This thesis aims to consider the contemporary relevance of the philosophical and religious project of Søren Kierkegaard by offering a systematic reading of his work against the backdrop of 19th century German idealism. Along with an emphasis on a systematic interpretation of a thinker usually considered to be wholly anti-systematic in aim and orientation, I also aim to show that through developing an ontological interpretation of the work of Kierkegaard the grounds are also created to develop a social and political interpretation of his work. Ultimately, I use the ontological and political reading of Kierkegaard developed in this work to not only show the relevance of this project to contemporary materialist philosophy, but equally to show how this version of Kierkegaard is capable of offering some crucial correctives to contemporary materialism.

This interdisciplinary research bridging geography and fine art (‘geo-aesthetics’) follows contemporary artwork journeys from the studio into the public domain to discover how notions of value shift as the artwork travels. It seeks transfigurative nodes and their catalysts to explore how art matters: firstly how it becomes matter in the studio, and then how it comes to matter beyond the studio door. Two case studies at key moments of revaluation, a buy-out and a buy-in, both reveal responses to uncertainty that stress different kinds of collectivity. The first case study follows artistic practice and process in four studios in a Johannesburg atelier to investigate intrinsic value and finds ‘artistic thinking’. The second case study follows the assemblage of a private art collection managed from Cape Town, initially as an art fund, to investigate extrinsic valuation and finds ‘structural thinking’. These different modalities in the production and consumption circuitry of the artworld have unexpected correlations including shared artists and three linking concepts, namely, uncertainty, mobility, and the web. These in turn inform three observations: nested capacity, derivative value, and art as a public good. Two key findings emerge: contemporary art is itself a vector of value that performs meaning as it moves; and public interest is a central characteristic from which other valuations flow. The research uses repeat interviews, site visits and visual methods, which are triangulated with artwork trajectories to surface linkages between space and imagination. It offers a performative theory of value that speaks to an expanded new materialism. Applying an ecological framework allows a final transfiguration for an artworld ecosystem that (re)values contemporary art as part of an undercommons.

This collection of work grew from a guided journey and an exploration of ideas that has not only encouraged my growth as an artist, but as a responsible citizen sharing this world with others. Over the duration of this evolution I have become increasingly attentive to what I feel is our collective manufactured existence; the things that we produce and the influence that this production has on our lives. From the built environment, material and immaterial commodities, advertising and marketing, consumption, sustainability, etc., all these continuously shifting factors act as constants in our lives and shape our psychosocial development. To better understand this, I have delved into looking at both myself and others for evidence of the various effects from living in a consumer culture. Drawing also from extensive research in the history of as well as contemporary theories on production, mass media culture, addiction, exploitation of people and resources, and the growth of technology, I look to increase not only my own awareness on these subjects, but to also educate others. My process of making work is a meditation in order to better facilitate inspection intertwined with introspection. A finished piece becomes an externalization of this effort, but not as a conclusion. The various mixed media included in All These Things is the culmination of an ongoing search that encourages conversation and further evaluation of our roles in a commodity culture. By coming at this multi-faceted topic from different directions, I am offering a radial view into the many possible considerations for what it means to be a consumer and how this affects us all.

The purpose of this new materialist study was to examine the subject performativity of ‘biracial’ individuals in an interview setting in order to disrupt the humanist assumptions of racial identity in psychological research. I also sought to promote critical resistance to subjectification to examine ‘race’ without reifying participants’ raced subjects. Four research questions guided this study: How does the researcher, researched, and interview intra-activity serve to instantiate the biracial subject? Under what material alterations to the interview process do different subjects come to be? Which subjects come to be or fail to come to be in the interview intra-action? How does purposeful entanglement function during the interview process? In this experimental critical qualitative inquiry study, I interviewed five ‘black-white biracial’ undergraduate students three times each while enacting a series of agential cuts within and between each interview. By altering the flow of material during the interviews, I provoked multiple identity instantiations and analyzed the process of subjectification/individuation. Grounded in Barad’s agential realism, and guided by Simondon, Foucault, and Butler my analysis of this data suggests that humanist models of ‘racial’ identity are insufficient, and findings further suggest that a posthumanist and post-qualitative account of ‘biracial’ identity offers more insight into the performativity of ‘raced’ subjects. This research provides a path for psychological identity research to ethically evolve past the linguistic and ontological turns.

