Against Liberty: Adorno, Levinas, and the Pathologies of Freedom

Adorno and Levinas argue from distinct yet intersecting perspectives that there are pathological forms of freedom, formed by systems of power and economic exchange, which legitimate the neglect, exploitation and domination of others. In this paper, I examine how the works of Adorno and Levinas assist in diagnosing the aporias of liberty in contemporary capitalist societies by providing critical models and strategies for confronting present discourses and systems of freedom that perpetuate unfreedom such as those ideologically expressed in possessive individualist and libertarian conceptions of freedom

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Briefe über China (1694-1716): Die Korrespondenz mit Barthélemy Des Bosses S.J. und anderen Mitgliedern des Ordens

Rita Widmaier and Malte-Ludolf Babin have done a valuable scholarly service for studies of the early modern European reception of China in collecting letters from Leibniz's extensive correspondence concerning China and translating them from the original Latin and French into German. This multi-lingual and chronologically organized edition gathers letters to and from Leibniz as well as supplementary texts composed between the years 1694 and 1716. It incorporates helpful clarificatory notes as well as an informative and lucid introduction.This edition focuses on the exchanges between Leibniz and the Jesuit theologian and philosopher Barthélemy Des Bosses S.J. and other Jesuits in Europe who were in..

A Real Nullstellensatz for Matrices of Non-Commutative Polynomials

This article extends the classical Real Nullstellensatz to matrices of polynomials in a free $\ast$-algebra \RR\axs with $x=(x_1, \ldots, x_n)$. This result is a generalization of a result of Cimpri\vc, Helton, McCullough, and the author. In the free left \RR\axs-module \RR^{1 \times \ell}\axs we introduce notions of the (noncommutative) zero set of a left \RR\axs-submodule and of a real left \RR\axs-submodule. We prove that every element from \RR^{1 \times \ell}\axs whose zero set contains the intersection of zero sets of elements from a finite subset S \subset \RR^{1 \times \ell}\axs belongs to the smallest real left \RR\axs-submodule containing $S$. Using this, we derive a nullstellensatz for matrices of polynomials in \RR\axs. The other main contribution of this article is an efficient, implementable algorithm which for every finite subset S \subset \RR^{1 \times \ell}\axs computes the smallest real left \RR\axs-submodule containing $S$. This algorithm terminates in a finite number of steps. By taking advantage of the rigid structure of \RR\axs, the algorithm presented here is an improvement upon the previously known algorithm for \RR\axs

Heidegger’s Black Noteboooks: National Socialism. Antisemitism, and the History of Being

This chapter examines: (1) the Black Notebooks in the context of Heidegger's political engagement on behalf of the National Socialist regime and his ambivalence toward some but not all of its political beliefs and tactics; (2) his limited "critique" of vulgar National Socialism and its biologically based racism for the sake of his own ethnocentric vision of the historical uniqueness of the German people and Germany's central role in Europe as a contested site situated between West and East, technological modernity and the Asiatic. Heidegger did not break with radical right-wing Germanist thought, as some scholars have argued. He at most placed National Socialism within his narrative of the history of being, metaphysics, and technology, and thereby relativized it without addressing either its uniqueness or its totalitarian structures and practices. Heidegger formulated his own metaphysical and ontological version of Antisemitism during the National Socialist period. This vision was deeply connected with his understanding of the "history of being" and was intensified during and immediately after the Second World War. Heidegger could perceive no difference between the Shoah and the Allied bombing, defeat, and occupation of Germany. Heidegger's post-war philosophy (of home, history and technology) is deeply shaped by, and remained complicit with, his thinking during this period

Reading Between the Blurred Lines of Fisher v. University of Texas

After more than eight months of anticipation and speculation, the Supreme Court finally issued its opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Contrary to fears held by some and hopes held by others, the Court did not use the case as an opportunity to overrule Grutter v. Bollinger, thereby prohibiting the consideration of race in higher education admissions decisions. Instead, the Court vacated the Fifth Circuit’s decision upholding the University of Texas’ (“UT” or “University”) race-based admissions policy and remanded the case “for further proceedings consistent with [the] opinion.” At first glance, the majority opinion authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy appears to be a straight forward tutorial regarding the parameters of strict scrutiny by which courts are to examine the constitutionality of race-based admissions plans. After concluding that the Fifth Circuit failed to analyze the UT plan under the proper constitutional standard due to the deference shown to the University during its narrow tailoring analysis, the Court decided that “fairness to the litigants and the courts that heard the case requires that it be remanded so that the admissions process can be considered and judged under a correct analysis.” While the University and other affirmative action supporters may view the Court’s decision as an optimistic signpost for the future of race-based admissions policies, this Essay fears that, unfortunately, such optimism may be misplaced. It argues that a closer reading of the opinion reveals troubling language and sentiments that could detrimentally impact both the UT admissions plan, specifically, and the future of racial diversity in higher education, more broadly

