Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: July 2007

Paying Attention

Leave a Comment Posted by on July 31, 2007

Sinthome from Larval Subjects has posted a particularly poignant set of reflections that take as their starting point Deleuze and Guattari’s challenge: “It may be that believing in this world, in this life, becomes our most difficult task, or the task of a mode of existence still to be discovered on our plane of existence” [...]

Conversations

Devaluing Labour

14 Comments Posted by on July 31, 2007

I’ve read several works recently that argue that Marx’s labour theory of value, while appropriate for the period in which it was written, now needs to be updated to account for the role of technology in the production of wealth. I have no problem with the general notion that, in significant respects, Marx’s argument remains [...]

Critical Theory, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Technology

Site Access Issues

Leave a Comment Posted by on July 30, 2007

Just a quick note that my web host will be carrying out various upgrades over the course of the week, and so the site may occasionally be down. In theory, there shouldn’t be more than a couple of outages, the longest of which should be for @90 minutes, and everything should be back to normal [...]

Admin

Placeholders on Alfred Sohn-Rethel

4 Comments Posted by on July 30, 2007

When I have a bit more time, I’ll try to follow up on my recent over-generalised reflections on real abstractions with a more grounded post on the different ways in which this concept is deployed in the works of Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Theodor Adorno. I’ve been trying to decide on a topic for an upcoming [...]

Abstraction, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Sociology of Knowledge

Vague Generalisations about Real Abstractions

1 Comment Posted by on July 29, 2007

So… I’ve been in several conversations recently where I’ve tried to clarify something by mentioning the concept of a “real abstraction”, only to realise that my interlocutor expresses familiarity with the term, but means something very different by it than what I’m trying to convey. As with the concept of “theoretical pessimism”, I understand “real [...]

Abstraction, Critical Theory, Critique, Empiricism, Materialism, Negations, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Sociology of Knowledge

Substitutions

7 Comments Posted by on July 28, 2007

It’s been an exhausting couple of weeks, gearing up for the new term, and also standing in for a colleague who has been away. It’s a strange thing, taking someone else’s course for a brief period of time – particularly during the first couple of weeks of a new term, which tend to set the [...]

Professional Life, Self-Reflexivity, Sociology of Knowledge, Teaching, Writing

Drive-By Parentheticals

10 Comments Posted by on July 26, 2007

Kenneth Rufo over at Ghost in the Wire has coined a perfect phrase for one of my pet peeves: Baudrillard is one of those people who routinely suffer from what I call “drive-by parentheticals,” wherein an article wants to assert some commonly “assumed” fact that Baudrillard might commonly be “assumed” to provide, and so randomly [...]

Links

Echoes

Leave a Comment Posted by on July 24, 2007

Over at the always extraordinary Taking Steps, little light has a series of reflections up on sustaining the will for engagement – this brief excerpt won’t do the post justice: How do you navigate the politics of heartbreak? Really. No, really. Because I see so many of us burn out. Slow down. Drop out. Get [...]

Links, Transformation

Fragment on Theoretical Pessimism

22 Comments Posted by on July 24, 2007

I’ve been invited to present at an event that brings together critical theorists and activists to reflect on the relevance – or lack of relevance – of particular forms of critical theory to contemporary activism. The event won’t take place until early next year – the organisers are still finalising the details of the format [...]

Critical Theory, Critique, Events, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Social Movements, Transformation

Reproducing Ambivalence

Leave a Comment Posted by on July 20, 2007

And while I’m linking and punning on Benjamin, I meant to draw attention some time ago to the nice reading of Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” posted by Ryan/Aless over at massthink. A brief excerpt: While modern mass are has negative effects, then, its potential benefits (esp. the development [...]

Links, Materialism, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Social Movements, Technology, Transformation

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