This thesis project explores the question of the death of architecture; the declaration of the lost abilities of architecture to achieve political influence and the architect as a social actor. As I have found myself in agreement with this Tafurian perspective on the subject, I wanted to use this thesis project to explore the question of architecture and its political potential, as well as breaking from the paralyzing condition of the incentives of architecture's incapabilities. This, in suggesting that architecture can act as a catalyst for doing things differently. The project investigates, on the one hand,  how a building can encourage political action and engagement, and, on the other, how ideological ideas and intentions can concretize spatially, materially and aesthetically, The project is an design exploration concretized in a specific architectural proposal – a building for a political organization operating in the city of Stockholm.

Democratic Peace Theory observes a lack of war between liberal democratic states that merits an explanation. Democratic Peace Theory does not give a satisfactory explanation and as such, an exploration into the logic of the theory through an examination of its internal logic and wider implications is warranted. An understanding of dialectical materialism allows for such an examination when used together with a thorough exploration of the relevant cases of Greece and Italy in the two periods from 1960-1979 and 1991-2010 respectively. This examination will look at how well Democratic Peace Theory explains the observed facts through an examination of trade statistics of the two countries, which will here be used as an indicator of foreign policy. Democratic Peace Theory cannot explain the data that is analysed here, but through the examination, a better explanation through dialectical materialism can be arrived at. The international system is constructed through nation states seeking their own interests to the extent that they are able to identify them. The international system in turn gains influence over the same nation states as have constructed it. This is the dialectical functioning of the international system that is created by and affects national interests and will be argued to better explain the observation than Democratic Peace Theory. The main body of the text is 22.000 words.

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.

Thesis (M. A. (Political Science)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / State capture in South Africa became the talk of the day in the mainstream media and social media alike. This was the case following state capture report (herein after referred to as ―the report‖) released by former public protector Thuli Madonsela which shed a light about the close relationship between former president Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family. The report alleged that the Gupta family played a role in appointing and offering ministerial positions to those who would bid for them in government procurements and tender awarding. This study seeks to analyse whether or not the state capture controversy in the context of the Zuma-Gupta family is a political manoeuvrings or economic contestations between the business competitors (White establishments and the Gupta family). The existing literature on the state capture narrative looks more at the Gupta family‘s ties with former President Jacob Zuma, highlighting their tumultuous relationship. The dissertation does not justify the Guptas‘ wrongdoings or nepotism, but it showcases that the State Capture narratives has been bolstered by those opposed to economic development. In terms of methodology, the study used qualitative and content analysis to examine the South African state capture debate

[pt] O presente trabalho busca fazer uma retomada do abolicionismo penal a partir das bases teóricas da criminologia crítica. Em meio aos diversos discursos e propostas de abolição penal contemporâneos, o que se pretende é argumentar que uma prática que vise a realização da abolição do sistema punitivo precisa se calcar em bases teórico-metodológicas rigorosas, a fim de compreender os processos que determinam o sistema punitivo e sua relação com estrutura econômica. Defende-se que a prática abolicionista precisa se socorrer dos conhecimentos acumulados pela criminologia crítica, de base marxista, a fim de que se possa organizar a ação política necessária para uma mudança nas condições sociais que determinam a violência e a pena. Ao se examinar a síntese das diversas determinações que criam o Estado, o direito e a pena na sociedade burguesa por meio da categoria do sujeito de direito e do princípio da troca equivalente de mercadorias é possível verificar o desenvolvimento histórico e as alterações das formas de punição na sociedade capitalista de acordo com a organização e necessidades de produção e reprodução dos modos de produção. Somente a partir dessa análise e compreensão das relações que a punição estabelece com o Estado e com a sociedade dentro da estrutura econômica é se torna possível propor um modelo de prática abolicionista que não seja idealista. / [en] This work intends to review the penal abolicionism from the theoretical basis of the critical criminology. Amongst the different contemporary penal abolition discourses and propositions, the intent is to argue that a praxis that aims at the accomplishment of abolishing the punitive system needs to hold onto a strong theoretical and methodological foundation, in order to comprehend the processes that determines the punitive system and its relation to the economic structure. The abolitionist action has to resort to the cumulated knowledge of the critical criminology, of marxist source, in order to be able to organize the political action needed to provoke a change in the social conditions that determine violence and punishment. When looking closely at the synthesis of the different determinations that build up the state, law and punishment in burgoise society, throughout the categories of subject of Law and the equivalent exchange of merchandise principle it is possible to verify the historical development and changes in the means of punishment in the capitalist society according to the organization and needs of production and reproduction of the means of production. Only through this analysis and comprehension of the relation that punishment establishes to the State and to the society within the economic structure it is possible to propose a model of abolitionist action that is not idealist.

