Aim: To analyse whether or not the internet can be said to form a functional rhizomatic system and from this analysis to discuss what this implies for the future management or control of the structures that exist therein. Sources: Deleuze and Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus and Anti-Oedipus, Manuel Castells – The Internet Galaxy
Category: Stage 3
The main focus for this project will be on the work of Michel Foucault (see photo), looking at sexuality in terms of the discourse and power structures which have created and moulded it. Ultimately, I wish to use sexuality as an example of discourse which permeates our deepest pleasures and desires. These desires in turn are what create our identities and govern our relationship with the world. There is therefore a need to differentiate between animal (or biological) desire and social (or discursive) desire, the former being the framework within which the latter exists. Foucault’s work stresses the importance of our awareness of discourse and the violence through which it is enforced and subsequently the need to live with a critical attitude which he calls ‘the art of not being governed.’ Bibliography: Michel Foucault – The History of Sexuality: 1, Didier Eribon – Insult; the Making of the Gay Self, Georges Bataille – Story of the Eye, Deleuze and Guattari – Anti-Oedipus, Destricted (DVD)
Chomsky maintains that children acquire language due to the principle of Universal Grammar. The child responds to the evidence in his or her environment and creates a core grammar. Children are open to acquiring any human language but ends up acquiring one in particular. Chomsky’s Projection Principle, Binding and Government principles are innate structures within the language faculty in the child’s mind. These principles are reinforced with what the child hears in his or her environment and are present from the beginning of their life. Rather than the child going through a learning process to possess these principles, it is more the case that they are applied; the child’s grammatical competence automatically incorporates them. By contrast, Foucault maintains that discourse is a regulated set of statements and refers to a set of unwritten laws and practices. Foucault distinguishes between discourse and reality—’discourse’ is a system through which we perceive reality; the term can by no means be substituted for the term ‘language.’ I have divided my project loosely into the following chapters: Background, aims and evaluation of the National Literacy Strategy — has the NLS changed in the period 1996-2006? Has it achieved its aims? How is the NLS implemented at Key Stage 1? Is it effective for children with S.E.N? Chomsky’s language acquisition and his idea of Universal Grammar, versus theories that language is acquired through social interaction — which is more convincing? Are Chomsky’s ideas of Universal Grammar relevant today? What would he say about the NLS as it is used today? Is Foucault’s discourse consistent with Chomsky’s ideas? Is Foucault useful when dis- Some primary literature I have used: Chomsky, N. Reflections on Language (1976) Pantheon Books: Great Britain; Chomsky, N. and Foucault, M. The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature (2006) The New Press: New York; Chomsky, N. (Ed. N. Anshen) Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use (1986) Praeger Publishers: New York; DfEE The Implementation of the National Literacy Strategy (1997) Government Publishing; DfEE National Literacy Strategy: Review of Research and other Related Evidence; Hardman, F., Smith, F., and Wall K. An Investigation into the Impact of the National Literacy Strategy on the Literacy Learning of Pupils with Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Primary Schools University of Newcastle Upon Tyne
Modern art is generally understood to be any art created between the late 19th century and the 1970s. Following the emergence of photography, art was no longer needed as direct representation so artists turned to abstraction and experimentation. Modern art is a blanket term for all artistic movements in this period, as well as the avant-garde. Postmodern art is generally believed to be in some way opposed to an aspect of modern art, experimenting with genres, cultures and mediums not previously considered. It is art following modern art, and some areas of contemporary art. It accepts past styles and traditions, unlike modern art, as well as embracing new media. Lyotard did not distinguish modern art and postmodern art in the traditional way described above, he believed that postmodern art was always at work within modern art; it is the avant-garde in all its forms, it is whatever is new and progressive about modern art, forcing it into new territory. He therefore said that something must be postmodern (new and disruptive) before it can become modern (acceptable). Although the postmodern eventually becomes the modern, it never entirely loses its ability to shock and disturb. He believed that modern art showed us that the unpresentable exists, while postmodern art attempted to present it. This paradoxical task leaves in the viewer a mixture of pleasure and pain, known as Kantian sublime. Lyotard thought the ultimate task of art to be presenting the unpresentable, which is fulfilled by the avant-garde, in which matters of taste and public opinion simply aren’t important. The sublime is the feeling when the imagination is pushed to the limit, causing pain as the individual is faced with something beyond them, which they have no control over and are faced with their true position in the world. Pleasure follows this as our reason reasserts itself and we become aware of the superiority of human reason over perception. The mathematical sublime is when we are confronted with an object unbelievably large, so we cannot see and comprehend it as a whole. The dynamical sublime refers to our confrontation with something far more powerful than us, in which case we are aware of our own mortality and insignificance. Having looked at Lyotard’s postmodernism and postmodern art in detail, with both Lyotard’s examples and my own, I will conclude with a brief examination of the works of Anderson and Jameson, as they provide arguments both for and against Lyotard’s work, taking their own examples to illustrate points made.
