Ernst Bloch's geist der utopie after a century: a Janus-Faced reading on the Trail of Hope

The centenary of the publication of Ernst Bloch’s first book, Geist der Utopie [The Spirit of Utopia] (1918), marks the occasion of looking back at the role it played in the past century and ahead at what its existentialist utopian philosophy offers in the present time. The phenomenology of the spirit of anticipation addressed the hopelessness of the generation that had grown up during the First World War. Today we are confronted with a different hopelessness or resignation with respect to the project of social equality and liberation. This essay argues that it is not enough to tap into the resources of critical theory and post-metaphysical thinking in our attempts to reclaim radical hope; something more is needed. Geist der Utopie models a strategy for philosophical reflection on and opens a door onto this “something more.” Like a Janus head, it looks in two temporal directions, setting free the agency and spontaneity of the present. Sie scheinen allein zu sein, doch ahnen sie immer. — HÖLDERLIN, “Wie wenn am Feiertage” We seem to be living in times which have made us forget how to hope. Amid the many pressing issues of our day – climate change, failing political and public institutions, the widening gap between rich and poor, geopolitical tension and conflict, the encroaching force of..

Editorial

Editoria

Paying attention to time in communication research

Communicative processes are extended in time, yet the question what we can learn about communication by paying attention to this temporal dimension has not been widely discussed. This chapter starts by situating temporal communication research within a broader ontological and decolonialising turn in the human and social sciences and proceeds to discuss the role of delay in the communication process. Two examples are used as illustration: (1) the role of delay in the unconscious dimensions of communication as utilized by the variable length of the analytic session in Lacanian psychoanalysis and (2) the function of delay for the poetic structure of all communication, which is explored in a close-reading of Pearse Hutchinson’s poem York Road. The chapter concludes by placing attention to time in communication research within the constitutive metamodel of communication theory as developed by R. Craig

Transgression: introduction to the special issue on Ernst Bloch

This article investigates the meaning of the figure of though of transgression in the philosophy of Ernst Bloch

Philosophy as rhetoric

This article explores the relation between rhetoric and philosophy in the thought of Ernst Bloch

The measure of the ultimate

A critical discussion of the concept of absolute reality in Ernst Bloch's metaphyiscs

The utopian function of film music

In this article I apply Ernst Bloch's utopian philosophy to film music

Creativity and the ontology of not-yet being

This chapter interprets and evaluates the ontology of not-yet being as it is developed in the philosophy of Ernst Bloch and extends this account with a reflection on creativity and the issues involved in conceptualizing creativity. In this way the ontology of not-yet being is related to the sphere of culture and cultural production. Its potential as an account of the ways in which we know and not-know the future is explored. The chapter investigates the significance of futurity, not-yet being, and creativity for our understanding of subjectivity and it concludes with a new conception of the humanities, including philosophy, as centrally concerned with the open future and its place in human existence, awareness, and culture. Throughout, the chapter sensitizes the reader to the particular requirements the articulation of futurity places on our language and our understanding of the nature of concepts, ideas, and theories

Retail positioning through customer satisfaction: an alternative explanation to the resource-based view

Through exploring factors influencing effective retail positioning strategies in an emerging market environment, this paper challenges the role of isolation mechanism and heterogeneous idiosyncrasy argued by the resource-based view theory. By drawing on a sample of 11,577 customers from hypermarkets, electronic appliance specialty stores and department stores in major Chinese cities, we set up ten hypotheses and confirm a nine-item model for customeroriented retail positioning (perceived price, store image, product, shopping environment, customer service, payment process, after-sales service, store policies, and shopping convenience). Our results show that different retail formats achieve success through the implementation of similar positioning strategies, in which case, it is not heterogeneity but homogeneity that contributes to retailers' success greatly at the development stage of retail expansion. Our results challenge previously proved effectiveness of inimitability to success by the resource-based view, and support homogenous idiosyncrasy of retailers in the implementation of customer-oriented positioning strategies in an emerging market

Being as communication: an exploratory model

This chapter explores an ontologically fundamental notion of communication and argues that it is located in a dynamic, or ontological generosity, that is inherent in being as such