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Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur de feministiska och marxistiska teorierna framställs i fem olika samhällskunskapsböcker på gymnasiet, inom det vetenskapliga ämnet internationella relationer. All användning av teorier inom internationella relationer färgar användaren, användningen av teorierna bidrar således till en viss uppfattning av verkligheten. Läroböcker används fortfarande flitigt inom den svenska skolan, denna användning har däremot ingen central granskning. Granskningen har istället förflyttats till den individuella läraren, skolan eller kommunen. En majoritet av lärare anser att läroböcker förmedlar läroplanen och kursplaner, samtidigt får elever beroende på vilken kommun de bor i olika böcker och därmed olika budskap. Detta leder till ett vakuum där elever ej får möjlighet till en likvärdig utbildning och med detta en bristande förståelse för verkligheten. Denna uppsats är en kvalitativ innehållsanalys som letar efter det latenta i de fem läroböcker som analyseras. Denna analys sker genom ett förbestämt men flexibelt analysschema uppdelat i tema, kategorier och nyckelord. Analysschemat och dess användning har en direkt koppling till teorin som används inom uppsatsen. Uppsatsen har visat att framställningen av feminismen och marxismen inom läroböckerna är bristfällig, vissa centrala begrepp som stat har ej framställts inom böckerna samt att när begrepp har framställts har de varit innehållslösa eller missvisande. Exempel på detta går att finna i att en av texterna anser att krig startas av fattigdom och dåliga ekonomiska förhållanden, istället för den marxistiska uppfattningen att krig uppstår på grund av kapitalismen. Uppsatsen har även visat att den primära användningen inom böckerna är realismen, liberalismen och konstruktivismen. Avslutningsvis har uppsatsen även visat att kritik eller problematisering av framställningen och användningen av teorierna inom böckerna är innehållslös och bristfällig. / The purpose of this essay is to examine how the feminist and Marxist theories are depicted in five different social science high school textbooks, within the scientific subject of international relations. All use of theories within international relations colors the user, the user of theories becomes in this way angled to understand and see the world in a certain view. The use of textbooks is still a very common practice in the Swedish school system, this use however lacks any form of central review. A majority of teachers consider the textbooks as the essence of the curriculum, at the same time students that go to school in different municipalities get different books and in turn different messages. The lack of a central review system has in this way created a vacuum were students are deprived of their right to an equal education and with a lack of understanding as a result. This essay is a qualitative deductive content analysis that searches for the dormant within the texts that have been analyzed. This analysis is conducted by a predetermined flexible assay schedule, the use of this schedule has a direct link to the theory of this essay. This essay shows that the depiction of feminism and marxism within the textbooks is flawed, specifically the absence of certain key words like state but also that the depiction of some key words are shallow. Example of this is one text that describes poverty and bad economic conditions as the reason for war, however Marxism considers capitalism as the primary reason for war. The essay shows that the primary depiction of theories within the books are realism, liberalism and constructivism. The essay shows that a critical view or problematization of the theories within the books have not occurred.