Naturalism and Anti-Naturalism in Nietzsche

Nietzsche has been associated with naturalism due to his arguments that morality, religion, metaphysics, and consciousness are products of natural biological organisms and ultimately natural phenomena. The subject and its mental life are only comprehensible in relation to natural desires, drives, impulses, and instincts. I argue that such typical naturalizing tendencies do not exhaust Nietzsche’s project, since they occur in the context of his critique of “nature” and metaphysical, speculative, and scientific naturalisms. Nietzsche challenges otherworldly projections of this-worldly beings, as his naturalistic interpreters claim, but further the idolization of immanent worldly natural phenomena, including science itself. “Nature” is an idealization of natural organisms and environments in which its construction, projection, and interpretation is forgotten. Nietzsche strategically uses naturalistic scientific strategies of explanation and demystification, while demystifying science, positivism, and naturalism for the sake of life. These do not provide either certainties or foundations for knowledge or life. Naturalism would be anti-natural if it denies of multiplicity and conflict of the forces of life, bracketing the natural and historical conditions of existence, and the interpretive and perspectival character of life and knowledge. The nexus of nature and history in Nietzsche is better clarified through his portrayal of the feeling of life and its intensification, attenuation, and transformation in relation to the forces andconditions of life, which encompass processes of socialization and interpretive and artistic individuation in the context of a life

[Review of] Jon Michael Spencer. Sacred Symphony: The Chanted Sermon of the Black Preacher

In his latest book to date, Sacred Symphony; The Chanted Sermon of the Black Preacher, Spencer states in the introduction that there are seven musical elements that make up the chanted sermon and these include melody, rhythm, call and response, harmony, counterpoint, form, and improvisation. He not only states that these musical components appear in the chanted sermons, but he illustrates how they are manifested in the sermon event through sermons and/or testimonies of white male and female observers, ex-slaves, ministers, and scholars of black preaching

[Review of] Allen L. Woll and Randall M. Miller. Ethnic and Racial Images in American Film and Television: Historical Essays and Bibliography

Allen Woll and Randall Miller in Ethnic and Racial Images in American Film and Television have compiled in one volume the writings about the images of ethnic and racial groups in American television and film. Woll and Miller state in their Introduction that the purpose of their book was to attempt to unite the work (the nature and importance of mass media stereotypes and their effects on society) from a wide variety of disciplines, languages and fields of study in order to expand the vistas of scholarly research in this area. Ethnic and Racial Images is divided into twelve chapters, with each considering specific ethnic or racial groups: (in alphabetical order) Afro-Americans, Arabs, Asians, East Europeans and Russians, Germans, Hispanic Americans, Irish, Italians, Jews, and Native Americans. The first chapter is a general overview of the subject of racial and ethnic images and the final chapter is a kind of miscellaneous section entitled Others which includes Africans, Armenians, Dutch, East Indians, Greeks, Hawaiians, Louisiana Cajuns, Norwegians, Swedes, and Turks

The Persistence of Ethnicity in African American Popular Music: A Theology of Rap Music

The racial oppression of black people in many ways has fueled and shaped black musical forms in America. One example is the blues which originated in the rural South among poor, nonliterate, agrarian African Americans.[1] In the North the music became more formalized, and singers such as Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Ida Cox, and Sarah Martin became known as the queens of the classic blues. Another musical genre is jazz, which was largely based on the twelve-bar blues harmonic structure and phrasing. It was more polished than the earlier New Orleans jazz at the turn of the century, and its major influences came from New York City, Chicago, and Kansas City. Finally, on the religious front, gospel music was in its early stages of development around the time early blues was evolving. Influenced by blues and jazz, gospel was revolutionary (and controversial) in its combination of drums and fast, rocking rhythms

Quantum geometry from 2+1 AdS quantum gravity on the torus

Wilson observables for 2+1 quantum gravity with negative cosmological constant, when the spatial manifold is a torus, exhibit several novel features: signed area phases relate the observables assigned to homotopic loops, and their commutators describe loop intersections, with properties that are not yet fully understood. We describe progress in our study of this bracket, which can be interpreted as a q-deformed Goldman bracket, and provide a geometrical interpretation in terms of a quantum version of Pick's formula for the area of a polygon with integer vertices.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, revised with more explanations, improved figures and extra figures. To appear GER