The work of Jacques Lacan is second only to Freud in its impact on psychoanalysis. Yannis Stavrakakis clearly examines Lacan's challenging views on time, history, language, alterity, desire and sexuality from a political standpoint. It is the first book to provide an overview of the social and political implications of Lacan's work as a whole for students coming to Lacan for the first time. The first part of _Lacan and the Political_ offers a straightforward and systematic assessment of (...) the importance of Lacan's categories and theoretical constructions for concrete political analysis. The second half of the book applies Lacanian theory to specific examples of widely discussed political issues, such as Green ideology, the question of democracy and the hegemony of advertising in contemporary culture. (shrink)

This article focuses on two issues involved in the formation and political trajectory of populist representations within political antagonism. First, it explores the role of crisis in the articulation of populist discourse. This problematic is far from new within theories of populism but has recently taken a new turn. We thus purport to reconsider the way populism and crisis are related, mapping the different modalities this relation can take and advancing further their theorization from the point of view of a (...) discursive theory of the political, drawing primarily on the Essex School perspective initially developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Second, this will involve focusing on the antagonistic language games developed around populist representations, something that has not attracted equal attention. Highlighting the need to study anti-populism together with populism, focusing on their mutual constitution, we will test the ensuing theoretical framework in an analysis of SYRIZA, a recent and, as a result, under-researched example of egalitarian, inclusionary populism emerging within the European crisis landscape. (shrink)

Two recent books on populism represent more than any other the new mainstream in populism studies. Through a reconstruction of the main arguments advanced by Jan-Werner Müller, on the one hand, and Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, on the other, this article aims to highlight both the significant accomplishments as well as the main limitations of this orientation. Special attention is given to the way in which the two projects deal with the relationship between populism and democracy. In this (...) respect, substantial differences emerge between them, largely due to the different scope of each intervention: Müller articulates a polemical argument, while Mudde and Kaltwasser seem to encompass a more nuanced research agenda. And yet, despite all their differences, the two books share a common definitional basis when they identify moralization and moralism as the kernel of populist ideology. It is here, however, that the shaky basis of the new mainstream is revealed. Apart from betraying substantive continuities with a discredited Cold War pluralism, this moralistic stress seems ultimately inadequate to function as the central criterion for the differential identification of populism. (shrink)

Introduction: Locating the Lacanian left -- Antinomies of creativity : Lacan and Castoriadis on social construction and the political -- Laclau with Lacan on jouissance : negotiating the affective limits of discourse -- Žižek's 'perversions' : the lure of Antigone and the fetishism of the act -- Excursus on Badiou -- What sticks? : from symbolic power to jouissance -- Enjoying the nation : a success story? -- Lack of passion : European identity revisited -- The consumerist 'politics of jouissance' (...) and the fantasy of advertising -- Democracy in post-democratic times. (shrink)

Los recientes movimientos y partidos igualitarios en Europa (SYRIZA, PODEMOS, Front de Gauche, etc.), por no mencionar el fenómeno Corbyn en el Reino Unido, han puesto radicalmente en duda la asociación materializada entre el populismo y la extrema derecha en el contexto europeo. SYRIZA ha sido el primero de estos partidos en mostrar esta tendencia y asumir el poder. En este trabajo, el caso griego se utiliza para ilustrar las premisas teóricas básicas, las orientaciones metodológicas, las innovaciones conceptuales y las (...) percepciones analíticas de un enfoque discursivo de la investigación sobre el populismo. Así, se hace especial hincapié (1) en la arquitectura del discurso de SYRIZA; (2) en el papel de la crisis en su articulación; (3) en los juegos lingüísticos polarizados que influyen en su trayectoria. En consecuencia, exploramos (1) si “el pueblo” funciona como el principal punto nodal en el discurso de SYRIZA dentro de una representación antagónica del espacio político; (2) hasta qué punto la crisis —como dislocación sistémica— desencadena y, simultáneamente —como construcción performativa— es producida por el discurso populista; (3) si tal construcción tiene lugar dentro de una cultura política polarizada marcada por la frontera mutuamente establecida entre discursos populistas y antipopulistas. Nuestro análisis abarca tanto el desempeño de SYRIZA en la oposición como su trayectoria en el poder. (shrink)