In this thesis ”The Dialectics of Technology: Ambivalences and Ruptures in Herbert Marcuses’ Philosophy of Technology” I present a thorough analysis of Herbert Marcuses’philosophy of technology as it developed from the late 1940s until his death in 1979. Whereas, previous studies have tried to reduce his philosophy of technology to one coherent project, I argue that his philosophy of technology is characterised by ambivalences and ruptures and therefore cannot be reduced to such a coherent totality. Marcuses’ philosophy of technology vacillates between what I, with Andrew Feenbergs’ concepts, callan instrumentalist and substantialist notion of technology. An instrumentalist notion is one where technology is understood merely as a tool to be wielded by external actors, in Marcuses’ case that of the capitalist class and the state. In contrast to this, Marcuse also precents a substantialist philosophy of technology, where it is imbued with its own agency and direction.The previous scholarship has largely reduced Marcuses’ philosophy to one of these positions, rather than emphasising how both of them are present through out the text. Furthermore, I argue that his substantialist understanding of technology itself is characterised by ruptures and ambivalences, where technology is viewed both as inherently emancipatory and as inherently subjugating. It is in regard to this duality I argue that his philosophy of technology should be understood as dialectical, in the sense that technology at the same time can be a central part of human subjection and one of the most important vehicles for emancipation. In relation to this, I agree with Samir Gandesha that one of the most fruitful directions Marcuses’ philosophy opens is an understanding of technology as bearer of a historical substance, that is to say that technology is imbued with certain goals, desires and world-views beyond those of the wielder, while at the same time understanding that this substance can be changed through historical processes. Beyond the more exegetic presentation of Marcuses’ philosophy and the critique against the previous scholarship, I argue for critical theory, and especially Marcuses’, relevance for current debates around technology and automation. In the current debates between left wing accelerationist cheerleaders of technology and those radicals more sceptical of technologies emancipatory potential, an investigation into the nature of technology itself is severely lacking. While, the former uncritically embraces the technology arisen in capitalist society and views it as a direct path towards a utopian post-scarcity communism,the latter solely focuses on technology as a tool of capitalist class power. In relation to this, I argue that the historical and dialectical understanding of technology that can be salvaged from Marcuses oeuvre would be a welcome and useful addition to the debate.

This thesis contributes with a new reading of philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s The ethics of ambiguity. Earlier research has shown close ties to Marxism and relational theories on autonomy. The purpose of the thesis is to examine whether the ethics also contains a normative liberal individualism, and furthermore to relate this to the criticism that has been directed towards liberal individualism in academia and today’s society. In this way the thesis contributes partly by closing the research gap regarding the relationship between Beauvoir and liberalism, and partly also by developing theories on liberal individualism. The analysis finds that the autonomy of Beauvoir resembles that of liberalism. Furthermore, it is shown that Beauvoir’s argument for human agency should lead to an ideal of individual negative liberty. Beauvoir also holds an ideal of self-development that in some ways corresponds to liberal self-development but that is mainly influenced by Marxism. It seems that the way Beauvoir could justify negative liberty could be a way to bridge the gap between liberalism and its critics, by arguing for negative liberty through a relational perspective.

