s WPR methodological framework allows for an in-depth engagement with HRE from the chosen theoretical vantage point and leads to the conclusion that, from a Marxist perspective, many of HRE’s underlying assumptions such as, for instance, its belief in the potential of human rights to transform capitalism from within, result in problem representations and proposed solutions which do not pose an effective challenge to the dominant economic paradigm.

As a philosophy, Marxism has a rich and varied history that spans the decades since the Industrial Revolution. In this time, it has grown several branches, including Western Marxism and Critical Theory, and has reached deeply into many academic fields such as sociology, art, and psychology. However, as an ideology, Marxism has developed a severely tarnished reputation due to its mistreatment at the hands of often brutal totalitarian regimes. These power-centralizing aristocracies have carefully isolated and exploited select concepts from Marxist philosophy, like that of commodity fetishism, to force revolutionary change in societies that were often not prepared for massive upheaval. My work will attempt to reflect upon the value of Marxist philosophy as a tool for understanding society and its interactions. I will highlight the contribution of the Hegelian-influenced Western Marxism of the Hungarian School philosopher György Lukács and the Frankfurt School Critical Theorists like that of Herbert Marcuse. In doing so, I shall attempt to qualitatively show a link between scientific Marxism's strict focus on economic determinism as the basis for national ideologies and the stagnation of communist revolutions worldwide.

社會大眾普遍認為台灣乃是一個開放的社會，階級之間存在著流動的可能。然而，由文獻資料以及近期報導皆可發現，台灣的工人確實存在著階級流動障礙，這使得工人階級複製的現象產生。 階級複製不僅確保了資本主義的生產，更延續優勢階級的利益。在此過程中，意識形態扮演了重要角色。對此，文化馬克思主義主張以「文化」作為分析的類別，以瞭解特定階級的常識與生活方式，並進而解構意識形態對特定階級的作用。本研究藉由文獻資料與個案訪談方法，探討工人家庭與學校教育所傳遞的意識形態在階級複製過程中的作用。 雖然，現今本研究無法發掘這些受訪的工人階級，具有後馬克思主義所提的真正解放特質的反抗。然而，即使如此，以葛蘭西的觀點來看，我們可以相信工人階級潛藏的工人意識，將可藉由知識份子的表達與行動而被激發成形。觀察近來台灣的社會運動，我們知道已有知識份子起而行動，進行改革了，而這正是台灣社會開始改變的基礎。 / It is generally believed that Taiwan is an open society in which it is possible to move among classes. However, according to both recent news reports and research literature, there are in fact substantial barriers against class mobility, which, in turn, lead to the emergence of the phenomenon of working class reproduction. Class reproduction not only ensures the proper functioning of the capitalist production process, but also the preservation of the interest of the privileged classes. In this process, ideology plays an important role. Regarding this, cultural Marxism proposes using “culture” as a category for analysis in order to understand the common sense and life style of specific classes and to further deconstruct the effect of ideology on those classes. In this study, we use both reference materials from the literature as well as case studies to investigate the effect of ideology transmitted through working class families and school education on the process of class reproduction. Even though our research cannot ascertain if the working class people interviewed indeed possess the “authentic emancipatory promise” as proposed by the post-Marxists, we still could believe, in accordance to Gramsci’s point of view, the hidden class consciousness of the workers will be realized through stimulation by the expressions and actions of the intellectuals. Through observations of recent social movements in Taiwan, we realize members of the intelligentsia have already started to act to introduce reforms. This will sow the seed for the beginning of a wave of change in the Taiwanese society.

This thesis explores how three socialist newspapers tie in to the Swedish media system and – presumably – is influenced by it. The newspapers have each strong connection to three political parties, so the precise aim of thesis is therefore to examine the independence between the party and its media; and how strongly it can bee defined as Swedish party press in a more traditional sense. The analysed material consists of six qualitative interviews with two co – workers from each paper: including the editors in chief.The basis is partly Kai Kronvalls et al theories surrounding Swedish party press; because the thesis explores how the papers supposedly has changed. And partly theories based on the assumption that media is always reflected by the social and political structure to which it operates. The latter theories have in turned outlined ’press theories’ (Four Theories of the Press) for which it is said that the media is a base of and, more recently, models of how the media works in western countries as a whole (Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini).The thesis showed some difference between how each newspaper can be defined as party press, but in general the independence was weak. This can be explained with how the Swedish media culture in particular has conserved press affiliated with separate (political) groups.