Las estrechas conexiones empíricas y las afinidades conceptuales entre el populismo y el nacionalismo han llevado a una superposición generalizada pero engañosa entre los conceptos de populismo y nacionalismo en los debates académicos, en el periodismo y en la retórica política. A pesar de la evidente importancia de las conexiones entre el nacionalismo y el populismo, sus relaciones conceptuales y empíricas han recibido una atención bastante limitada. Basándonos en la tradición teórico-discursivo post-estructuralista asociada a Laclau y Mouffe y la Escuela (...) de Essex de análisis del discurso, este artículo trata el populismo y el nacionalismo como formas distintas de construir discursivamente y de reclamar representar al “pueblo” como “los de abajo” (underdog en inglés) y como nación, respectivamente. Las diferencias entre ambos conceptos también se pueden identificar y resaltar desde una perspectiva espacial u orientacional, al mirar la arquitectura del populismo y el nacionalismo como si se estructurase en torno a un eje abajo/arriba (poder vertical) y un dentro/fuera (horizontal - identidad y territorio) respectivamente. Sobre la base de este marco, sugerimos que la coincidencia del populismo y el nacionalismo pueden estudiarse fructíferamente a través del prisma de la articulación. Una vez más, un enfoque en la arquitectura discursiva permite comprender cómo distintos proyectos políticos construyen diferentes discursos al conectar los componentes básicos del populismo y el nacionalismo de maneras particulares. La última parte del artículo ilustra los beneficios del enfoque teórico-discursivo al estudiar la articulación del populismo y el nacionalismo en el rechazo excluyente y nacionalista de la derecha populista radical de la diversidad étnico-cultural y en las críticas de la política supranacional y multinacional encontradas tanto en la izquierda como en la derecha. (shrink)

Throughout the last two decades, discussions around “post-hegemony” have stimulated exchanges around different theorizations of “hegemony” and their limits – not only the one by Antonio Gramsci, but also the predominantly discursive reformulation put forward by Laclau & Mouffe. Very recently, a new article by Peter Thomas on post-hegemony (2020) is triggering new debates on the issue. In this paper, Thomas’s contribution is, first, presented and discussed. In the second section, certain issues that have been recently raised from a post-hegemonic (...) perspective vis-à-vis Thomas’s intervention and beyond are thematized. These two exercises provide an opportunity to clarify further, by way of conclusion, certain issues at stake in the ensuing debate from an Essex School perspective. (shrink)

It is one of the paradoxes of our age that the 'success' of democracy in Eastern Europe and South Africa is coupled with grave disappointment in the 'birth places' of modern democracy. This dis appointment is partly due to the irreducible ambiguity entailed in democratic institutional arrangements. Democracy, in fact, is founded on this ambiguity. It attempts to construct social unity on the basis of recognizing the lack around which the social field is always structured. In that sense the source (...) of the disappointment caused by democracy is of an ethical status. It is the antithesis between the ambiguity of democracy and a still hegemonic ethics of harmony. Any aspiration, however, to eliminate the ambiguity of democracy ignores the innovative logic of democratic politics. If the ethics of harmony lead to a de-democratization of democracy, what a radical democratic project needs today is an ethical basis of a totally different nature. Here, the ethics of psychoanalysis, as formulated in the Lacanian tradition, can be of great help. Key Words: democracy • ethics • harmony • Lacan • psychoanalysis. (shrink)