The category of life is considered central to the heterogeneous field known as Italian thought or Italian theory. Its centrality helps explain the outsized role that Italian thinkers like Giorgio Agamben, Rosi Braidotti, Roberto Esposito, and Toni Negri play in international conceptualizations of biopolitics. Scholars have attempted to trace the roots of this emphasis on life back to thinkers such as Vico and Croce, Italian Marxist traditions such as workerism, “imports” like Heideggerian ontology and Foucauldian critique, and even Italy’s geography. These histories fail to interrogate the paradox that Italian thought usually deals with life in abstract terms, rather than with real, embodied lives. Styles of Existence, Italy 1961–1982 offers an alternative genealogy of Italian thought that focuses on the role that philology played in transforming conceptions of life and self in postwar Italy. It argues that the poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini and art critic and feminist Carla Lonzi show us what living looks like by applying the tools and concepts of interpretation and criticism they acquired as artists and critics to their own lives. It makes the case for their inclusion in the unofficial canon of Italian thought, and for acknowledging the debts that later philosophical treatments of life owe to Pasolini and Lonzi’s existential attempts to overcome the distance between theory and praxis. Pasolini and Lonzi, both well-known for their polemical contributions to debates about politics, gender, and sexuality in Italy’s long 1968, are discussed here together for the first time. Styles of Existence lays out the theoretical tenets, preferred methodologies, and historical arcs of their life philologies, tracing them across an array of sources including diaries, screenplays, television talk shows, and newspaper columns. Both authors’ projects are examined from a comparatist perspective, which means that they are situated in Pasolini and Lonzi’s cultural and discursive contexts as Marxist and feminist intellectuals, respectively, and in relation to contemporaneous domestic and international trends and debates. Responding to a request by Pasolini that his works be read philologically, chapter one proposes a philological rereading of his corpus that takes into account his love for space and dedication to the irrational. Proposing the notion of “lunar hermeneutics” as a conceptual frame, it demonstrates that Pasolini incorporates tools from philology and stylistic criticism in his social critique and filmmaking in response to changing global and national political landscapes in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and especially the developments of the space race. Chapter two elaborates the features of Pasolini’s project of “Marxist linguistics” in the mid-1960s as a political answer to rapid industrialization and globalization, demonstrating that Pasolini expands the scope of lunar hermeneutics with contributions from semiotics and insights from his work as a filmmaker. Close readings of Pasolini’s aesthetic writings in Empirismo eretico (1972) and his film Uccellacci e uccellini (1966) illustrate the importance of cinema to his revised theory of language and understanding of self. Chapter three examines Pasolini’s collection of political writings, Scritti corsari (1975), as an example of Auerbachian-inspired Weltliteratur, showing that the work is designed as a philological exercise dedicated to the critical preservation of human forms of life threatened with extinction. Turning to Lonzi, chapter four provides the first theoretical and historical account of autocoscienza or self-consciousness making, the feminist, relational practice that Lonzi developed with other members of the group Rivolta femminile in the early 1970s. Lonzi formulates autocoscienza as a subversive mediation of critical and postcolonial theory as well as of modern art, and envisions an “unforeseen subject” who refuses to comply with the misogyny and inequalities inherent to prevailing models of liberational subjectivity. Chapter five reassesses Lonzi’s rejection of Hegelian and psychoanalytic theories of recognition, and her engagement with Alexander Kojève’s anthropomorphizing rendition of Hegel, to argue that autocoscienza provides its own affirmative feminist theory and practice of recognition focused on listening and responsiveness among equals. Chapter six considers the diary’s central role in Lonzi’s philological project of self by linking it to autocoscienza and her theory of clitorality. It argues that the sexed dimension of autocoscienza is what makes viable a transition from theory to praxis, and from emphasis on the collective to the self. By focusing on the diary, it restores the contributions of “Sara,” another Rivolta member, and the influence of hagiographical writings on Lonzi’s conception of female freedom. Finally, chapter seven unearths Lonzi’s obsessive “dialogue” with Pasolini in her “feminist diary” Taci, anzi parla [Hush, No Speak] (1978) as a case study in the practice of autocoscienza. Lonzi’s disagreements with Pasolini about culture, sexuality, and women’s rights, and their largely overlapping views on freedom and expression, are situated in the context of Italian debates about abortion in the mid-1970s. This chapter argues that Lonzi’s relation to Pasolini transforms her understanding of self and helps her refine and recalibrate the goals of autocoscienza. In conceiving of the self and selfhood in philological rather than philosophical terms, Pasolini and Lonzi challenge theories of the subject predominant in critical theory and offer precursors to contemporary concepts like Agamben’s homo sacer. Their aesthetics of existence require a reconsideration of the scope of philology in the twentieth century, the parameters of political theory, the legacy and historiography of Italy’s long ’68, and our understanding of what it means to live a meaningful human life. The detailed recovery of Lonzi’s intensive engagement with Pasolini and his work, finally, points to an unlikely source of influence on radical Italian feminism.