Can Architecture be Barbaric?

The title of this article is adapted from Theodor W. Adorno’s famous dictum: ‘To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.’ After the catastrophic earthquake in Kocaeli, Turkey on the 17th of August 1999, in which more than 40,000 people died or were lost, Necdet Teymur, who was then the dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the Middle East Technical University, referred to Adorno in one of his ‘earthquake poems’ and asked: ‘Is architecture possible after 17th of August?’ The main objective of this article is to interpret Teymur’s question in respect of its connection to Adorno’s philosophy with a view to make a contribution to the politics and ethics of architecture in Turkey. Teymur’s question helps in providing a new interpretation of a critical approach to architecture and architectural technology through Adorno’s philosophy. The paper also presents a discussion of Adorno`s dictum, which serves for a better understanding of its universality/particularity.     

Empty signifiers,education and politics

The paper assumes that education is part of the process of discursive construction of society. The theoretical framework on which this argument is based includes Ernesto Laclau’s theory of the “ontological impossibility and political necessity of society”, and the role discourse and empty signifiers play in the establishment of political identities. Laclau’s theory is supplemented here by ideas of Derrida, Lacan, Žižek and Marx, and by other traits in contemporary semiotics that relate to the notion of “the void” in semantic systems. My claim is that empty signifiers, crucial to the production of the totality of society, are discursively produced, among others, in pedagogical debates. This is illustrated by one historical example (Rouuseau), which gives ground for more contemporary analyses, and on the basis of the present economic discourse of educating and the idea of “knowledge society”. The main conclusion is that education, in contemporary discourse of learning, becomes a neurotic symptom of the lack of overt domination in social relations.

Memory of Politics and Politics of Memory. Reflections on the Construction of the Past in Post-Totalitarian Poland

Studies in East European Thought -     

Transforming habits of inattention to structural racial injustice in educational settings: A pedagogical framework that pays attention to the affective politics of habit

This paper draws together current scholarship regarding affect, habit and social change to suggest that attending to the affective dimension of habits in pedagogy and education develops a novel account that not only begins to explain why transforming habits of inattention to structural racial injustice proves particularly difficult in educational settings; this account can also offer new pedagogical openings for educators and students to engage more productively with the negative affective responses (e.g. denial, defensiveness, resentment) that often result from pedagogical efforts to disrupt these habits. Rather than seeing habits as conservative forces of routine and passive behavior, recent theorizing in affect theory and cultural geography pays attention to habits as affective and performative forces that influence the emergence of environment and can transform socio-spatial, affective, and material conditions. As such, the paper argues that a critical re-appraisal of the notion of habit in pedagogy and education, where the role of affect is central, can provide a fruitful terrain for understanding the ethical, material and affective complexities of transforming habits of inattention to structural racial injustice.     

Umwelt,food, and the limits of control

This paper draws on the work of the early 20th century ethologist Jakob von Uexküll to formulate a notion of food as a process of bodies becoming other bodies. I begin by situating my argument in relation to two strands of critical food research – feminist-inspired work on food and embodiment, and posthumanist approaches that focus on non-humans as mediators of food assemblages. I then discuss Uexküll's work, focusing on three key concepts: umwelt, “the island of the senses” that envelops each being; subjectivity as an intra- and intercorporeal phenomenon; and the variation among umwelten available to humans. These ideas, I contend, illustrate the inherently political nature of ‘food,’ which in turn calls for a realignment of food ethics and critical food scholarship. To illustrate this contention, I draw on my research with the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, considering this socio-ecological experiment as an effort to create a food system in better accord with the affective imperatives (or umwelten) of its constituent components. Throughout the paper, I develop the argument that food systems will always present limits to control by even those actors who seem to enjoy hegemonic positions. Uexküll's work helps us understand these limits in a way that allows critical analysis of dominant food systems and the alternatives proliferating in response to them, but does not prematurely foreclose the actual and virtual possibilities contained in the present heterogeneity of foodways.     

