The full (edited) text of a debate between Ernesto Laclau and Roy Bhaskar, held at the University of Essex some years ago, is available online.
…tip from Radical Reason & Materialism.
4 March 2010
27 February 2010
morale provisoire _ berlin
An event for Berlin discoursologists on Tuesday 2 March, 7pm in KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Rado Riha: The Idea as Thinking Politics
Over twenty years ago
Alain Badiou asked the question “Can politics be thought?”, which today he answers affirmatively via the notion of the idea of communism. For it poses a real reference point in terms of a “morale provisoire” both for our thinking and existence.
In order to fulfill these moral demands we—as “materialists of the event and the exception” (Badiou)—should not forget to ask how such a materialism of the idea could be manifested. In this context one has to consider whether Kant’s philosophy offers any starting points for this materialism of the idea.
Rado Riha is a philosopher at the Institute of Philosophy, Centre for Scientific Research at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana as well as professor of philosophy at the University of Nova Gorica (post-graduate program of Intercultural Studies). He studied at the University of Ljubljana and, in the 1980s, belonged to the so-called “Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis”. His research focuses on ethics, epistemology, contemporary French philosophy, the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. From 1996 to 2003 he edited the journal Filozofski Vestnik whose board member he has been since 1993. In English, Riha published “Politics as the real of philosophy” in Laclau: A Critical Reader (edited by Simon Critchley and Oliver Marchart, Routledge 2004); available as publications in German are Reale Geschehnisse der Freiheit(1993) and Politik der Wahrheit (1997, in cooperation with Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière and Jelica Šumič). Currently Riha is working on a book on Badiou and Kant.
Further discussions are planned with Lorenzo Chiesa, Peter Hallward, Alberto Toscano, Nina Power, amongst others.
25 February 2010
Entrepreneurial self on stage
The entrepreneurial self, flexibilisation, self-optimisation, authenticity, work, intrapreneurship, patchwork-biographies, lifelong learning… neo-liberal discourses of the flexible self…
For Berliners: Der flexible Mensch* is appearing in a very amusing and thought-provoking project Entgrenzung (by Frank Oberhäußer) at the Schaubühne’s Studio stage. Only two more shows: 13 and 14 March. Highly recomended.
*Der Flexible Mensch is the German title of Richard Sennett’s (1998) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences Of Work In the New Capitalism.
22 February 2010
Language use and ideology
Open source manuscripts! And not only uploaded by third parties, but by the authors themselves. Jef Verschueren’s latest book, for instance, is currently available online in draft form. In it, he argues that a ‘permanent monitoring of ideological processes’ is ‘imperative’. And that pragmatics offers useful tools to do this.
The book deals with what for me is one of the most fascinating (and important) aspects of language use: commonsensicalness.
Once ways of thinking about relations between groups of people are felt to be ‘normal’, they may become powerful tools for legitimating attitudes, behavior, and policies, whatever the frequently negative consequences in terms of discrimination, patterns of dominance, and even violence.
And more specifically, he offers an interesting thesis on hegemony which promises to engage closely with language practices:
Thesis 1.1.1: The wider the society or community, and the wider the range of discourse genres in which a given pattern of meaning or frame of interpretation escapes questioning, the more ‘hegemonic’ it may be.
The manuscript, which provides a research tool to explore these issues: Engaging with Language Use and Ideology: Pragmatic guidelines for empirical ideology research.
21 February 2010
The communist hypothesis
I’m enthused. When there seems to be such a very widespread consensus that neo-liberalism, the entrepreneurial self, competitiveness, anti-immigration, securitisation, etc. are inevitable and unavoidable, it can seem that there is no way to dislodge this set of beliefs; no way to push an alternative hegemonic project into the mainstream; or to shift the discursive field.
Badiou to the rescue. 
To get out of the depressive malaise, he says, drawing on Lacan, we have to move from impotence to impossibility. Yes, of course getting rid of inequality or the desire for wealth is impossible, but we can still hold onto those points and ‘endure in the impossible’. Beyond Sarkozy, my favourite section in this book is Badiou’s resignification of ‘communism’. ‘Communism’ denotes a ‘very general set of intellectual representations’:
This set is the horizon of any initiative, however local and limited in time it may be, that breaks with the order of established opinions – the necessity of inequalities and the state instrument for protecting these – and composes a fragment of a politics of emancipation. In other words, communism is what Kant calls an ‘Idea’, with a regulatory function, rather than a programme. It is absurd to characterize communist principles in the sense I have defined them as utopian, as is so often done. They are intellectual patterns, always actualized in a different fashion, that serve to produce likes of demarcation between different forms of politics. By and large, a particular political sequence if ether compatible with these principles or opposed to them, in which case it is reactionary. ‘Communism’ in this sense, is a heuristic hypothesis that is very frequently used in political argument, even if the word itself does not appear. (Alain Badiou, 2008, The Meaning of Sarkozy, p. 99)
29 October 2009
Ethnographic discourse analysis – Part II
Another exciting take on (or: use of) ethnographic discourse analysis is Helen Gregory’s study of poetry slams. In her Art in Action: Exploring Poetry Slam with Ethnographic Discourse Analysis paper at ESA2009 (9th Conference of European Sociological Association, Lisbon, 02-05 September 2009) she tells us she is particularly interested in:
The merits of interdisciplinary research (combining especially sociology, psychology and the arts) the epistemological and theoretical underpinnings of such research what counts as a “text” the performative construction of auto/biography and identity and challenging the micro/macro divide.
She continues:
The study uses discourse analytic and ethnographic tools of enquiry to explore how slam participants mobilise poetry, informal conversation and other forms of action to weave stories about themselves and others.
