Cette recherche, par une approche deleuzienne – mais aussi inspirée des écrits de Guattari, Foucault, Bergson et Massumi –, vise à approfondir le bagage théorique associé au concept de résistance. En abordant les notions de néolibéralisme, de démocratie et de société de contrôle, une conceptualisation particulière du pouvoir est développée : non pas un biopouvoir – ayant force sur la vie – mais un ontopouvoir – ayant force de vie. À travers l’étude micropolitique du mouvement de contestation Occupy (2011), les concepts d’affect, d’événement, de préfiguration, de devenir, de structure et de consensus sont travaillés, et des possibilités résistantes sont cartographiées et théorisées. En somme, cette synthèse conceptuelle élabore une forme de résistance radicalement autre que celles préconisées par la démocratie (néo)libérale représentative ou la politique identitaire : une résistance intrinsèquement créative tournée vers ce qui n’existe pas encore. / This research takes a Deleuzian approach, also drawing on the work of Guattari, Foucault, Bergson, and Massumi. Its aim is to deepen the concept of resistance. The notions of neoliberalism, democracy and control society are addressed toward developing a renewed concept of power, not as biopower – the power over life – but rather as ontopower – the power of life. Through the micro-political study of the social movement Occupy (2011), the concepts of affect, structure, event, prefiguration, becoming, and consensus are explored, and potentials of resistance are mapped and theorized. The conceptual synthesis arrived at conceptualizes a form of resistance radically different to those advocated by representative (neo)liberal democracy or identity politics: a intrinsically creative resistance turned toward what does not yet exist.

Geographies of sexualities started to develop within the Anglo-American academic context during the late 1980s. In the 1990s, propelled by the cultural turn, the swelling of post-structuralist and postmodern critiques, and a growing recognition of the limitations to scientific knowledge production and representation, geographers of sexualities introduced queer theory into human geography. Queer theory provided human geography with powerful tools for approaching not only straightforward spatialities of sexualities, but this new lens contributed to the development of human geographies as such. Currently, at least in the Anglo-Saxon geographical context, the field of geographies of sexualities is considered part of mainstream human geography. Therefore, the main goal of this thesis is to provide a few lines of reasoning for the development of geographies of sexualities in Czechia and Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and introduction of post-structuralist understandings, specifically queer theory. In contrast to other phenomena that may be locally exclusive or particular, human sexualities are everyplace, albeit quite variable and dependent on the context in which they "enter into language," become institutionalized, and are regulated. Geographers have been specifically insightful about the ways in which...

