Download or read book Political Violence and the Imagination written by Mathias Thaler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a variety of theoretical reflections and empirically grounded case studies, this book examines how certain kinds of imagination – political, artistic, historical, philosophical – help us tackle the challenge of comprehending and responding to various forms of political violence. Understanding political violence is a complex task, which involves a variety of operations, from examining the social macro-structures within which actors engage in violence, to investigating the motives and drives of individual perpetrators. This book focuses on the faculty of imagination and its role in facilitating our normative and critical engagement with political violence. It interrogates how the imagination can help us deal with past as well as ongoing instances of political violence. Several questions, which have thus far received too little attention from political theorists, motivate this project: Can certain forms of imagination – artistic, historical, philosophical – help us tackle the challenge of comprehending and responding to unprecedented forms of violence? What is the ethical and political value of artworks depicting human rights violations in the aftermath of conflicts? What about the use of thought experiments in justifying policy measures with regard to violence? What forms of political imagination can foster solidarity and catalyse political action? This book opens up a forum for an inclusive and reflexive debate on the role that the imagination can play in unpacking complex issues of political violence. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the journal, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.
Download or read book Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary written by Ann V. Murphy and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Images of violence enjoy a particular privilege in contemporary continental philosophy, one manifest in the ubiquity of violent metaphors and the prominence of a kind of rhetorical investment in violence as a motif. Such images have also informed, constrained, and motivated recent continental feminist theory. In Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary, Ann V. Murphy takes note of wide-ranging references to the themes of violence and vulnerability in contemporary theory. She considers the ethical and political implications of this language of violence with the aim of revealing other ways in which identity and the social bond might be imagined, and encourages some critical distance from the images of violence that pervade philosophical critique.
Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Social Representations written by Gordon Sammut and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-25 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook provides the requisite theoretical and methodological guidelines for undertaking social research addressing relevant contemporary social issues.
Download or read book Social Imaginaries written by Suzi Adams and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by members of the Social Imaginaries Editorial Collective, these programmatic essays showcase new critical interventions in understandings of social imaginaries and the human condition. They include a new comparative approach to theorizing Castoriadis, Ricoeur, and Taylor; the rethinking of the creative imagination in relation to common sense; analyses of political imaginaries in neoliberal and constitutional contexts from perspectives drawing on Gauchet and Lefort; and the taking up questions of historical continuity and discontinuity in civilizational worlds. In addressing pressing questions concerning social imaginaries, the book advances the field as a whole. The book includes a Foreword by George H. Taylor. This book is a must-read for all scholars interested in social and political imaginaries and will appeal to researchers and graduate students working across a wide variety of disciplines in the human sciences.
Download or read book Imaginary Social Worlds written by John L. Caughey and published by Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The violent fantasies of such figures as Mark David Chapman, killer of John Lennon, and John Hinckley, would-be assassin of President Reagan, have commonly been interpreted, by professionals and public alike, as socially aberrant--as the result of psychological instability. John L. Caughey's provocative study shows not only that such fantasies are shaped by enculturation, but also that they are closely linked in content and form to the more benign imaginative constructs of "normal" Americans. A new departure in the study of American society, this book takes a cultural approach to imaginary social experience, viewing the imaginary social interactions in dreams, fantasies, memories, anticipations, media involvement, and hallucinations as social processes because they involve people in pseudo-interactions with images of other people. Drawing on his anthropological research in the United States, Pakistan, and Micronesia, Caughey explores from a phenomenological perspective the social patterning that prevails in each of these imaginary worlds. He analyzes the kinds of identities and roles the individual assumes and examines the kinds of interactions that are played out with imagined persons. Caughey demonstrates that imaginary social relationships dominate much of our subjective social experience. He also shows that these imaginary relationships have many important connections to actual social conduct. Moreover, cultural values dictate the texture of the mental processes: imaginary conversations both reflect and reinforce the basic beliefs of the society, imagined anticipations of the reactions of real other people can serve social control functions, and media figures affect actual social relations by serving as mentors and role models. Caughey's arresting reappraisal of the world of fantasy is, in the words of James P. Spradley, "an outstanding job of scholarship" and "a unique contribution to the field of anthropology in general, to the study of culture and cognition, and to the study of American culture specifically."