Objectives: The main objectives for this project are to address the nature of children’s rights and whether anyone has rights over children. This shall be done by looking at different types of family structures, particularly those involving adoption and in-vitro fertilisation. The initial territory for this project is the Novel My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (picture to the left). In which the main character Anna was genetically created in order to keep her sister, whom has leukaemia, alive. It follows the ongoing struggle Anna has with her parents and her conscience as she files for medical emancipation from her sister, which will allow her to be free of ever having to donate to her sister again. Concepts: I shall be looking at the ethical implications of adoption and IVF for children, the notion of children as property which extends to the exchange of children as commodities and finally whether children can or do actually belong to anyone. Sources: • Jones, P. (1994) Rights THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD. • Locke, J. (1976) The Second Treatise of Government. Fletcher & Son Ltd. • Knox (1952) Hegel’s Philosophy Of Right. Oxford University Press. • Winston, R. (2006) A Child Against All Odds. Transworld Publishers.
How has the representation of women in art changed since modern times? In what ways is Lucas’ art demonstrative of wider changes regarding the role of gender in identity and the position of women in society? – the shift from ‘natural’ to prescribed gender roles – Lucas subverting traditional roles / images of women – comparison with Goya’s ‘Maja’ paintings (from early modernity) – Beck’s theory of self identity in the postmodern age – Gidden’s writings on gender identity in late modernity – Harvey’s description of postmodern art (is art the best medium in which to initiate change in attitudes or is it merely reflective of this?)
Aim: Explore how the issue of abortion has relation to free will and how in turn, society relates to this ethical issue. I want to analyse how an ethical situation can affect the relations between families and society with relation to the novel, ‘The Abortionist’s Daughter’. Territory: The compelling novel, ‘The Abortionist’s Daughter.’ Within which the ethical position of abortion is key. Philosophy: Freud- Unfreedom and unhappiness within society. I will see how people can feel like their freedom as an individual is corrupted through society and its rules and regulation and set values and morals. Mill- Utilitarian view of abortion with relation to the effect on the individual within society. Hobbes- Murder and the social contract will be included to understand how society and the women within it could be restrained by this view. Christian philosophy Augustine- This will highlight how there has been a change in attitude since the time of Augustine and this may be through the fact that religion is now not as paramount to people’s lives within Christianity therefore people may not have such a strong belief on abortion either way. Key Concepts • Freedom/ freewill • Society and its rule over your choice • The nature of personhood/ right to life • The question of religion and ethical questions • Moral and legal policy
Territory: Current debate about religion in modern British society regarding the rise in faith schools (a third of all new ‘City Academies’ will be in the control of Evangelical Christians or Christian organisations) and what this means in regards to curriculum, equal opportunities and tolerance towards those of other faiths or none. I wish to examine what form religion should take in a British child’s education. Thinkers: Richard Dawkins in chapter 8 ‘What’s wrong with religion? Why be so hostile?’ and chapter 9 ‘Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion’ from his highly controversial book ‘The God Delusion’. Andrew Wright in ‘Religious Education in the Secondary School’. Also secular, religious and government reports and media. Central Themes: – Are Faith Schools ‘fair’? Is it right to discriminate against a child by refusing them entry to a local school on what is essentially the basis of their parents religion? – Do Faith Schools provide an ethos of tolerance and understanding or do they exaggerate current cultural and religious divides? – Should religious theories be taught in schools alongside science, e.g. Intelligent Design and Evolution? – Should religion be ‘public’ or ‘private’? – Does it matter? A study showed that only 12% of school leavers from a Catholic school saw themselves as being Catholic and many rejected most of the doctrinal teachings. – Where is the state/religion divide in our society?
I will be investigating the anti-globalisation movement in America known as the Patriots, looking more specifically at their aggressive militia groups. These libertarians seek to build communities that are not governed by the ‘corrupt Federal Government’, communities which promote the Constitution’s Second Amendment right to bear arms so that one day they may fight the “Jewish gangsters’ New World Order” and it’s United Nations’ police force. In response to this I will be look at Derrida’s idea of ‘Community’, of ‘Hospitality’ and ‘Democracy’. Idea’s which revolve around a respect for the ‘Other,’ not aggression and hate. In addition to this I will look towards Žižek’s notion of racism as fantasy, as a respect for the ‘Other.’ For Žižek the state is the only buffer between a conflict of fantasies and must be in place to stop an all out war from happening between different ‘ethnic others.’