A partir da análise dos trabalhos do departamento de design da Cranbrook Academy of Art, durante o período coordenado por Katherine McCoy (1971 a 1995), este trabalho procura identificar os novos caminhos desenvolvidos pela escola para a prática do design gráfico contemporâneo, e em especial a concepção do design como parte do processo de comunicação. O design até os anos 1970 era regido por pressupostos formais, funcionais e neutros, o que talvez não permitisse entendê-lo como linguagem visual, em si, mas como mero suporte para o texto. Na escola, a abordagem funcionalista foi questionada nos anos 1970 e, a partir daí, nos anos 1980, inspirados por conceitos teóricos do pós-estruturalismo e pós-modernismo, foram introduzidas novas ideias a fim de legitimar o designer também como produtor de conteúdo. Ao buscar referências teóricas no pós-estruturalismo, percebeu-se a importância do receptor na interpretação da mensagem, assim como a necessidade de se produzir peças gráficas que encorajassem, a partir da relação do conteúdo com a forma gráfica, a participação do público. A escola, de modestas proporções, cuja média era a de 8 alunos ingressantes por ano, era baseada no ensino em estúdio, não possuía grade curricular fixa, nem disciplinas regulares. Os discentes eram sempre encorajados a pesquisar e se desenvolver. Muitas das pesquisas e resultados dos trabalhos são frutos da reflexão individual de cada aluno, inspirados pelo ambiente em contínuo desenvolvimento. A Cranbrook foi, dessa maneira, formadora de muitos dos principais designers norteamericanos atuais, como por exemplo Allen Hori, Andrew Bleauvelt, David Frej, David Shields, Ed Fella, Elliot Earls, Geoff Kaplan, Jane Kosstrin, Jeff Keedy, Kimberly Elam, Laurie Haycock Makela, Loraine Wild, Lucille Tenazas, Martin Venezky, Meredith Davis, Michael Carrabeta, Nancy Skolos, Richard Kerr, Robert Nakata, Scott Makela (1960-1999), Scott Santoro, Scott Zukowsky, entre outros. Cada um deles possuiu um papel particular e muitos compartilhavam idéias semelhantes, mas a maior parte deles procurou ampliar o campo do design gráfico agregando conteúdos mistos e abrindo-se a novas possibilidades de produção e reflexão sobre a relação entre texto e imagem. / With the analysis of the works from Cranbrook Academy of Art´s Design Department, under Katherine McCoy\'s Co-Chairmanship (1971 to 1995), this work intends identify the new ways developed by the School for the practice of contemporary graphic design, focusing on the concept of the design as part of communication process. Until the years 1970 design was ruled from the formal, functional and neutral presuppositions of Modernity, without the understanding of design as a visual language itself, but only as a mere support the text. In the 1970\'s the School questioned the functionalist approach, and during the 1980\'s years, new ideas were introduced to legitimate the designer as producer of contents, inspired by post-structuralism and post-modern concepts. Theoretical references in post structuralism stressed the importance of the receptor\'s interpretation of the message, as well in the importance of producing graphic works that encourage the participation from the public audience, founded in the relationship between content and graphic form. The School\'s graphic design program was modest in size 8 new students per year - and was studio-based without a fixed curriculum of courses and classes. The students were challenged to research and develop their individual expressions. Their research and resulting works are the fruit of the students\' individual reflection inspired by the continuously developing environment. Cranbrook produced many of the most important contemporary North American designers, such as Allen Hori, Andrew Bleauvelt, David Frej, David Shields, Ed Fella, Elliot Earls, Geoff Kaplan, Jane Kosstrin, Jeff Keedy, Kimberly Elam, Laurie Haycock Makela, Lorraine Wild, Lucille Tenazas, Martin Venezky, Meredith Davis, Michael Carrabeta, Nancy Skolos, Richard Kerr, Robert Nakata, Scott Makela (1960-1999), Scott Santoro, Scott Zukowsky, and others. Each one had a particular role play and many shared similar ideas, as they worked to enlarge the graphic design field with mixed contents and explored new possibilities of production and new roles for text and image.

The thesis presents a conceptual study engaging the theories emerged in the philosophy of language and the theories of international relations and negotiations into a single framework. The framework comprises the concepts developed by L. Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and J. Derrida whose relevance has been identified through searching for the zone of common grounds in which they could contribute to the theoretical knowledge on international negotiations in crisis and conflict handling contexts. It has accordingly been developed following the lines of the IR/negotiations theoretical set, but also adjusted by considering two relevant empirical cases. The said Wittgenstein-Austin-Derrida framework has been assigned the mission to study language as a tool in crisis/conflict negotiations, but likewise to consider crisis/conflict negotiations in the framework of language. This implies the post-structuralist approach to the international affairs, which enables the possibility of deconstructing the matter on its textual/discursive components. On such grounds, it perceives the ‘text’ as a source of political power, i.e. as a pattern which comprises the present institutions. By virtue of assigning new meanings to the ‘text’, it regards discourses as that what creates agencies in international relations.

This thesis mobilizes a feminist critique to examine the ways in which New Public Management (NPM) represents a gendered discourse. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, NPM is mapped as a discursive field in order to tease out its dominant and subordinate discourses. The tensions between the dominant discourses and between the dominant and subordinate discourses are examined. The discursive themes of NPM are then engaged using a feminist post-structuralist framework in order to develop a feminist critique. From this critique, it is argued that NPM discourses reinscribe dominant masculinity as well as challenge the Weberian model of bureaucracy by reconstructing a gendered division of labour that takes place entirely within the public sphere.

