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This book is about the public language of the 'war on terrorism' and the way in which language has been deployed to justify and normalise a global campaign of counter-terrorism. It explains how the war on terrorism has been reproduced and amplified by key social actors and how it has become the dominant political narrative in America today, enjoying widespread bipartisan and popular support. The book also explains why the language of politics is so important and the main methodological approach for analysing the language of counter-terrorism, namely, critical discourse analysis. Then, it provides the comparison drawn between the September 11, 2001 attacks and World War II and the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the most noticeable aspects of the language surrounding the attacks of September 11, 2001 is its constant reference to tragedy, grievance and the exceptional suffering of the American people. The book focuses on the way in which language was deployed to construct the main identities of the protagonists. It demonstrates how terrorism is rhetorically constructed as posing a catastrophic threat to the American 'way of life', to freedom, liberty and democracy and even to civilisation itself. The book analyses how the administration's counter-terrorism campaign has been rhetorically constructed as an essentially 'good' and 'just war', similar to America's role in World War II. Finally, the book concludes that responsible citizens have a moral duty to oppose and resist the official language of counter-terrorism.
use of the theological concept of consubstantiality, the mystery of the three persons of the trinity all being the one true God, is set in dialogue with the later Wittgenstein's public language-game philosophy. As will be shown, Wallace proposes this combinatory approach as a therapy for the mode of solipsistic, endless deconstruction which he sees as having become engrained in American culture. In Infinite Jest this culture-wide privacy is portrayed as detrimental to the family bond, producing failures of communication and an instable, continually deferred
In private I observed that once in every generation, without fail, there is an episode of hysteria about the barbarians. (J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians ) THIS BOOK IS ABOUT the public language of the ‘war on
certain way, it is identical with and can be substituted for the very body of his redeemer.’8 The shared imagery points, perhaps, to a deeper analogy between James’s project and the practice of Christian mysticism. Both mysticism and the new psychology were techniques for transforming hidden, introspective knowledge into public language.9 The mystics had communicated the inner presence of the divine through the body. Wracked by stigmata and paralyses, the mystical figure achieved a kind of personal Eucharist, substituting his or her own flesh for the absent body of
The Christian–Muslim engagement may be experienced at many levels: theological, political, cultural and global. The nature of Christian–Muslim relations in various states is also determining the scope of these states' international relations and alliances. Further Christianity experiences Islam as a religious and theological challenge. Since the earliest period in its history, the Islamic tradition has been conscious of the religious diversity of the human race and considered it an issue of importance. Yohannan Friedmann has reminded us that according to the Islamic tradition Islam is not only the historical religion and institutional framework that was brought into existence by the Muslim prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, but also the primordial religion of humankind, revealed to Adam at the time of his creation. It is thus that Christianity locates the challenge of Islam, not just as a historical encounter, which is of importance; or as a political force in the modern world; but also as a theological challenge. There is an intimacy to the Christian–Muslim encounter, which offers a familiarity, but allows for little theological commonality due to difference. Thus throughout the centuries since the rise of Islam, Muslim–Christian relations have revolved around this double axis of familiar, biblical appeal and strenuous, religious critique. It is this story that this book attempts to tell in a contemporary sense set against the global encounter between Christianity and Islam in the modern world.
This collection explores how concepts of intellectual or learning disability evolved from a range of influences, gradually developing from earlier and decidedly distinct concepts, including ‘idiocy’ and ‘folly’, which were themselves generated by very specific social and intellectual environments. With essays extending across legal, educational, literary, religious, philosophical, and psychiatric histories, this collection maintains a rigorous distinction between historical and contemporary concepts in demonstrating how intellectual disability and related notions were products of the prevailing social, cultural, and intellectual environments in which they took form, and themselves performed important functions within these environments. Focusing on British and European material from the middle ages to the late nineteenth century, this collection asks ‘How and why did these concepts form?’ ‘How did they connect with one another?’ and ‘What historical circumstances contributed to building these connections?’ While the emphasis is on conceptual history or a history of ideas, these essays also address the consequences of these defining forces for the people who found themselves enclosed by the shifting definitional field.