Download or read book Coexistence in the Aftermath of Mass Violence written by Eve Zucker and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coexistence in the Aftermath of Mass Violence demonstrates how imagination, empathy, and resilience contribute to the processes of social repair after ethnic and political violence. Adding to the literature on transitional justice, peacebuilding, and the anthropology of violence and social repair, the authors show how these conceptual pathways—imagination, empathy and resilience—enhance recovery, coexistence, and sustainable peace. Coexistence (or reconciliation) is the underlying goal or condition desired after mass violence, enabling survivors to move forward with their lives. Imagination allows these survivors (victims, perpetrators, bystanders) to draw guidance and inspiration from their social and cultural imaginaries, to develop empathy, and to envision a future of peace and coexistence. Resilience emerges through periods of violence and its aftermaths through acts of survival, compassion, modes of rebuilding social worlds, and the establishment of a peaceful society. Focusing on society at the grass roots level, the authors discuss the myriad and little understood processes of social repair that allow ruptured societies and communities to move toward a peaceful and stable future. The volume also illustrates some of the ways in which imagination, empathy, and resilience may contribute to the prevention of future violence and the authors conclude with a number of practical and policy recommendations. The cases include Cambodia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, Colombia, the Southern Cone, Iraq, and Bosnia.
Download or read book The Radical Imagination written by Doctor Alex Khasnabish and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-12 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of the imagination is as evocative as it is elusive. Not only does the imagination allow us to project ourselves beyond our own immediate space and time, it also allows us to envision the future, as individuals and as collectives. The radical imagination, then, is that spark of difference, desire and discontent that can be fanned into the flames of social change. Yet what precisely is the imagination and what might make it 'radical'? How can it be fostered and cultivated? How can it be studied and what are the possibilities and risks of doing so? This book seeks to answer these questions at a crucial time. As we enter into a new cycle of struggles marked by a worldwide crisis of social reproduction, scholar-activists Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish explore the processes and possibilities for cultivating the radical imagination in dark times. A lively and crucial intervention in radical politics, social research and social change, and the collective visions and cultures that inspire them.
Download or read book Computer Games and the Social Imaginary written by Graeme Kirkpatrick and published by Polity. This book was released on 2013-10-07 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computer games have fundamentally altered the relation of self and society in the digital age. Analysing topics such as technology and power, the formation of gaming culture and the subjective impact of play with computer games, this text will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media, games studies and the information society.
Download or read book Schooling the Violent Imagination written by John F. Schostak and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-03-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The violent imagination begins in experiences of violation against the self and grows through the stories, myths, folktales and anecdotes of everyday life. Originally published in 1986, John Schostak discusses the educational, social and moral implications of the violent imagination in connection with theories of violence, childrearing practices, and schooling as a childrearing institution. He also looks at the relation between sexism, racism, drugs and the emergence of a vandalised sense of self. The book explores the complex ways in which images of violence pervade society, inform action and provide interpretations of events. Schools, the author argues, contribute towards the development of a violent imagination which guides judgements and actions. The child’s images and experiences of violation may involve physical assault or psychological forms of assault. Some of these experiences of violation and violence are considered normal, even moral (‘spare the rod and spoil the child’); others are considered abnormal, criminal, pathological – although the abstract logical form of each may be equivalent. Nevertheless, all such images contribute towards the development of a sense of violation, and children are schooled to accept normal forms and reject abnormal forms.
Download or read book Social Imaginaries in a Globalizing World written by Hans Alma and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to study the contemporary dynamics between the religious, the nonreligious and the secular in a globalizing world? Obviously, their relationship is not an empirical datum, liable to the procedures of verification or of logical deduction. We are in need of alternative conceptual and methodological tools. This volume argues that the concept of ‘social imaginary’ as it is used by Charles Taylor, is of utmost importance as a methodological tool to understand these dynamics. The first section is dedicated to the conceptual clarification of Taylor's notion of social imaginaries both through a historical study of their genealogy and through conceptual analysis. In the second section, we clarify the relation of ‘social imaginaries’ to the concept of (religious) worldviewing, understood as a process of truth seeking. Furthermore, we discuss the practical usefulness of the concept of social imaginaries for cultural scientists, by focusing on the concept of human rights as a secular social imaginary. In the third and final section, we relate Taylor's view on the role of social imaginaries and the new paths it opens up for religious studies to other analyses of the secular-religious divide, as they nowadays mainly come to the fore in the debates on what is coined as the ‘post-secular.’