Examining Patterns of Political, Social Service, and Collaborative Involvement of Religious Congregations: A Latent Class and Transition Analysis

This investigation examines typologies of congregations based on patterns of congregational political and social service activities and collaborative partners. Based on a latent class analysis of a national random sample of 2,153 congregations, results indicated four distinct types of congregations with unique patterns of political, social service, and collaborative partnerships labeled: (a) Active, (b) Not Active, (c) Social Service Not Political, and (d) Political Not Social Service. Moreover, congregational characteristics such as religious tradition and clergy characteristics predicted membership in certain types. A latent transition analysis using an additional 262 congregations revealed distinct patterns of how congregations changed types across a nine year period. Results showed both congregational continuity (e.g., Not Active congregations remained Not Active) and change (e.g., Active congregations were likely to change type membership). This study advances congregational research by examining congregational types, what predicts certain types, and how congregations change types across time. Implications for future research and partnership with religious congregations also are discussed.     

Metaphors that communicate weight-based stigma in political news: A case study of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

IntroductionNews media use metaphors to describe politics (Landau & Keefer, 2014) and obesity (Barry, Brescoll, Brownell, & Schlesinger, 2009). Weight-based stigma is prevalent in U.S. news media (Heuer, McClure, & Puhl, 2011). Media coverage of politicians’ body size may contain metaphors that stigmatize weight. Metaphors reflect and shape how people think about important issues like politics or obesity (Landau, Sullivan, & Greenberg, 2009; Landau, Meier, & Keefer, 2010; Landau & Keefer, 2014).ObjectiveThis study uses stigma communication theory (Smith, 2007) to examine stigmatizing metaphors used in media coverage of a United States politician, and candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Republican.MethodWe coded n = 240 articles, from January 2011 to December 2014, that referenced Christie's weight. Considering both the articles and the comments in response to them, we identified n = 246 weight references that utilized metaphors and coded these using categories derived from the stigma communication theory framework.ResultsOur coding of these weight references, from journalists and comments posted by the public, demonstrated that metaphors accomplish all four functions of stigma communication: they mark, label, assign personal responsibility, and link to peril the stigmatized person.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate not only that news media use metaphors to describe a politician's weight, but also show how these metaphors — alone and together — function to constitute stigma communication messages. These messages can affect public opinions toward politics and obesity.     

Gender differences in personal values of national and local Italian politicians,activists and voters

Theorists of politics of presence postulate that women elected to political office would still hold values similar to ordinary women and therefore represent them better than male politicians. Gender differences in personal values, which underline and give coherence to core political values, have been found among voters: males score higher on self‐enhancement values (power and achievement) and females higher on self‐transcendence values (universalism and benevolence). Our study aims to explore if gender differences in personal values are still present among activists, local and national politicians. We administer a shortened version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire to 233 Italian national politicians (46% females), 425 local politicians (56% females), 626 political activists (44% females), and 3249 ordinary citizens (49% females). Our results confirm only partially politics of presence theory: females at all levels of political involvement score higher in self‐transcendent values that emphasise concern for the welfare of others, but no significant gender differences emerge for self‐enhancement, which favour the pursuit of self‐interest. Our findings support ethical struggles for more balanced gender representation: a higher proportion of women in politics could strengthen the political representation of self‐transcendence values.     

Implicit (and explicit) racial attitudes barely changed during Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and early presidency

As a high-status, omnipresent Black exemplar, Barack Obama and his rise to the presidency of the United States may have induced a cultural shift in implicit racial attitudes, much like controlled exposures to positive Black and negative White exemplars have done in the laboratory (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001). With a very large, heterogeneous sample collected daily for 2.5 years prior to, during and after the 2008 election season (N = 479,405), we observed very little evidence of systematic change in implicit and explicit racial attitudes overall, within subgroups, or for particular notable dates. Malleability of racial attitudes - implicit or explicit - may be conditional on more features than the mere presence of high-status counter-stereotypic exemplars.     

Do Strong Group Identities Fuel Intolerance? Evidence From the South African Case

One conventional explanation of intergroup conflict is Social Identity Theory. That theory asserts that strong ingroup sympathies can give rise to outgroup antipathies which in turn fuel intolerance and conflict. While embraced by both macro- and microlevel analysts, this theory actually has not been widely investigated outside a laboratory environment. In this article, I test hypotheses linking group identities with intolerance, based on a 2001 survey in South Africa, a country where group identities have long been politicized. My empirical findings indicate that group identities are not useful predictors of South African intolerance. Indeed, for neither the black majority nor the white minority do ingroup identities activate very much outgroup intolerance. Moreover, group identities are positively, not negatively, correlated with holding a South African national identity. These findings, based on unusually broad indicators of both identity and tolerance, suggest that the causes of group conflict lie elsewhere than in group attachments.