theoretically apraxic‘Together we shall lead ourselves, whether it be to glory or destruction.’ – Jesus in Son of Man I’ve been meaning to start posting again, so when I saw that Catholic Anarchy had a post about the upcoming US release of Son of Man (directed by Mark Dornford-May), it seemed like a good opportunity to [...]
This morning I watched Eisenstein’s Strike!. I found some of the initial montage to be absolutely brilliant and I loved the shot of the factory in the puddle. Russian films from this era are great because you never have to guess who the evil capitalists are (though nothing quite tops the classic Soviet propaganda cartoons). [...]
Yesterday I attended a debate between Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank, held at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London. Though brief (no mean feat… neither Žižek nor Milbank are known for their brevity), the exchange was energetic and provocative without straying into the kind of pre-established roles, i.e. Marxist, materialist, atheist (granted this is [...]
I haven’t posted for quite some time, so a brief update: – I’ve been working on my film paper and have found the comments shared on this blog very helpful. So thanks for all the suggestions. – Two things people should check out: Michael Burns’ blog has recently featured an enlightening discussion of Logics of [...]
I found another passage that lends support to the hypothesis I offered yesterday on the relationship between politics and economy. In this section of his essay ‘Contradiction and Overdetermination,’ Althusser is arguing against various interpretations a well-known quote from Capital: ‘With Hegel, the dialectic is standing on its head. It must be turned right side [...]
At the recent ‘Idea of Communism’ conference at Birkbeck in London, Badiou reiterated his position regarding political economy. If I understood him correctly, Badiou was arguing that the answer to capitalism is political not economic. One cannot move from economics to politics (I’m pretty sure that’s a direct quote). I find this position troubling. [...]
In light of today’s protest against the recent actions of the University of Nottingham, I thought this document might be pertinent. Entitled ‘Who Rules Columbia’, it charts the objections of the students at Columbia during the student uprising in 1968. While clearly the issues raised are specific to a particular time and place, it’s an [...]
I was recently reading an essay by Rober Pfaller entitled ‘The Familiar Unknown, the Uncanny, the Comic: The Aesthetic Effects of Thought Experiment’, in which he argues that both the uncanny and the comic are related to illusion. This relationship occurs on two levels. The first level is the illusion of the uncanny, which must [...]
