This article theorizes the politics of witnessing and grief in the context of the embodied experience of cows raised for dairy in the Pacific Northwestern United States. Bearing witness to the mundane features of dairy production and their impact on cows' physical and emotional worlds enables us to understand the violence of commodification and the political dimensions of witnessing the suffering of an Other. I argue that greater attention should be paid to the uneven hierarchies of power in the act (...) of bearing witness. Centering the animal as a subject of witnessing allows us to see with particular clarity the ethical ambiguities at work in witnessing while at the same time attending to the importance of witnessing-as-politics. My project here is to lay bare moments of emotional and physical turmoil not seen as such—the lives that are rendered ungrievable—and examine how we can and should respond to them. Thus, this article contributes to feminist conversations about witnessing, grief, and the political function of emotion. (shrink)

Mari Mikkola identifies three primary forms of social injustice—oppression, domination, and discrimination—and asks what makes them wrong. She argues that feminist philosophy has thus far focused heavily on gender as a lens or anchor through which to understand and respond to injustice. In Mikkola's view, this orientation around gender is limiting feminist philosophers' theoretical engagement with the roots of injustice. To remedy this problem, she builds a case for moving toward a more broadly humanist conception of injustice. The humanist feminism (...) that she puts forth centers dehumanization as a way to theorize injustice; dehumanization, for Mikkola, is the very... (shrink)

Until recently, medicine has had little to offer most of the millions of patients suffering from rare and ultrarare genetic conditions. But the development in 2019 of Milasen, the first genetic intervention developed for and administered to a single patient suffering from an ultrarare genetic disorder, has offered hope to patients and families. In addition, Milasen raised a series of conceptual and ethical questions about how individualised genetic interventions should be developed, assessed for safety and efficacy and financially supported. The (...) answers to these questions depend in large part on whether individualised therapies are understood as human subjects research or clinical innovation, different domains of biomedicine that are regulated by different modes of oversight, funding and professional norms. In this article, with development and administration of the drug Milasen as our case study, we argue that at least some individualised genetic therapies are not, as some have argued, either research or treatment. Instead, they are research-treatment hybrids, a category that has both epistemological and pragmatic repercussions for funding, ethics oversight and regulation. (shrink)

This article is an interview with Elizabeth Grosz by Kathryn Yusoff and Nigel Clark. It primarily addresses Grosz’s approaches to ‘geopower’, and the discussion encompasses an exploration of her ideas on biopolitics, inhuman forces and material experimentation. Grosz describes geopower as a force that subtends the possibility of politics. The interview is accompanied by a brief contextualizing introduction examining the themes of geophilosophy and the inhumanities in Grosz’s work.

A construction is found in American Sign Language that we call a Question–Answer Clause. It is made of two parts: the first part looks like an interrogative clause conveying a question, while the second part resembles a declarative clause answering that question. The very same signer has to sign both, the entire construction is interpreted as truth-conditionally equivalent to a declarative sentence, and it can be uttered only under certain discourse conditions. These and other properties of Question–Answer Clauses are discussed, (...) and a detailed syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic account is provided. Question–Answer Clauses are argued to be copular clauses consisting of a silent copula of identity connecting an interrogative clause in the precopular position with a declarative clause in the postcopular position. Pragmatically, they instantiate a topic/comment structure, with the first part expressing a sub-question under discussion and the second part expressing the answer to that sub-question. Broader implications of the analysis are discussed for the Question Under Discussion theory of discourse structuring, for the analysis of pseudoclefts in spoken languages, and for recent proposals about the need for answerhood operators and exhaustivity operators in the grammar and the consequences for the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface. (shrink)