During the premodern era, images corresponded to the doctrines of ”The Word”, but in contemporary society this relationship is open and does not correspond to the divine Word. Because of our perceived, postmodern inability to respond to ancient Christian symbols, there is a need to revision these symbols and Christian spirituality. The result of such a revisioning would include an ”opening up” of ”The Word” and of traditional, worn symbols which have lost vitality in this milieu. Art produced with this in mind needs to make ”The Word” more currently accessible and relevant. Further, this revisioning would add significance and enhance the possibility of resurrecting language dealing with ”The Word”. In the process of revitalising old Christian imagery and language, I aim to show that the primary role of contemporary Christian art is to function metaphorically. Finally, I argue that Christian images can take on significance as contemporary images. / Art History Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

(in English) This dissertation paper deals with the transformation of the relationship letter and image in the Czechsoslovakian art in the 1950s and 1960s, interpreted from the point of view of the cultural and social events not as the history of art, but history of reality representation. The objective of the paper is to create a more complex view of various levels of integration of letter and image in domestic environment, so it approaches the phenomena of letter and image from a specific interpretation point of view based on three main lines. Mapping the phenomena of letter and image in the context of that period in Czechoslovakia, which preceded work structuralizing, was the base of the first interpretation line which bases the core of work on four social "activators", which, in the mind of an artist, activated the need to incarnate letter and image. Since the subject of the paper is the letter as a material manifestation of the language, the second interpretations line follows the purposeful modification of the language structure between the signifiant and signifié, which occurs in visual imaging. The third interpretation line puts the first two into a broader, aesthetic and philosophical context due to which, more complex language structures entering the art of work can be identified. Using...

Missing children is one of the horrors that we are confronted with in today's society. The case study method, a feminist co-search methodology, is used to give a missing child's mother the opportunity to tell and re-tell the painful story. During this co-search process the following aspects of doing ethics and pastoral care and counselling with the mother are constantly negotiated. The term "missing child" is defined and the relevance between the distinction of "missing children" and "run-away children" is discussed. Furthermore, this study explores the many diverse practices of narrative pastoral care and counselling with parents of missing children within an economically disadvantaged community. The conceptualisations regarding loss, hope and meaning-making and how these are utilised in the life of a missing child's mother is discussed. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th.

This dissertation considers whether photography as a language translates a transient moment into an embodied image. This is considered to be a mimesis of the moment as an aid for memory. By following a dialectic approach I posit a thesis based on the common sense perception of photography which states that photography is an artefactual mimesis aiding memory. After reflecting on Plato’s concept of writing as a pharmakon and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction theory I establish an antithesis which proclaims that a photograph aids memory but also leads to the illusion of remembering past experiences. The synthesis is then presented which resolves the opposing ideas. This component argues that a photograph is a mimetic device that aids memory by presenting embodied fragmented reflections of time which can be used to create new meanings and memories. The dissertation concludes with a discussion that supports and integrates this argument with visual research. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

This project forms part of a growing engagement with biology by critical psychology and, more broadly, body studies. The specific focus is on the neurological body whose dogmatic exclusion from critical endeavours is challenged by arguing that neuroscience offers a vital resource for emancipatory agendas. Rather than conversely treating biology as a site for the factual supplementation of social theory the aim is to engage (negotiate) with neuroscience more directly and critically. In this process a discursive reductionism and attempted escape from complicity associated with critical psychology are addressed. Similarly a naïve and apolitical empiricism claimed by neuroscience is disrupted. The primary objective is however to demonstrate the utility of neuroscience in developing critical theory. These objectives are pursued through the ‘method’ of deconstruction, (mis)reading several highly regarded neuroscience texts written by prominent neuroscientists, working within the convolutions of these texts so as develop openings for critical conceptualisations of (neural) corporeality. In this manner the various spectres associated with neurology, including essentialism, determinism, individualism, reductionism and dualism, are displaced. This includes, amongst others, the omnipresent mind/body and body/society binaries. The (mis)readings address a number of prominent themes associated with contemporary neuroscience: Attempts at specifying an identity for (part of) the brain are shown to rely on a necessary relationship with the excluded other (such as the body, the socio-cultural, and the environment). Similarly, attempts at articulating a centre, a point from which agency can proceed, which finds existing identity in the functions of the prefrontal cortices, are also undone by the (multiple, affective, and unconscious) other which decentres the centre by being the essential supplement for any such claims. The causal metaphysic must likewise proceed within the play of différance, a logic of difference and deferral that undermines causal routes, innate origins and autocratic centres. Finally, reductionism must advance as a necessary strategy through which to engage with complexity, its ambitions always impossible as the aneconomic is forever in excess of any economy. The emancipatory viability of such (mis)readings is discussed within a context where the open and malleable body has been co-opted by contemporary neo-liberal geoculture. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)