Download or read book The Meanings of Violence written by Gavin Rae and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-17 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence has long been noted to be a fundamental aspect of the human condition. Traditionally, however, philosophical discussions have tended to approach it through the lens of warfare and/or limit it to physical forms. This changed in the twentieth century as the nature and meaning of ‘violence’ itself became a conceptual problem. Guided by the contention that Walter Benjamin’s famous 1921 ‘Critique of Violence’ essay inaugurated this turn to an explicit questioning of violence, this collection brings together an international array of scholars to engage with how subsequent thinkers—Agamben, Arendt, Benjamin, Butler, Castoriadis, Derrida, Fanon, Gramsci, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Schmitt—grappled with the meaning and place of violence. The aim is not to reduce these multiple responses to a singular one, but to highlight the heterogeneous ways in which the concept has been inquired into and the manifold meanings of it that have resulted. To this end, each chapter focuses on a different approach or thinker within twentieth and twenty-first century European philosophy, with many of them tackling the issue through the mediation of other topics and disciplines, including biopolitics, epistemology, ethics, culture, law, politics, and psychoanalysis. As such, the volume will be an invaluable resource for those interested in Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, History of Ideas, Philosophy, Politics, Political Theory, Psychology, and Sociology.
Download or read book Anthropology of Violence and Conflict written by Bettina Schmidt and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of wars in Sarajevo and Sri Lanka as well as numerous less publicised conflicts, aim to create a theory of violence as cross-culturally applicable as possible. This book develops a method of cross-cultural analysis.
Download or read book Violence and Social Orders written by Douglass Cecil North and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-26 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book integrates the problem of violence into a larger framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked.
Download or read book The Force of Nonviolence written by Judith Butler and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judith Butler’s new book shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality. Further, it argues that nonviolence is often misunderstood as a passive practice that emanates from a calm region of the soul, or as an individualist ethical relation to existing forms of power. But, in fact, nonviolence is an ethical position found in the midst of the political field. An aggressive form of nonviolence accepts that hostility is part of our psychic constitution, but values ambivalence as a way of checking the conversion of aggression into violence. One contemporary challenge to a politics of nonviolence points out that there is a difference of opinion on what counts as violence and nonviolence. The distinction between them can be mobilised in the service of ratifying the state’s monopoly on violence. Considering nonviolence as an ethical problem within a political philosophy requires a critique of individualism as well as an understanding of the psychosocial dimensions of violence. Butler draws upon Foucault, Fanon, Freud, and Benjamin to consider how the interdiction against violence fails to include lives regarded as ungrievable. By considering how ‘racial phantasms’ inform justifications of state and administrative violence, Butler tracks how violence is often attributed to those who are most severely exposed to its lethal effects. The struggle for nonviolence is found in movements for social transformation that reframe the grievability of lives in light of social equality and whose ethical claims follow from an insight into the interdependency of life as the basis of social and political equality.
Download or read book Violence and Civilization written by Roderick Campbell and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays begins with the premise that violence, in its relationship to order, is a central element of history. Taking a broad definition of violence, including structural and symbolic violence, the contributions move beyond the problematic of civilization’s mitigating or foundational role, instead seeing violence as inherently social, and, perhaps, socially inherent (if variable). The question then becomes what forms of harm are authorized or banned in which social orders and how they change over time. Beginning with a theoretical introduction, this interdisciplinary volume includes seven papers representing cultural anthropology, history, archaeology and international relations. The papers range from China to the Americas and from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 21st century CE. Some deal with long-term developments while others focus on a single time and place. Many treat the issue of the visibility/invisibility of violence, while all in one way or another deal with the role of violence in the re-production of community. Together, the volume aims to paint, with a few strokes, the outlines of a deep historical anthropology of social violence. The volume is based on the proceedings of a symposium hosted at Brown University.
Download or read book Formations of Violence written by Allen Feldman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1991-08-13 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A sophisticated and persuasive late-modernist political analysis that consistently draws the reader into the narratives of the author and those of the people of violence in Northern Ireland to whom he talked. . . . Simply put, this book is a feast for the intellect"—Thomas M. Wilson, American Anthropologist "One of the best books to have been written on Northern Ireland. . . . A highly imagination and significant book. Formations of Violence is an important addition to the literature on political violence."—David E. Schmitt, American Political Science Review
Download or read book Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination written by Henry Jenkins and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How popular culture is engaged by activists to effect emancipatory political change One cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination represents a call for greater clarity about what we’re fighting for—not just what we’re fighting against. Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes “civic imagination” as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culture—from Beyoncé to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VR—for the vernacular through which they can express their discontent with current conditions. A young activist uses YouTube to speak back against J. K. Rowling in the voice of Cho Chang in order to challenge the superficial representation of Asian Americans in children’s literature. Murals in Los Angeles are employed to construct a mythic imagination of Chicano identity. Twitter users have turned to #BlackGirlMagic to highlight the black radical imagination and construct new visions of female empowerment. In each instance, activists demonstrate what happens when the creative energies of fans are infused with deep political commitment, mobilizing new visions of what a better democracy might look like.