The foundation of ancient, invented writing systems lies in the predominant iconicity of their sign shapes. However, these shapes are often used not for their referential meaning but in a metaphorical way, whereby one entity stands for another. Metaphor, including its subcategories pars pro toto and metonymy, plays a crucial role in the formation of the earliest pristine invented scripts, yet this mechanism has been understudied from a cognitive, contextual, and comparative perspective. This article aims to address issues pertaining to (...) the definition, development, and application of these mechanisms in the formation of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Chinese scripts. We analyze the local cases of metaphor-in-action in primary inventions, focusing first on visual metaphors and, second, on the typical or idiosyncratic uses of metonyms. (shrink)

Recent societal changes, including a global pandemic, have exacerbated experiences of and attention to burnout related to work and parenting. In the present study, we investigated how several social forces can act as demands and resources to impact work-related and parental burnout. We tested two primary hypotheses in a sample of women who responded to an online survey. We found that social comparisons, social media use, negative emotions when comparing oneself to others on social media, and a high do it (...) all discrepancy were correlated with higher reports of work-related and parental burnout. Alternatively, positive emotions when comparing oneself to others and social support were related to lower reports of work-related and parental burnout. The influence of social media use on burnout was mediated by the emotions experienced when comparing oneself to others on social media. Tests of moderation indicated that social comparisons had stronger relationships with burnout for those with higher expectations that they should be able to do it all verses can do it all. Tests of social support as a moderator of the relationships between social demands and burnout were largely non-significant. Based on these findings, we make practical suggestions for interventions to increase positive emotions experienced from social media use, and to mediate the do it all discrepancy by redefining expectations around “doing it all.”. (shrink)

This paper introduces the theme of killing‐them‐softly between set‐theoretic universes. The main theorems show how to force to reduce the large cardinal strength of a cardinal to a specified desired degree. The killing‐them‐softly theme is about both forcing and the gradations in large cardinal strength. Thus, I also develop meta‐ordinal extensions of the hyper‐inaccessible and hyper‐Mahlo degrees. This paper extends the work of Mahlo to create new large cardinals and also follows the larger theme of exploring interactions between large cardinals (...) and forcing central to modern set theory. (shrink)

Becoming an expert in any knowledge domain takes time and a great deal of learning, both theoretical and experiential. The individual’s knowledge is often supplemented through knowledge exchanges with other experts. Such exchanges are facilitated by events such as conferences or meetings. For two years we have been investigating the high profile work of scientists who work in the accredited anti-doping laboratories that are located in various countries around the world. These scientists work to curb doping in sport by conducting (...) urinary analyses which detect athletes’ use of performance enhancing substances. These international experts, in the field of anti-doping science, work in a complex socio-technical context comprising both scientific and general anti-doping practitioners such as the staff of anti-doping agencies, sporting federations, sports physicians, coaches, athletes and the media. In order to maintain the high level of expertise necessary for this work, anti-doping scientists continuously search for and integrate new knowledge into everyday laboratory practice. To facilitate this process anti-doping scientists have developed working relationships and networks with other scientists working in the area. A major enabler of this process is the annual Manfred Donike Workshop on Dope Analysis. This paper describes the contribution of this event to the work of these expert scientists from an Activity Theory perspective. (shrink)

Refining the model for an emergency department‐based mental health nurse practitioner outpatient service The mental health nurse practitioner (MHNP) role based in the emergency department (ED) has emerged in response to an increase in mental health‐related presentations and subsequent concerns over waiting times, co‐ordination of care and therapeutic intervention. The MHNP role also provides scope for the delivery of specialised primary care. Nursing authors are reporting on nurse‐led outpatient clinics as a method of healthcare delivery that allows for enhanced access (...) to health‐care, particularly following hospital discharge. However, due to a lack of in‐depth substantiation, this mode of service delivery requires more thorough investigation. This study describes the refinement phase undertaken before the implementation and pilot evaluation of a formalised and structured MHNP outpatient service in the ED of a large inner‐city hospital in Sydney, Australia. An expert advisory panel (EAP) consisting of key local informants was convened to provide feedback on and refinement to the proposed model. This related to issues such as target population, structure and process considerations, outcome measures and interface within the overall health service. Findings from the EAP meeting are presented and discussed. The importance of linking methods with the appropriate methodology in evaluating a healthcare program is highlighted. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging and thoughtful study, Michael Allen Gillespie explores the philosophical foundation, or ground, of the concept of history. Analyzing the historical conflict between human nature and freedom, he centers his discussion on Hegel and Heidegger but also draws on the pertinent thought of other philosophers whose contributions to the debate is crucial—particularly Rousseau, Kant, and Nietzsche.