My project will focus on the impact of capitalism on education in modern society focusing mainly on the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard. Through his work I look at Lyotard’s attempt to describe the state of knowledge and the problem of its legitimation in developed western societies. • Over the last few hundred year’s education has changed dramatically, especially within the developed world. Gone is the idea that reason alone is a sufficient guide to action. In fact the idea that rational thinking provides us with a universal guide has become increasingly problematic during post-modernity. • With the rise of capitalism as the dominant socio-economic force within the modern world, knowledge has become a commodity which can be bought and sold. For Lyotard, knowledge is now the principal force of production. This commercialisation of knowledge, according to Lyotard could raise serious questions about the nature of ethics and the very relationship between governments and large multinational companies. • My essay will judge the role of what Lyotard calls ‘performativity’ in education and the capitalist system that requires constant re-evaluation in order to generate optimal output. • Using up-to-date education statistics and recent newspaper and TV articles I will attempt to show how education is not simply about educating people. It is instead a means to produce a workforce to meet the demands of capitalism. However that very capitalist system has now infiltrated schools, with the rise of privately funded academies, and new emphasis on league tables and performance related pay. I will discuss how this has impacted on education, positively or negatively? • What impact has this also had on the individual freedom, happiness and identity? Is our culture of working exhaustive hours in order to consume and the desire to consume installed in us through education? Main Sources: Jean Francois Lyotard – The Postmodern Condition: A report on Knowledge and Just Education, Jacques Derrida – Derrida and Education, Jurgen Habermas – The Legitimation Crisis
Territory – Relationships, marriage and the family unit. Empirical Research – Government stats, art and literature. Philosophers – Kant, Hegel, Giddens. Concepts – Kant saw marriage a sexual contract, Hegel as an amalgamation of love and law, Giddens as unnecessary in the postmodern. My argument – Many see the emancipation of women and the sexual liberation of the sixties as causing chaos and the breakdown of the family. I will argue that harking back to nostalgic phantasms is a poor reflection of true reality and that one must ride with the times and embrace the pure relationship based on choice, freedom and intimacy.
TERRITORY: Banksy is an infamous stencil graffiti artist, using the urban scenery for his canvas, painting on everything from walls, over the top of other art and even animals. Banksy’s work, from the walls of London Zoo to the Segregation Wall of Palestine, evokes strong reactions in the minds of those who look upon it. This is arguably one of his many aims, evoking reaction and controversy, awakening the often numb souls of the urban jungle. The city streets of the world can be transformed, his work acting as a catalyst within the minds of creativity; attempting to corrupt the already corrupted world of corporation, government, advertising and capitalism. Deleuze and Guattari, the War Machine. In this study, I will evoke what the a war machine essentially is, and what it actually encompasses with a close reading of A Thousand Plateaus, which I will use as my primary reading source. I will consider Banksy as a war machine, and throughout the study will relate the characteristics of the war machine to Banksy’s thought and art. In developing this I will explore what I believe the war machine has created, and whether these movements are useful, or perhaps more appropriately whether they are beneficial, to modern society. Furthermore, I will also argue as to whether one, or whether the war machine, can maintain a level of creativity within our society, which as it evolves appears to be suffocating the creative flows with the engulfing arms of capitalism, systems of government, and society itself. One question that I believe is crucial to ask is can a war machine truly exist? Are all attempts at creativity inevitably condemned to fail and become part of the system that they originally rejected? It is these, amongst other questions that will form the structure of Weapons of Mass Creation.
How is nature represented and how is this important to our attitudes towards it? My project aims to explore this question in the hope that one reading it will be able to assess each representation and its implications and in turn assess the way nature is represented today. It is clear that attitudes have a long way to go even in our current climate but why and how are they to change? This project will look at different representations to assess this. From the Romantics with Kant and Coleridge’s notion of nature as the sublime, to the postmodern viewpoint of Heidegger and his theory of technology, to the current attitude we find ourselves today with contemporary philosophers such as Michele Serres. Hopefully attitudes will change to ensure a secure future for nature and this project aims to assess what this attitude may be.
The Cyborg Concept: The first section of my project sets out a definition of the cyborg as a cybernetic organism: the symbiotic combination of human and machine. From this definition I explore the idea that we now live in a cyborg society where the combination of human and machine has become the norm. The Cyborg Concept in Science Fiction: The second section of my project involves a discussion of the depiction of cyborgs in science fiction and the fears/hopes involved in the narratives. Since Haraway and Baudrillard have agreed that the line between science fiction and reality is illusory it is apparent that these issues are important today. Cyborg Acceptance/Cyborg Resistance: The third section of my project explores arguments for dissolving the boundaries between human and machine and for protecting these boundaries. The main sources of reference are Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ and Jean-Francois Lyotard’s ‘The Inhuman’. Heidegger and Technology: In the final section I discuss Heidegger’s claim in ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ that technology is so imbedded in our time that we cannot accept or resist it. We use technology but technology uses us too: it is our way of seeing the world yet it determines us. Vattimo says that the subject is weakened by technology and a weak subject is essential if we are to deny metaphysics.