In a recent article published in Theory, Culture & Society Michael Billig proposed a formal, rhetorical method of evaluating Lacanian theory, applying it in a critical reading of Lacan’s early work on the ‘mirror stage’. What is crucially at stake in this reading is Lacan’s citation practices: indeed, Lacan is credited with significant omissions. Central among them is the ‘repression’ of the work of the French psychologist Henri Wallon in Lacan’s article on the ‘mirror stage’. Furthermore, it is also argued (...) that such omissions have been instrumental in the creation and reproduction of a whole Lacan mythology, which is supposedly uncritically accepted by Lacanian scholars. What this note attempts is a brief assessment of this critical method and of its conclusions. Is Lacan’s ‘repression’ of Wallon as straightforward as it seems? What criteria should be employed in evaluating Lacan’s complex citation practices? Is the assumed complicity of Lacanian scholars in Lacan’s mythologization really representative of the current status of Lacanian bibliography? Billig’s own repressions seem to cast serious doubts on the validity of his proposed method of evaluating Lacan. But his critique does open a much-needed debate on issues of intellectual debt and repression, and on the relation between psychoanalysis and academic discourse. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Place is a key concept in environmental studies and criticism. However, it is often overlooked as a dimension of situatedness in social studies of information. Rather, situatedness has been defined primarily as embodiment or social context. This paper explores place attachments in Big Data by adapting close and distant approaches for reading texts to examine the accessions data of the Arnold Arboretum, a living collection of trees, vines and shrubs established by Harvard University in 1872. Although it is an early (...) and unconventional example of the phenomenon, there are several reasons that the Arboretum is a useful site for investigating the relationship between Big Data and place. First, the category of place is embedded in a range of data fields used in the Arboretum’s records. Second, the Arboretum has long sought to be a place in which scientists and citizens alike can encounter large collections of data firsthand. Third, the place has shaped fluctuations in the daily production of data over the course of the Arboretum’s 144 year history. Furthermore, Arboretum data can help us see place in ways not necessarily tied to geolocation. Each of these place attachments suggests a different way in which data can be environmental: by being about, in, from, or generative of place. Taken together, these attachments offer a model for examining other data in relation to their environments. Moreover, the paper contends that rather than being detached from place, as prevailing discourses suggest, Big Data bring together more and further reaching place attachments than data sets of smaller sizes. (shrink)

Background Ethical considerations play a prominent role in the protection of human subjects in clinical research. To date the disclosure of ethical protection in clinical research published in the international nursing journals has not been explored. Our research objective was to investigate the reporting of ethical approval and informed consent in clinical research published in leading international nursing journals. Methods This is a retrospective observational study. All clinical research published in the five leading international nursing journals from the SCI Journal (...) Citation Reports between 2015 and 2017 were retrieved to evaluate for evidence of ethical review. Results A total of 2041 citations have been identified from the contents of all the five leading nursing journals that were published between 2015 and 2017. Out of these, 1284 clinical studies have been included and text relating to ethical review has been extracted. From these, most of prospective clinical studies discussed informed consent. Only half of those reported that written informed consent had been obtained; few reported oral consent, and few used other methods such as online consent or completion and return of data collection to denote assent. Notably, 36.2% of those did not describe the method used to obtain informed consent and merely described that “consent was obtained from participants or participants agreed to join in the research”. Furthermore, whilst most of clinical studies mentioned ethical approval; 92.5% of those stated the name of ethical committee and interestingly, only 37.1% of those mentioned the ethical approval reference. The rates of reporting ethical approval were different between different study type, country, and whether financial support was received. Conclusion The reporting of ethics in leading international nursing journals demonstrates progress, but improvement of the transparency and the standard of ethical reporting in nursing clinical research is required. (shrink)

The paradoxes about truth are the subject of extensive research. Developing an original approach, this book argues that we should diverge from classical logic and presents a number of formal theories of truth. Also included is a beginner-friendly introduction to semantic paradoxes, and a discussion of alternative non-classical theories.