In Moral Passages, Kathryn Pyne Addelson presents an original moral theory suited for contemporary life and its moral problems. Her basic principle is that knowledge and morality are generated in collective action, and she develops it through a critical examination of theories in philosophy, sociology and women's studies, most of which hide the collective nature and as a result hide the lives and knowledge of many people. At issue are the questions of what morality is, and how moral theories (...) (whether traditional or feminist) are implemented. Addelson takes up a large number of historical cases and contemporary social problems, including teen pregnancy, contraception and abortion, and gay rights. These cases allow her to see how the knowledge and lives of some people are declared deviant or immoral, while those of others appear to show the public consensus. One case she uses throughout the book is Margaret Sanger's early work on birth control with the anarcho-syndicalist movement--a revisionist history that reveals rather than hides the collective nature of morality and knowledge. Addelson shows how the usual individualist philosophies promote theories which hide the authority of the professionals who make them. A collectivist approach, she argues, must show the part professionals play in collective action. Her aim is to allow professional knowledge makers to be morally and intellectually responsible. Based on Addelson's twenty years of work in feminist philosophy and interactionist sociology as well as her long-standing involvement in women's community organization, Moral Passages investigates how morality and knowledge are collectively enacted in today's world. (shrink)

Exposing the religious roots of our ostensibly godless age, Michael Allen Gillespie reveals in this landmark study that modernity is much less secular than conventional wisdom suggests. Taking as his starting point the collapse of the medieval world, Gillespie argues that from the very beginning moderns sought not to eliminate religion but to support a new view of religion and its place in human life. He goes on to explore the ideas of such figures as William of Ockham, (...) Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Descartes, and Hobbes, showing that modernity is best understood as a series of attempts to formulate a new and coherent metaphysics or theology. ''Bringing the history of political thought up to date and situating it against the backdrop of contemporary events, Gillespie's analyses provide us a way to begin to have conversations with the Islamic world about what is perhaps the central question within each of the three monotheistic religions: if God is omnipotent, then what is the place of human freedom?''. (shrink)

This paper presents a holistic, contextualised case study of reintegration and trust repair at a UK utilities firm in the wake of its fraud and data manipulation scandal. Drawing upon conceptual frameworks of reintegration and organizational trust repair, we analyze the decisions and actions taken by the company in its efforts to restore trust with its stakeholders. The analysis reveals seven themes on the merits of proposed approaches for reintegration after an integrity violation , and novel insights on the role (...) of organizational identity, “changing of the guard” and cultural reforms alongside procedural modifications. The case further supports the dynamic nature of stakeholder salience across the reintegration process. The study both supports propositions from existing frameworks and suggests novel theoretical extensions for future research. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the notion of monetary debt does not displace but merely conceals our deeper, ontological debt to the sources of our being and way of life. I suggest that first Christianity and then modern science attempted to find a means of redemption that could free us from debt, but that both were unable to reconcile the ideas of freedom and indebtedness. I then examine the way in which Friedrich Nietzsche tried to resolve the apparent contradiction (...) of our debt to the past and our freedom to shape the future by developing a new form of redemption rooted in his doctrine of the eternal recurrence. (shrink)

