The Chilean winter

Since the beginning of 2011, student mobilizations in Chile have occupied the centre of public debate. On the one hand, most of the population, along with most of the political parties currently opposed to Sebastián Piñera’s government, agree on the crisis of secondary and higher education in a country that has been widely praised for […]

Occupy Time

3 Thanks to Anustup Basu for his generous help in the preparation of this article. See, in particular, Carlos Ruiz, De la república al mercado. Ideas educacionales y políticas en Chile, LOM Ediciones, Santiago, 2010. 4. ^ José Joaquín Brunner, Hernán Courard and Cristián Cox, Estado, mercado y conocimientos: políticas y resultados de la educación […]

The manhunt doctrine

Commentary The manhunt doctrine Grégoire chamayou George W. Bush had warned us early on: the United States has launched itself into a new kind of war, a ‘war that requires us to be on an international manhunt’. [1] It would be wrong to believe that Barack Obama’s ‘justice has been done’, echoing Bush nearly ten […]

Euphemism, the university and disobedience

Euphemism, the university and disobedience Alexander garcía düttmann Euphemism is the linguistic condition of contemporary society and spreads through the university as much as through any other institution. But what, exactly, is a euphemism? After having turned his attention to the different meanings of the Greek word from which ‘euphemism’ is derived, and having considered […]

Vélorutionary?

The Montreal cyclists who in the mid-1970s formed an advocacy group known as Le Monde à Bicyclette also referred to themselves as vélo-Quixotes and vélorutionaries. [1] The bicycle, in its surprising persistence through the twentieth century, became an emblem of alternative ideas, and chronologies, of progress: how many other complex machines that approached their mature […]

Globalization?

COMMENTARY Globalization? Simon Bromley , Forecast: global gales ahead.’ Thus were BBC Radio 4 listeners warned by Paul Kennedy of coming storms in the world economy. Their size and vigour, he predicted, would endanger the prosperity, the social contracts, and possibly even the political democracy of the advanced capitalist world. And Kennedy is not alone […]

Bertrand Russell’s brainchild: Analytical philosophy: Its conception and birth

COMMENTARY Bertrand Russell’s brainchild Analytical philosophy: its conception and birth Ray Monk ‘Just arrived from Germany, a Fine Consignment of Assorted Weltanschauungen.’ s o ran an announcement on the back of a spoof edition of Mind edited by F.C.S. Schiller in 1901. Below it was a message from a satisfied customer: ‘Your latest “Immoralist” Weltanschauung […]

Scarlet and black: The Italian revisionist controversy

COMMENTARY Scarlet and black The Italian revisionist controversy Tobias Abse T he consequences of the gradual loss of a collective historical memory in those parts of the European continent most closely integrated into the circuits of global capital and most subject to cultural Americanization grow increasingly threatening. As those of us opposed to postmodernism have […]

Red alert in cyberspace!

COMMENTARY Red alert in cyberspace! Paul Virilio One of the major problems now facing political as well as military strategists is the phenomenon of immediacy, of instantaneity. For ‘real time’ now takes precedence over real space, now dominates the planet. The primacy of real time, of immediacy, over space is an accomplished fact, and it […]

Clause 4

COMMENTARY Clause 4 Ted Benton , C o m e on lads – we all prefer nice things to nasty’: this desperate moral appeal, delivered above the chaotic mania of classroom rebellion, was the habitual resort of an old schoolmaster of mine. For those of us close enough to hear, it evoked peals of derisive […]

Postcolonial melancholy: A reply to Luke Gibbons

Postcolonial melancholy A reply to Luke Gibbons Francis Mulhern Luke Gibbons (RP67) certainly has a way with words, especially those of others; his representation of my views (RP65) is something less than fastidious. l However, there is little value in dwelling much on this; an appropriately detailed self-defence would consist mainly of requotation. Interested readers […]

Post-sexuality?: The Wilde Centenary

COMMENTARY Post-sexual ity? The Wilde Centenary Joseph Bristow A lmost one hundred years ago to the day, Oscar Wilde found himself in the midst of the first of three trials that would eventually go against him. Although it was Wilde who initially sued for libel, the defendant rallied sufficient evidence to have him sentenced to […]

The value of community

COMMENTARY The value of community Sean Savers W hether the policies of the Thatcher and Reagan years brought any overall economic benefits is doubtful; that they have had high social costs is now quite evident. The unfettered pursuit of self-interest has weakened social bonds and led to social decay and disintegration on a scale which […]

Return of the Translator

COMMENTARY Return of the Translator Jonathan Ree ‘The Death of the Author’ is one of the great catchphrases of recent philosophy. It started as the title of an essay by Roland Barthes in 1968, and cleverly captures the idea that the act of reading ought to attend to textual structures rather than authorial personalities – […]