Abstract Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur lärares uppfattningar om elevers socioekonomiska bakgrunder inverkar på studierna och undervisningen i samhällskunskap på gymnasiet, samt mot bakgrund av detta avhandla mer allmänna frågor och problem om skolan som institution för jämlikhet och likvärdighet. Utifrån detta syfte har tre gymnasielärare i samhällskunskap på gymnasiet intervjuats. Dessa intervjuer har sedan genomgått en ideologikritisk analys utifrån den teoretiska utgångspunkten, som utgörs av den dialektiska materialismen. Resultatet av analysen visar att lärarna tillsammans med utbildningssystemet i stort styrs av en dominerande utbildningsmässig diskurs, som tilltalar de elever med studietradition från hemmet i större utsträckning än de utan. Således sker det en utbildningsmässig segregation inom samhällskunskapsämnet på gymnasiet beträffande elevers socioekonomiska bakgrund

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Contemporary materialism, which tries to explain the working principles of the mind and the universe, become less meaningful after the developments in the modern physics. The modern physics showed that the definition of matter, as it is used in defining materialism, is no longer valid. Chomsky states his position as &ldquo / Chomsky&#039 / s challenge to materialism&rdquo / by claiming that with the abolishment of the definition of the matter, there is no reason to defend materialism, which depends on that definition. Therefore, materialism becomes an empty doctrine thus cannot be used in explaining the mind. The developments in the modern physics creates the need for a new doctrine, which can explain the mind and at the same time be compatible with the modern physics and possible any future physics. This new doctrine, the methodological physicalism, aims to explain the mind by using the modern physics. Creating such a doctrine requires understanding of materialism and its form as well as understanding the problems of materialism and its forms. By identifying the defects in materialism and by using the modern physics as a standing point methodological physicalism can achieve a more successful understanding of the working of the mind. By using the modern physics, the methodological physicalism can explain why the currents models of the mind fail. Moreover, it can explain how certain models of the mind constructed, which employs the quantum mechanics while explaining the mind. The methodological physicalism will help understanding the mind where materialism fails to do so.

The research aimed at understanding the adolescent money attitude and analyzing the relationship between social economic status, materialism and adolescent money attitude. The research adopted the questionnaire. The participants chosen at random were high schools students in Kaohsiung city, Kaohsiung county and Pintong county. The questionnaire was adapted from a foreign questionnaire. It consisted of three parts: basic personal data, money attitude questions and materialism questions. The research adopted T test, one way ANOVA, Pearson¡¦s correlation and multiple regression to analyze those data. The findings were as follows: 1. Most adolescence didn¡¦t regard money as prestige and quality. They didn¡¦t have the sense of security toward money but being anxious for money. Therefore, they were cautious with money. 2. Male adolescence tended to regard money as prestige more than female adolescence. 3. Senior high school adolescence viewed money as the prestige, quality and source of anxiety more than junior high school adolescence. Therefore, they were less cautious with money than junior high school adolescence. 4. Adolescence with allowance regarded money as prestige, quality and source of anxiety more than one who didn¡¦t have allowance. 5. Adolescence who had the habit of saving money viewed money as prestige, quality and source of anxiety less than one who didn¡¦t have the habit of saving money. 6. Adolescence with higher social economic status thought money could change higher quantity and service more than the adolescence with low social economic status. 7. Adolescence with higher materialism was likely to think money represented prestige and quality. They didn¡¦t have the sense of security about money and were anxious for money. Besides, they weren¡¦t cautious with money. 8. Materialism factor predicted adolescent money attitude very well.

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