AI seems like the perfect response to the growing challenges of content moderation on social media platforms: the immense scale of the data, the relentlessness of the violations, and the need for human judgments without wanting humans to have to make them. The push toward automated content moderation is often justified as a necessary response to the scale: the enormity of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube stands as the reason why AI approaches are desirable, even inevitable. But even (...) if we could effectively automate content moderation, it is not clear that we should. (shrink)

This paper reviews major structural drivers of place-based health disparities in the context of Canada, an industrialized nation with a strong public health system. Likelihood that the COVID-19 pandemic will facilitate rejuvenation of Canada’s northern and remote areas through remote working, advances in online teaching and learning, and the increased use of telemedicine are also examined. The paper concludes by identifying some common themes to address healthcare disparities for northern and remote Canadian residents.

While there has been extensive research on deception, extant literature has not examined how deception is processed solely from the customer's perspective. Extensive qualitative interviews were conducted and analyzed to inform the proposed framework. Cognitive dissonance theory and attribution theory are used to frame the process consumers go through when deception is perceived. When consumers perceive deceit, they will consider attribution before determining intentionality. Internal attributions relieve the company of wrongdoing to some extent, whereas external attributions lead consumers to examine (...) several elements of deception including intent. Unintentional deceit will trigger assessments of magnitude, stability, and switching costs; while less is considered when deceit is intentional. The findings of this research are important for advancing theory in relation to deceit and for helping practitioners understand the importance of changing consumer cognitions before consumers decide to change their behavior by discontinuing the relationship. (shrink)

Most critiques of modernity rest on an inadequate understanding of its complexity. Modernity should be seen in terms of the question that guides modern thought. 77ns is the question of divine omnipotence that arises out of the nominalist destruction of Scholasticism. Humanism, Reformation Christianity, empiricsim, and rationalism are different responses to this question.

