Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: December 2007

Making It Last

2 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on December 30, 2007

Like all young children, my son enjoys repetitious games. He’ll ask: “Again?” And then: “Again?” On and on until I finally announce a countdown – a number of times we can play the game, before we hit the final time, and then have to stop. Around this time last year, I mentioned on the blog [...]

Family

New Year Traditions

2 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on December 29, 2007

I posted on this last year, but was thinking of it again: a lovely New Year’s tradition that ZaPaper from Chicago-Beijing posted: A long-held superstition in my family–I’m not sure about others’–is that whatever you do on New Years Day is indicative of what you will be doing all year. We have always have been [...]

Events, Links, Reading Group

Full of Stars

7 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on December 28, 2007

So I set out to write a bit more on the section on “Force and Understanding” from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit – if only to give Alexei something to read when he gets back from break. Somehow, I’ve written a monster, which goes back over much of the ground covered in my previous post on [...]

Abstraction, Contradiction, Critical Theory, Empiricism, Fetish, Negations, Political Economy, Reading Group, Self-Reflexivity

Blogging Cheers and Fears

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on December 26, 2007

Joseph Kugelmass has posted his reflections on the best and worst of intellectual blogs from this past year over at The Valve and The Kugelmass Episodes. Rough Theory gets a nod for its revamped appearance and for the recent illustrated reflections on Hegel’s Phenomenology. Since those reflections pertained to Hegel’s argument that essence arises from [...]

Blogging, Links

The Ambivalence of Organisation

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on December 25, 2007

I just noticed the following in an article by Kenneth Davidson in The Age Business Day: It is an inconvenient truth that unionised work forces can contribute to labour productivity by driving up wages faster than non-unionised work forces and this provides a stimulus to innovation, as employers will be motivated to economise on the [...]

Current Events, Political Economy

Random Hegel

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on December 24, 2007

The other day, I was looking through Andy Blunden’s “The Meaning of Hegel’s Logic”, which I gather Andy prepared for the first Hegel Summer School back in 1997. I laughed at this comment, which Andy makes in his introduction: Following Lenin’s advice, we recommend a “materialist reading” of the Logic. That is, where Hegel talks [...]

Events, Links

Autodidact

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on December 24, 2007

One of the nice things about living and working centrally in Melbourne, is that you rarely really need a car.

Family, Overheard, Technology

A Highly Complicated World in Continual Motion

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on December 23, 2007

I was just reading Paul Lafargue’s 1890 Reminiscences of Marx, and was struck by his attempt to convey what Marx was trying to present – from context, I would assume the reference is to Capital: I worked with Marx; I was only the scribe to whom he dictated, but that gave me the opportunity of [...]

Political Economy

Unimpressed

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on December 23, 2007

I was looking for something on Amazon, and couldn’t help but be distracted by the following review of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: Franky, I was unimpressed…, 19 Jun 1997 By A Customer They say Hegel was big. They say he was important. Personally, I find him impenetrable. A man who writes this poorly deserves not [...]

Overheard

Coming Unshelved

2 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on December 21, 2007

I’ve been to my university library three times today. It’s about to close for a week for the holidays, and I’m finding myself having panicky, pre-withdrawal, symptoms. I keep anxiously associating to books I’ve been meaning to read, and running down there to check them out. This impulse is generating new, flow-on anxieties. As it [...]

Procrastination, Reading, Writing

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