It will be argued that these auto/biographies work both to construct individuals’ identities, and to help them to negotiate the status hierarchies which structure their daily lives and interactions. Ethnographic and discourse analytic approaches can thus be combined to produce an informative and sensitive account of the construction of identity in everyday interaction. I will contend that such in-depth explorations of micro level interaction are essential if we are to achieve a full understanding of the macro level social structures and processes which they help to constitute. After all, as Mead (1934: 37) notes, “history is nothing but biography, a whole series of biographies”.
(Pictures courtesy of Habse(e)ligkeit and Lone Star College)
28 October 2009
Ethnographic discourse analysis
On a random google for others also working on “ethnographic discourse analysis”, I came across some interesting links.
Martin Müller’s book, Making great power identities in Russia: An ethnographic discourse analysis of education at a Russian elite university (Zürich:LIT). A university seminar in Vienna (Gabriela B. Christmann).Thomas Scheffer’s Research Report: Statements, Cases, and Criminal Cases. The Ethnographic Discourse Analysis of Legal Discourse Formations in FQS. And a job offer: Assist. Prof of Ethnographic Discourse Analysis at Georgetown (from 1995!).
A detailed review of Steinkuehler, C. (2005). Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: A Critical Approach shows how Steinkuehler explores MMOGs is not only as a discursive practice but also participating in a discourse. She’s primarily interested in learning, and analyses specific interactions and literacy practices. Draws on Geertz and Gee (Big ‘D’ discourses). The reviewer is clear that this is an important book for her research, and writes:
I also get my understanding of game play as situated in a multiplicity of discourses from Steinkuehler and while I have become leery of completely downplaying the digital physicality of virtual worlds I can’t deny the linguistic or at the very least literary nature of the interactions that I observe online. While incomplete her explanation of communities in MMOGs as both communities of discourse and communities of practice is a useful tool for understanding communities in online settings and if her vision of MMOGs as discourses can be somewhat monolithic I’m not prepared to completely abandon it because of that one flaw.
Now I’m wondering what happens if we take a larger definition of ‘discourse’ — akin to Laclau and Mouffe’s work, or the Essex school as they are now being called, or even Gee’s Big ‘D’ disocurses. If we understand discourse as not only language, but also a range of other practices and even physicality, does the separation of ‘community of discourse’ and ‘community of practice’ break down?
9 October 2009
Maths for girls or boys
New maths textbooks are on the market in Germany: Specifically for boys (blue, mud, football, technology, quads, pirates) and specifically for girls (pink, ponies, angels, flowers, ballet, jewelry). Witches in the boys’ books are strong, dynamic, and dominant and get eaten by monsters. In the girls’ books the witches are friendly, charming, and demure and enjoy their peace and quiet.
But the publisher PONS (not currently a leading player in the German textbook publishing market) is not at all trading in old stereotypes here. Nono. It’s all about facilitating learning and letting young boys and girls work on tasks which genuinely interest them.
The problem is, I think PONS is probably right. Many young learners are so thoroughly embedded in current dominant versions of girlness and boyness that they really will enjoy these tasks more and probably put more effort into maths.
The long-term consequences of these differential subjectivations, though… Female scientists and engineers? Strong dynamic women? Males childcarers and nurses? If they enjoyed these maths tasks, perhaps they’ll have less enthusiasm for “new” roles? Or perhaps those who are enthusiastic will have to work harder than ever to overcome gender norms. Or maybe the kids take it all with a pinch of salt and are much more street-wise than we wise adults think.
25 April 2009
Agency as interactive achievement
Linguists are doing excellent micro-analytic work demonstrating in detail how ‘agency’ is so often the doings of several people in interaction, rather than the preserve and action of one specific individual and an intrinsic part of her_his identity. I do wonder whether this strikes a chord in other parts of society. Are we witnissing a broader acceptance of the notion of the decentred subject?
New article: Najma Al Zidjaly (2009) Agency as an interactive achievement. In Language in Society, 38: 177-200.
ABSTRACT
This study explores how agency emerges and is negotiated moment by moment in interaction by applying Erving Goffman’s notion of production format to an extended sequence of discourse that revolves around accomplishing a conjoint action: the rewriting of an official letter. Deconstructing the participants into the social roles they undertake in accomplishing this task illustrates what is involved in exercising agency: interactively negotiating production format roles and footing shifts through several linguistic strategies aimed at either claiming, ratifying, or rejecting the participants’ agency. These include providing options, negotiating production format roles, asking questions, speaking for another, questioning and asserting expertise, providing counter-arguments, and asserting past agentive selves. This study, thus, contributes to an understanding of agency as co-constructed, mediated, and continually negotiated, while also identifying specific linguistic strategies through which agency is negotiated in interaction.
(agency, disability, production format, social actor, conjoint action, linguistic strategies)
17 April 2009
Police assault during G20
G20. London. 1 April. A police officer assaults Ian Tomlinson, pushing him from behind. He falls to the ground. Shortly after, he dies. An official police statement announces he died from the effects of a heart attack. Apparently, another police statement says that protesters hindered medics from helping him. Findings of a second postmortem released today show that Tomlinson died from an abdominal haemorrhage.
The Guardian’s video of the incident, including slow version and commentary:
This event offers a quick academic or student a perfect opportunity for some ‘investigative discourse analysis’ (let’s call it IDA). Meaning: gather the news coverage texts from the “critical discourse moment” (Chilton), i.e., the initial incident. How was it reported? how quickly did Ian Tomlinson’s death disappear from the media radar?
Optimally, to contextualize the textual analysis in wider relations and practices, conduct some interviews with key actors (journalists, editors, police spokespeople, political spokespeople working during the G20 meeting…). The incident is still recent; they will be able to give the analyst a clear and legitimate version of what they recall.
Off to press with the analysis.