In the seven and a half years before his collapse into madness, Nietzsche completed Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the best-selling and most widely read philosophical work of all time, as well as six additional works that are today considered required reading for Western intellectuals. Together, these works mark the final period of Nietzsche’s thought, when he developed a new, more profound, and more systematic teaching rooted in the idea of the eternal recurrence, which he considered his deepest thought. Cutting against the (...) grain of most current Nietzsche scholarship, Michael Allen Gillespie presents the thought of the late Nietzsche as Nietzsche himself intended, drawing not only on his published works but on the plans for the works he was unable to complete, which can be found throughout his notes and correspondence. Gillespie argues that the idea of the eternal recurrence transformed Nietzsche’s thinking from 1881 to 1889. It provided both the basis for his rejection of traditional metaphysics and the grounding for the new logic, ontology, theology, and anthropology he intended to create with the aim of a fundamental transformation of European civilization, a “revaluation of all values.” Nietzsche first broached the idea of the eternal recurrence in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but its failure to gain attention or public acceptance led him to present the idea again through a series of works intended to culminate in a never-completed magnum opus. Nietzsche believed this idea would enable the redemption of humanity. At the same time, he recognized its terrifying, apocalyptic consequences, since it would also produce wars of unprecedented ferocity and destruction. Through his careful analysis, Gillespie reveals a more radical and more dangerous Nietzsche than the humanistic or democratic Nietzsche we commonly think of today, but also a Nietzsche who was deeply at odds with the Nietzsche imagined to be the forefather of Fascism. Gillespie’s essays examine Nietzsche’s final teaching—its components and its political, philosophical, and theological significance. The book concludes with a critical examination and a reflection on its meaning for us today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.1 (2000) 75-95 [Access article in PDF] "Not heretofore extant in print": Where the Mad Ranters Are Kathryn Gucer In 1654 Ephraim Pagitt published the fifth edition of Heresiography, subtitled "a Description of the Hereticks and Sectaries of these latter times." On the title page Pagitt promoted this latest edition of the catalog by stressing the "Additions" he had made. Among the (...) new targets of his anti-sectarian polemic were the Ranters, whom he introduced in a pithy character sketch as "an unclean beast much of the make with our Quaker." 1 But although Pagitt claimed to introduce the sect, Ranters had been around in print since Gerrard Winstanley attacked them in defense of his group, the Diggers, in 1649. 2 In fact writers had been attacking the sects generally--Anabaptists, Seekers, Brownists, Familists--in brief pamphlets like Winstanley's Vindication and in tome-like catalogs of sectarian "errours" since the outbreak of the Civil War. The anti-Ranter pamphlets were thus an incursion into an ongoing printed dialogue about the sects in general. Pagitt himself had been an interlocutor in this dialogue, having published four previous editions of his list. Why had he not marked the Ranters in 1649 and 1650 when Winstanley and others first noticed them?This essay will answer this question by arguing that the Ranters arose in dialogue across time, that they did not emerge spontaneously in Pagitt's 1654 text. When Pagitt introduced the sect in 1654, he was in fact responding to a heated discussion about the Ranters that had been developing for four years. He thus entered the debate a moment after "Ranters" and "ranting" had been defined by other pamphleteers. In this debate about the Ranters we can see the process by which pamphleteers invented a linguistic means of talking about religious diversity before it was an accepted feature of English society. At the same time that writers were exposing the Ranters' blasphemous excesses, they were also crafting a political identity for the group by attaching characteristic words and [End Page 75] behaviors to them in print. The printed controversy over the Ranters thus raises interesting questions about the relation between textual signification and actual politics. What were the processes by which pamphleteers invented new ways of talking about groups--sects and parties--in the period? What did labeling have to do with political identity?In fact the collective dialogue about the Ranters centered on a label that pamphleteers consistently attached to the group, their "madness." Although each writer identified the Ranters with a variety of creeds and practices, anti-Ranter pamphleteers all told their readers to view the group as an absence of reason. They claimed that Ranters were incapable of recognizing and conveying God's truth to their audience. Pagitt himself participated in the cooperative assault on Ranter madness. He consistently borrowed this language from his fellow interlocutors, branding the Ranters with terms such as "nonsensicall" and "absurd." Yet I argue that the label itself was largely a red herring. Writers shrewdly focused on Ranter unreason in order to persuade their readers not to use their own reason to consider the sectarian claims to authority. Moreover, writers shaped and reshaped what they meant by Ranter unreason in order to modulate its rhetorical effect on their readers. Thus it is not surprising that the precise construction of Ranter unreason shifted with the various responses these writers wanted to elicit from their readers. 3The explosion of anti-Ranter tracts, many of which had sensational titles showcasing the word "Ranters," indicated that the sect had particular rhetorical purchase on the public in the early 1650s: The Ranters Religion (11 October 1650), The Routing of the Ranters (19 November 1650), The Ranters Bible (9 December 1650), The Ranters Recantation And their Sermon (20 December 1650), The Joviall Crew, or the Devill turn'd RANTER (6 January 1651), Ranters of both Sexes, Male and Female (3 June 1651), RANTERS MONSTER (30 March 1652). 4 Although talk about Ranters was neither confined to print nor to... (shrink)

_Nietzsche's New Seas_ makes available for the first time in English a representative sample of the best recent Nietzsche scholarship from Germany, France, and the United States. Michael Allen Gillespie and Tracy B. Strong have brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines—philosophy, history, literary criticism, and musicology—and from schools of thought that differ both methodologically and ideologically. The contributors—Karsten Harries, Robert Pippin, Eugen Fink, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Kurt Paul Janz, Sarah Kofman, Jean-Michel Rey, and the editors themselves—take a new (...) approach to Nietzsche, one that begins with the claim that his enigmatic utterances can best be understood by examining the style or structure of his thought. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy is now an established subdiscipline, but it began as an effort to transform the profession. Academics and activists worked together to make the new courses, and feminist theory was tested in the streets. As time passed, the "second wave" receded, but core elements of feminist theory were preserved in the academy. How can feminist philosophers today continue the early efforts of changing profession and the society, hand in hand with women outside the academy.

