Good theory; bad politics - this is how Zizek's works have been described. Now Chris McMillan argues that Zizek's reading of global capitalism could reinvent political subversion. He highlights the political consequences of Zizek's fundamental concepts, such as the Lacanian Real, universality and the communist hypothesis. He argues that Zizek's turn to Communism represents the ultimate significance of Zizek's work for the 21st century and a marked new direction for Zizekian theory. While Zizek's work attracts a lot of labels, most (...) of them pejorative - communist, conservative, anti-semantic - Chris McMillan identifies Zizek's unique and productive contribution to social and political theory, constructing his work as a response to the difficulties of contemporary social theory and the political deadlock of global capitalism. (shrink)

If knowledge is socially constructed, then students' discursive attachments should be eminently malleable. Students' radical openness to change, however, is not the defining characteristic of a university classroom. Instead, learners appear to desire coherence of knowledge over revelations of contingency, and pedagogical acts that disrupt existing formations are as likely to produce reactionary responses as revolutionary reorganizations of the self. In this article Chris McMillan argues that neither the constructivist nor the social constructionist readings of critical pedagogy are able to (...) account for this fixity of knowledge. In response he contends that Slavoj Žižek's Lacanian-inspired theory of subjectivity and of the Real can effectively respond to the limitations of these approaches by insisting upon the pedagogical value of the lack within subjectivity. A Žižekian conception of subjectivity is able to respond to this lacuna by positing the negativity of the subject as the agent of transformation and to produce a “pedagogy of the impossible” that evokes the moments of impossibility within discourse embodied by the subject qua the Lacanian Real. (shrink)

European and international regulation of human health research is typified by a morass of interconnecting laws, diverse and divergent ethical frameworks, and national and transnational standards. There is also a tendency for legislators to regulate in silos—that is, in discrete fields of scientific activity without due regard to the need to make new knowledge as generalisable as possible. There are myriad challenges for the stakeholders—researchers and regulators alike—who attempt to navigate these landscapes. This Delphi study was undertaken in order to (...) provide the first interdisciplinary and crosscutting analysis of health research regulation, as it is experienced by such stakeholders in the UK context. As well as reinforcing existing understandings of the regulatory environment, Delphi participants called for greater collaboration, and even co-production, of processes involved in health research regulation. On the basis of this research, we offer insights about how health research regulation can become a matter with which a wider range of stakeholders—including researchers, regulators, publics and research sponsors—can engage. The evidence supports the normative claim that health research regulation should continue to move away from strict, prescriptive rules-based approaches, and towards flexible principle-based regimes that allow researchers, regulators and publics to co-produce regulatory systems serving core principles. By unpacking thorny concepts and practices at the heart of health research regulation—including the public interest and public engagement—our results have the potential to situate and breathe life into them. The results also demonstrate that while proportionality is well-recognised as a crucial element of flexible regulatory systems, more must be done to operationalise this as an ethical assessment of the values and risks at stake at multiple junctures in the research trajectory. This is required if we are to move beyond proportionality as a mere risk-management tool. Compliance culture no longer accurately reflects the needs and expectations of researchers or regulators, nor does it necessarily produce the best research. Embracing uncertainty—both as a human practice and a regulatory objective—may represent the brighter future for health research. (shrink)

The explosion of academic research in organizational studies provides new understanding of organizational and human behavior. The life of Witold Kieżun, a man of action and a first class scholar, parallels this scientific work, where he directly experienced vast changes in the socialist economies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Empire, and the academic studies of organizations in North America and Western Europe. His primary interest what is managerial decision-making, and the various tools and constraints that lead to superior outcomes.

This book explores the theories of transhumanism and posthumanism, two philosophies that deal with radically changing bodies, minds, and even the nature of humanity itself.

Lacanian psychoanalysis, embodied in contemporary thought by Slavoj Žižek’s dialectical materialist rehabilitation of universality, enables a form of political analysis based on the possibility of structural change. Many political theorists argue that because psychoanalysis stresses the negative ontological base of the social it is fundamentally conservative and nihilistic. Conversely, the very political value of psychoanalysis lies in its accent on the Real. The main political insight of Lacanian psychoanalysis is not to reveal the contingency of the social, but rather the (...) disavowed foundation on which these constructions are based; the concrete universal. As such, this paper seeks to develop a discursive strategy that practices concrete universality, taking on the fundamental insights of Žižek’s position whilst grounding them in a strategy which can be used to inform political interventions. The strategy analyses both the manner in which universal imaginaries domesticate the effect of the symptom and the possibilities for practicing concrete universality and in doing so evoking radical structural change. (shrink)

Huldyrch Zwingli, the first Swiss reformer in Zurich, made significant contributions to the 16th-century Reformation, yet he remains relatively unknown, if not forgotten. He is generally overshadowed by other reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. This article attempts to bring Zwingli to the surface by examining some of his contributions in Zurich which impacted the Reformation at large. This is especially significant because 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of Zwingli. The aim of the article is to provide an (...) overview of Zwingli's contributions to the Reformation and point out how his works, in given areas such as faith and society, theology and sacraments, have stimulated further developments and dialogues during the Reformation and beyond. (shrink)