Wittgenstein and Intellectual Freedom

This article investigates the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein from the perspective of Intellectual Freedom in librarianship. The article argues that Intellectual Freedom tends to be informed by individualism and linguistic idealism. This in turn limits IF to advocacy rather than social change and thereby supports and maintains the oppressive racial and gender structures of capitalism. Following an outline of the philosophical foundations of Intellectual Freedom, the article investigates Wittgenstein’s challenge to language as an individual faculty and the constraints on the idea of freedom that follows from it. Wittgenstein’s recognition that languages are social conventions put to particular social uses opens up a collective approach to language and Intellectual Freedom conducive to the material transformation of real social conditions

Libraries, Labour, Capital: On Formal and Real Subsumption

This article looks at librarianship from a Marxist economic perspective, arguing that crises within the profession are due to material changes in the organization of production and labour relations. These changes are part of a transition from one “regime of accumulation” (industrial, Fordist, Keynesian) to another (neoliberal). The article suggests that any choice made to address these changes leads us further into relations of commodification which worsen the crises we face, and that only fundamental changes to the social, political, and economic system in which we work and live will solve the problems we currently face

The Creation of a French Catalan Identity through the Landscape of the Roussillon: The Writings of Josep Pla and Jean

The end of the 19th century saw the Roussillon at a crossroads: to the north were the social and financial opportunities that came from adopting French, the language of the aristocracy and the elite (Berjoan, 2009, pp. 121-122), to south was the shining example of Barcelona, now living its Renaixença period, where Catalan arts and culture were gaining the attention on a world stage. In Perpignan, and in neighboring communities, the intellectual classes of the Roussillon were weighing their options. Catalan was widely spoken in this area of France, but few could write it. In fact, the efforts by the French government to unify the nation under one language had resulted in the devaluing of Catalan among its speakers. A lack of grammatical and orthographical norms in French Catalonia had also led native speakers to become confused about the language they spoke (Berjoan, 2009, p. 122). Was it Catalan? Were they