Imagine a telephone conversation between a presidential aide and a wealthy supporter, shortly after news breaks that the president plans to veto a bill that the supporter strongly favors. The nervous aide opens with “I'm calling to let you know that the president regrets his, uh, his decision…” The supporter's hopes rise at the intimation that the president changed his mind. But when the aide continues: “… did not meet with your apparel, I mean, your approval,” the crestfallen (and, perhaps, (...) former) supporter realizes that the president is sorry merely about the impact of his decision, not the decision itself. The aide's utterance seems to mean one thing at first, but something entirely different in the end. Unintentional verbal about‐faces of this kind are common in everyday language use – the outspoken owner of an American baseball team recently said that she regretted her remarks offended many people – yet listeners rarely notice the miscues, the wealthy supporter notwithstanding. This is one of the chief motivations behind the psycholinguistic study of language use. (shrink)

Discussion of the worldwide corporate development of biotechnologies is sometimes diverted through the introduction of images of heroic medical intervention, exemplified by the statement, I would do anything to save my daughter. Such heroic images seem to justify virtually any deployment of resources and nearly any health or environmental risk. But it is instructive for future public discussions to examine the use of such images, and to note that those advocating a prominent role for biotechnologies in an expanding global economy (...) welcome such diversionary patterns. Our responsibility to do our own thinking is beset by conditions that may lead us astray. In a time burdened by profound worry—crushing inequalities among the world's peoples, an ecological crisis, and threat of nuclear war—it is tempting to avert our eyes when we are faced with grave new dangers. Moreover, in our increasingly visual culture, images have come to function as a facsimile of and substitute for real thinking. If we are to have significant discussions about the potential of biotechnology, we must not only be wary of promises of economic growth but must also be mindful of sources of diversion and the appeals of image-thinking. We should strive to become more critical of our own ways of thinking, thus opening the discussion to a fuller consideration of what needs to be saved. (shrink)

In the vertebrate spinal cord, motoneurons are clustered into longitudinal columns in agreement with the targets they innervate. Motoneurons within each column acquire properties early in development that ensure their axons navigate to appropriate targets, but how this target identity is specified is unknown. Recently, Tsuchida et al.(1) described the expression of putative regulatory genes within motor columns in the chicken spinal cord. Combinations of LIM‐family homeobox genes differentially mark columns that project to distinct target groups. Expression precedes column formation (...) and axon outgrowth, making these genes candidates for specifying the target identity of motoneuron groups. (shrink)

Liberal political thought affirms the moral equality of all persons. The Lockean tradition within liberalism captures this equality by endowing people with equal natural rights. However, a powerful line of criticism holds that the theory fails to live up to its egalitarian billing by treating men and women differently. This article offers a rational reconstruction of the Lockean position on gender equality, and the rights of women in particular. We propose a novel interpretative method which puts Locke into conversation with (...) a contemporary female author, Rachel Speght. In Speght, we find an interesting argument supporting an egalitarian Lockean view, grounded in familiar Lockean assumptions, using familiar Lockean arguments. Voices like Speght have long been unjustly neglected in the liberal tradition. By constructing this imagined conversation, we offer a stronger foundation for Lockean liberalism, and begin to incorporate excluded voices in the formulation of that tradition. (shrink)

This article provides a reading of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, which emerged in response to Covid-19 related public health measures in 2022. It argues the movement invites an interrogation of the affective structures of modern liberal subjectivity. We first map the social and political configurations of the movement, highlighting its links with white supremacist conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and Great Replacement Theory. We argue these conspiracies were used to frame Covid-19 countermeasures as the continuation of a perceived trend toward (...) the deliberate but surreptitious erosion of freedom qua white freedom. To this end, the notion the pandemic was really a ‘plandemic’ is informative. For adherents of this view, Covid-19 and its freedom-inhibiting countermeasures were merely deliberate steps towards an already occurring conspiracy. Referencing psychoanalytic theory, the article examines how racial liberalism structured the racist fantasies that drove the freedom movement’s attempts to safeguard freedom by flaunting Covid-19 restrictions. We argue the movement provided its members with a pathway towards jouissance that allowed fear to be performatively refused in the name of freedom. This, we argue, allowed members to embody their imagined status as exalted subjects of the white nation. (shrink)