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach - historical, literary, art-historical and archaeological - to the topics of ideology and identity in the medieval East Roman world. The individual chapters explore ideological discourses and practices in various contexts. In particular, they focus on the content of ideas and their role in shaping different kinds of group attachments and identifications within the imperial social order. Moreover, they explore the various visions of community which different collective identity discourses projected within and beyond the (...) political boundaries of the empire. Including both top-down and bottom-up perspectives, and exploring both the empire's centre and its periphery, this collection offers new insights into ideology and identity in the Byzantine world. (shrink)

What is the relation between image practices and the iconic power of flying and more specifically falconry? The book investigates for the first time this interaction by focusing on common intersections between culture and nature, vision and gaze, tactility and perception, perspective and surveillance, material and symbol. Also questions concerning political iconology, the migration of objects and images of human-animal interactions are addressed. With contributions by Baudouin van den Abeele, Horst Bredekamp, Robert Felfe, Peter Geimer, Yannis Hadjinicolaou, Christine Kleiter, (...) Klaus Krüger, Tanja Michalsky, Andrea Pinotti, Herman Roodenburg, Monika Wagner, Gerhard Wolf and Frank Zöllner. (shrink)

We present a model for genome evolution, comprising biologically plausible events such as transpositions inside the genome and insertions of exogenous sequences. This model attempts to formulate a minimal proposition accounting for key statistical properties of genomes, avoiding, as far as possible, unsupportable hypotheses for the remote evolutionary past. The statistical properties that are observed in genomic sequences and are reproduced by the proposed model are: (i) deviations from randomness at different length scales, measured by suitable algorithms, (ii) a special (...) form of size distribution (power law distribution) characterising different levels of genome organisation in the non‐coding, and (iii) extensive resemblance in the alternation of coding and non‐coding regions at several length scales (self‐similarity) in long genomic sequences of higher eukaryotes. BioEssays 23:647–656, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Globalism endowed us with McDonald's, 'the world’s local bank’, English football teams without English players and an irrepressible desire for more as enough is never good enough – the blanket is always too short. Our personal world as much as our social and political realities seem to have blithely surrendered to the madness of a civilization which views anything from corporate greed and global warming to military adventures and religious fundamentalism as normal as a door banging in the wind. The (...) destructive capabilities of our age have run too far ahead of our wisdom. However, the process is not irreversible if our thinking can postpone its retirement. _In Bed with Madness_ is ‘a well-argued, powerful and profound indictment of contemporary culture’, stylishly written – a reviewer said he would have bought it just for its humour! (shrink)

Moral perception is typically understood as moral properties perception, i.e., the perceptual registration of moral properties such as wrongness or dignity. In this article, I defend a view of moral perception as a process that involves imaginative apprehension of reality. It is meant as an adjustment to the dominant view of moral perception as moral properties perception and as an addition to existing Murdochian approaches to moral perception. The view I present here builds on Iris Murdoch’s moral psychology and holds (...) that moral perception is an imaginative exploration of the particularity of concrete objects of moral reality (e.g., persons, situations, and events), rather than a registration of moral properties. I argue that such imaginative apprehension includes direct and reflective uses of imagination and that this process grounds experiential moral knowledge that serves the ultimate role of moral perception: getting a better grip on concrete objects of moral reality. (shrink)

There are two links that stand in the foreground of Deleuze’s treatment of Epicurus and Lucretius: the themes of immanent naturalism and of the externality of ontological relations. However, the links are problematised in Difference and Repetition, which presents an important critique of the concept of the atom. I will argue that this critique reveals the limits of the intellectual affinity between ancient atomism and Deleuzian metaphysics; in particular, that Deleuze’s notions of relationality and spatium respond to problems raised by (...) the relations between atoms and by the not-being of the atomists’ vacuum. In this sense, Deleuze’s treatment of atomism is significant because it makes clear Deleuze’s aim in shifting the mereological vocabulary from points to lines; it shows what, in Deleuze’s sense, it means to unfound and sets down the conditions for a successful Deleuzian critique of essentialist varieties of the metaphysics of structure. (shrink)

The authors present their experience and practices of introducing cloud services, as a means to simplify the adoption of ICT in education, using Free/Open Source Software. The solution creates a hybrid cloud infrastructure, in order to provide a pre-installed virtual machine, acting as a server inside the school, providing desktop environment based on the Software as a Service cloud model, where legacy PCs act as stateless devices. Classroom management is accomplished using the application “Epoptes.” To minimize administration tasks, educational software (...) is provided accordingly, either on-line or through repositories to automate software installation. The advantages of the hybrid cloud implementation, include services that are not completely dependent on broadband connections’ state, minimal cost, reusability of obsolete equipment, ease of administration, centralized management, patches and educational software provisioning and, above all, facilitation of the educational procedure. (shrink)

