Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: February 2009

Thesis Completion Seminar: Update

2 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 28, 2009

So just a quick update that yesterday afternoon I fulfilled the requirement of holding a “successful” Thesis Completion Seminar – basically, a one-hour presentation and Q&A session which is a hurdle requirement in order to become eligible to submit the thesis for examination. So: hurdle jumped. I wanted to thank all the folks who came [...]

Events, Professional Life, Thesis

Lending My Coffee Shop a Hand

1 Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 26, 2009

So I’m not sure whether this counts as one of drew’s blurry lines or not, but this morning I found myself in my coffee shop, surrounded by an unusual amount of apparatus (even for me). I had the laptop connected to the power cable I supplied some months back, was installed in my regular table, [...]

Coffee, Overheard

Deformation

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 26, 2009

Since I am now a quasi-official (or, at least, honorary) grown-up at my university, I need a staff ID card. To obtain the card, I had to fill out a form and send it off for official approval. Once official approval was granted, I was told to present myself to security, who would check that [...]

Overheard, Professional Life

The Daily Grind

2 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 24, 2009

I love the fact that I am so expected to work in my coffee shop, that people who are trying to reach me leave notes with the staff – and that the staff promptly give these to me, treating the matter as so urgent that they can’t even allow me to order my coffee until [...]

Coffee, Overheard

Marx and Philosophy

9 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 23, 2009

Okay, so if you were me, and you had been invited to give a talk to the Marx and Philosophy Society conference in June, what would you talk about? There are a couple bits from the thesis I would consider developing, and the inertia from the thesis may well win out, but I was curious [...]

Events, Political Economy, Writing

Thesis Workshop: With What Must the Thesis Begin?

8 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 21, 2009

This coming Friday, I have to fulfil a mandatory pre-submission requirement for the thesis that basically involves presenting on the structure and the major claims of the thesis, and then taking questions from faculty and students who happen to attend the event. The faculty who attend are provided with the abstract, first chapter, and table [...]

Abstraction, Capital v.1, Contradiction, Critical Theory, Empiricism, Events, Fetish, Materialism, Metatheory, Negations, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Thesis

Harvey on the Stimulus – and DeLong

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 16, 2009

Just a quick pointer for those who haven’t seen the exchange: David Harvey has a new post up giving a critical appraisal of the US stimulus package. DeLong responds, invoking Reagan to say “under such a huge pile of *(@^ there must be an argument somewhere”. Not surprisingly, Harvey is less than impressed. Apologies that [...]

Current Events, Political Economy

Feed Reader Issues

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 11, 2009

Just a quick note that I’ve just realised there have been issues with the site’s feed for the past several days – which means that most of you won’t have been receiving updates for a little bit, and now may have a small burst of them all at once. For reasons not worth explaining, in [...]

Admin

Thesis Workshop: Introduction – Historical Materialism and Real Abstraction

Leave a Comment Posted by N Pepperell on February 9, 2009

It’s a bit rough and ready, but I’ll post the working introduction to the thesis here anyway. If I keep this introduction in anything like its current form, I’ll need to make some slight modifications to several of the later chapters, since the introduction currently covers some of the ground discussed in later chapters, and [...]

Abstraction, Capital v.1, Contradiction, Critical Theory, Drafts, Empiricism, Fetish, Materialism, Metatheory, Negations, Philosophy of History, Political Economy, Self-Reflexivity, Thesis, Transformation

Talking to Myself

3 Comments Posted by N Pepperell on February 8, 2009

I have been editing the introductory chapter of the thesis (I’ll put this online with the others soon). This morning, editing was taking place with my son bouncing up and down all around me on the couch, chanting various things, clambering up my back, and generally doing the sorts of things kids do when adults [...]

Family, Thesis, Writing

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