This book differs from other books on propaganda in the elasticity it attributes to the term; orthodox literature has erred in restricting meaning to explicit texts such as the polemical tirade or 'black' propaganda. Myth, Symbolism and Rhetoric, the foundation concepts of propaganda, are discussed in detail and seen as animating and structuring the core edifice, or integuments, of the concept, such as hyperbole, ideology, emotion, manipulation, deceit, the search for utopia, otherness and the creation of enemies. Then the focus moves to a series of specific case study analyses of recent political phenomena that embody these elements - the phenomenon of 'Symbolic Government', the rise of single-issue groups, negative political campaigning, and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor could propaganda exist without the myths that rhetoric articulates. Symbols can and frequently do express, embroider, simplify or resurrect myths. To say that propaganda is manipulative is to define a necessary but not sufficient characteristic of the term. Propaganda is a consequence of our need for enemies: they are not just there but necessarily there: they give coherence and definition to our values and they motivate us to action. Negative political advertising is a tried and tested device and a sinister exemplar of propaganda today. At one time it seemed to have become the preferred mode of choice in US politics.
This book introduces some of the key ideas which have their roots in what has become known as 'second wave feminism', the ideas and practices associated with the women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s. While it might seem unnecessary to turn back to this period of feminist struggle, there are a number of important reasons for doing so. A major concern of the book is the ways in which popular culture and femininities need to be studied historically. For this reason, it is also necessary to understand feminist identities as the product of specific historical contexts. The book explores some themes in the history of second-wave feminism and has inevitably sacrificed complexity in the interests of brevity by placing greater emphasis on feminisms in the US. It discusses one form of feminism which sees femininity as inferior to masculinity: that is, that equality between men and women might be achieved if women rejected feminine values and behaviour in favour of masculine values and behaviour. The book also demonstrates that understanding of popular culture has been central to many feminists whose work has been informed by cultural studies. One of the main arguments and themes throughout the book is that what it means to be a woman is not something fixed for all time but is subject to transformation, contestation and change.
Recognition was widely supposed to be a German obsession, derived from Hegel's philosophy. French thinkers insisted on the inescapability of misrecognition in interpersonal relations and asserted the impossibility of authentic recognition. While there are undoubtedly different attitudes towards the 'problem' of recognition on either side of the Rhine, a primary achievement of this book is to show that it is much too simple to suggest that only German thinkers have contributed to the recent development of recognition theory. The book reflects on the impact of contemporary French theory outside of France and on the inverse influence of recognition theory upon the contemporary French scene. In contrast to both the moral philosophy and political philosophy, 'Hegelian approaches' are best described as 'social philosophy' because they focus the analysis on the structural and social conditions which damage human subjectivity and such, require a standard of social normalcy or 'authentic identity' against which to conduct their evaluation. By showing how both the promise and the shortcomings of the concept of recognition are usefully explored by engagement with diverse currents of contemporary French social and political thought, this book contributes to the dissolution of 'nationalitarian' borders and promotes a more cosmopolitan approach to philosophy.
In Renaissance drama, the bastard is an extraordinarily powerful and disruptive figure. We have only to think of Caliban or of Edmund to realise the challenge presented by the illegitimate child. Drawing on a wide range of play texts, Alison Findlay shows how illegitimacy encoded and threatened to deconstruct some of the basic tenets of patriarchal rule. She considers bastards as indicators and instigators of crisis in early modern England, reading them in relation to witchcraft, spiritual insecurities and social unrest in family and State. The characters discussed range from demi-devils, unnatural villains and clowns to outstandingly heroic or virtuous types who challenge officially sanctioned ideas of illegitimacy. The final chapter of this book considers bastards in performance; their relationship with theatre spaces and audiences. Illegitimate voices, Findlay argues, can bring about the death of the author/father and open the text as a piece of theatre, challenging accepted notions of authority. The book aims to read bastardy from a positive perspective as a subversive presence in Renaissance drama. Standing up for bastards does not mean denying the villainy of characters like Edmund. Instead, it focuses on their power to challenge the dominant patriarchal culture. The image of the bastard as outsider is typical. This is hardly surprising in a society organised round paternal authority. The family structure was a fundamental basis for political and social order in Renaissance England.