Est publié, dans cet article, un nouveau décret d’Akraiphia en l’honneur des métèques de la cité qui ont participé à une guerre contre un Démétrios. Ce Démétrios doit être identifié avec le roi Démétrios Poliorcète et la guerre doit être datée de la période des révoltes des Béotiens contre Démétrios Poliorcète au début du iiie s. av. J.‑C. La cité accorde aux métèques le privilège d’isotélie.

The critique of the dominant image of thought bears important consequences for pedagogical theory and practice. I discuss how Deleuze can help us think about the role of the teacher, the teaching of thinking and the relationship between knowledge and learning. Reading Deleuze's Difference and Repetition as a treatise on thinking and its education, I argue that Deleuze's philosophy challenges and deepens our understanding of what teachers do, how pupils learn and how they learn to think. I show that Deleuze's (...) philosophy can contribute towards the articulation of sceptical but also creative pedagogical responses to the question of teaching, learning and thinking. (shrink)

Social ontology studies the nature and properties of social reality while social metaontology examines the relationship between ontology and the social sciences, which is often treated as a normative question. However, social sciences themselves contain ontological theses, raising the descriptive question of how these internal ontologies relate to the rest of the social sciences. This paper argues that important parts of sociology have an anti-foundationalist metaontology. This descriptive claim is used to build a normative argument against foundationalism and is supported (...) by examining the works of Durkheim and Weber and how their metaontological beliefs continue to influence many sociologists. (shrink)

This article confronts two different evaluations of the narrative identity paradigm in order to examine the possibility of a minimal narrative, practical identity without excessive stress on psychic unity and moral wholeness. It consists of three sections. The first part explains the criticisms of Lippitt and Quinn. Both authors warn of the MacIntyrean narrative model's emphasis on psychic unity and moral wholeness and argue for an ethical thinking that is built around concepts of psychic disunity and moral openness. The second (...) section introduces thoughts of Korsgaard and Frankfurt as having one important intuition in common: both their insights express the idea that our identity conceptions are intimately connected with processes of practical and moral reasoning; the ways in which we see ourselves are significant for the ways in which we act. Their sort-like conclusions are linked to the insights of Kennett and Matthews, who argue with help of empirical research on Dissociative Identity Disorder and psychopathy that we should understand our practical identity conceptions narratively. The third and last section shows how the insights of the first and second sections can be brought together in a truthful vision of moral reasoning and the moral person. It argues for a more realistic perspective on morality without altogether banishing narrative thinking, centred on the concept of moral responsiveness. This results in the affirmation of a basal practical, narrative identity and the acceptance of qualities as improvisation and imagination in moral reasoning. (shrink)

The basilica of the Faculty of Medicine plot at Knossos in Crete (beginning of 5th c.) and that of Antigoneia in Albania (end of 6th - beginning of 7th c.) constitute up to now two isolated examples in Eastern Illyricum, of churches whose sanctuary is in the form of a triconch added at the east of the naves. The study of these two edifices throws light on their differences and similarities, both architectural and functional; on the other hand a comparison (...) with other churches in the Mediterranean basin shows that they belong to a particular type, whose origin may be found in certain funerary monuments at Rome and the regions under its influence. We consider the choice of this particular type of sanctuary, the place above all where the mystery of the Eucharist is performed simulating the Last Supper celebrated in the "stage piece" at Jerusalem. If the trefoil plan is derived from the funerary edifices where funerary banquets and repasts in honour of the martyrs were performed, it is equally related to the triconch triclinia of the wealthy residences found particularly in the western part of the Roman Empire. Lastly, the mosaic paving in the Antigoneia church, whose decoration reflects a theological preoccupation that also occurs in the murals and the pavements of other trefoil sanctuaries, suggests that the lateral apses probably had functions similar to those described by Saint Paulin of Nola. (shrink)