The roles of women and of feminine identity have been historically and traditionally constructed around motherhood. However, recent years have seen a growing trend among women to remain childless/ childfree. Drawing on interviews with 25 voluntarily childless women, this article considers the extent to which this trend results from the appeal or pull of the perceived advantages of a childfree lifestyle as well as the ways childfree women might represent a more fundamental and radical rejection of motherhood and the activities (...) associated with it. The article concludes by considering how to recast understandings of feminine identity away from a mother-centered focus. (shrink)

The proliferation of violations within industry sectors (e.g., banking, doping in sport, abuse in religious organizations) highlights how trust violations can thrive in particular sectors. However, scant research examines how macro institutional factors influence micro level trustworthy conduct. To shed light on how sectoral features may influence trust violations in organizations, we adopt a multilevel perspective to investigate the perceived causes of trust violations within the not-for-profit (NFP) sector, a sector that has witnessed a number of high-profile trust breaches. Drawing (...) on interviews with board members and senior executives of NFPs with cross-sectoral experience, we analyze the causes of trust violations to inductively develop a conceptual model of the multilevel factors contributing to trust violations in NFPs. Our model highlights how trust violations have their roots in sectoral-level factors, which trickle-down to influence the ethical infrastructure at the organizational-level, and in turn individual-level factors and violations. We identify how three NFP sectoral features influence trustworthy behavior: corporatization, resource scarcity, and assumed moral integrity. Our findings speak to the importance of looking beyond the organization to understand both the causes and prevention of trust violations and developing the concept of sector-level ethical infrastructure. (shrink)

This essay produces a paradigmatic analysis of anti-Blackness from within the history and philosophy of biology in order to explore Frantz Fanon’s concept of ontological resistance. Through developing Sylvia Wynter’s notion of the Darwinian Imaginary alongside an Afropessimist paradigmatic analysis, the paper argues that scientific humanism’s claim that the Black is “the ostensible missing link between rational humans and irrational animals” (Wynter 2003: 266) is a form of metaphysical violence that the Black cannot ontologically resist. This heretical reading of three (...) canonical figures in Western bioscience—Carl Linnaeus, George Cuvier, and Charles Darwin—is an attempt to synthesize Wynter’s demonic ground and Wilderson’s grammatology in order to develop a Black anti-philosophy of science that thinks antagonistically about what it means to be “the missing link” in the chain of Human being. (shrink)

The ontological turn in the humanities and social sciences has prompted some scholars of education to shift their focus of inquiry away from questions of epistemology (i.e., knowledge) to metaphysical matters related to being and the nature of existence. In this paper, I turn to ontology and make an argument for integrating and explicitly teaching theories of immanence in teacher education courses. I argue that integrating and explicitly teaching theories of immanence in teacher education courses can radically reorient students’ thinking, (...) being, and doing, which can fundamentally change how they are able to see, perceive, and make sense of events that unfold in their classrooms. Using vignettes of two encounters at an Italian preschool, I think with theory (Jackson and Mazzei 2012; St. Pierre, 2008, Ringrose and Renolds 2014) to demonstrate how philosophies of immanence reorient thought and produce “a lively new ontology” in which “the world’s radical aliveness comes to light” (Barad 2007, p. 33). The theoretical concepts I use include political theorist Jane Bennett’s (2010) concept of thing power, along with physicist Karen Barad’s (2007) concepts of entanglement and intra-action. (shrink)