David Mancuso, born October 1944, threw the first Loft party “Love Saves the Day” on Valentine’s Day 1970. It practically established what we now know as DJ / club culture through its reinvention of dance culture. My project aims to apply elements of the conceptual machinery developed by Deleuze and Guattari, in their collaborative project of ‘Capitalism and Schizophrenia’, to the history of The Loft and to dance / club culture in general. The possibilities within Capitalism (but also the limitations) outlined by Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy will be explored within this context. The main areas of investigation are the political status, in Deleuze and Guattari’s schemata, of The Loft (its visitors and David Mancuso included) and the actual individual experience of nightclubbing and dancing, as it might be understood in terms of the model of thought which they develop. The compatibility of David Mancuso’s intentions (“Love is the message”) with this theory will also be explored.
Climate change has become the issue that defines our age. It makes man’s detrimental relationship with his environment undeniable. The planet is warming up and is becoming uninhabitable for large parts of its population, and assuming that the science is correct, our activities are to blame. Territory: Climate change. Thinkers: Kant, Heidegger, Adorno. Aim: The aim of my project was to try and understand the development of man’s relation to nature, from mystical nature through to instrumental nature, in the hope of figuring out where we might have gone wrong, and what we can do about it.
The initial reception of D&G’s C&S was coloured by the twin presences of its authors and the situational context of the ’68 riots. Until Lyotard’s Libidinal Economy in ’74 the political interpretation seemed to close around an orthodox reading of Deleuze and Guattari rather than a reading of C&S. LE puts into play the structuring processes of desire on the political economy at micro-economic level. Stand must be taken: to side with which aspects of C&S? * Marxist interpretation of a capital (hard left) * Psychoanalytic relation of schitzo/capital (soft left) * Micro-economies of desire (libertarian) * Pro-capital destruction of despot (neo-cons). Current battle plays itself out across intellectual topographies (journal, academic publishing) and also Capital rips up every stable political settlement, but where does it head next… CCRU track capital-war-machine path of flight: 1. 1500. Leviathan. Command core: Northern Mediterranean . Target area: Americas. Mode: Mercantile. Epidemic opportunism, selective intervention, colonial settlement. 2. 1756. Capital. Command core: Britain . Target areas: Americas-South Asia. Mode: Thermo-industrial. Imperialism control. 3. 1884. Spectacle. Command core: USA-Germany . Target areas: Africa-Russia-Nodal:periphery. Mode: Electrocorporate. Cultural overcoding / selective extermination. 4. 1948. Videodrome. Command core: USA / Target areas: Expanded:nodal:periphery. Mode: Info Satellitic-supercorporate. Cultural programming / general extermination. 5. 1980. Cyberspace, Command core: USA-Japan-Germany / Target areas: Totalized extra metropolitan space. Mode: AI-hyper corporate. Gross-neurocontrol / intermittent media-format exemplary extermination, virtual biocide. 6. 1996. Babylon. USA-EU:2-China (metalocal command centres) / Totalized planetary space. Photonic-Net Hypercapital Neo-Organic. Neuroprogramming / AI:Capital:Media:Military fusion, constant entertainment extermination process.
Territory: For my project is the life and literary works of Charles Bukowski, a German born American writer who lived from 1920-1994. Aims: In my project I intend to look at the motivation of Charles Bukowski when he wrote and to compare this with the motivation of those who have decided to adapt Bukowski’s work into film in the modern era. This is the change I intend to look at in my project, whether or not Bukowski’s work has become a commodity under the modern day culture industry that Adorno talks about. In order to do this I will look at the three adaptations into film: Tales of Ordinary Madness, Barfly, and Factotum
~AN ANALYSIS AND ETHICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION~ How can I argue that my experience of Sunseed was ‘good’ beyond scientific measure? Sunseed is a environmental charity that aims to develop, demonstrate and communicate accessible low-tech methods of living sustainably in a semi-arid environment. I have identified two problems in the question of what constitutes ‘authentic living’: 1. Do I treat my environment as the Other? To act selflessly I must transcend the horizon of Being and move away from the ‘thought of being’, to treat the environment as ‘the infinite’. My experience of the world is anthropological and pre-contemplative. How has the problem of the philosophical unavoidability of thematising language shaped our attitude to environmental conservation? 2. How do I escape the ‘Dialectical Deficiency’? The truth of the existentialist concern for the fundamentalness of human subjectivity exposed in Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, where concerns become formulas and causes are rules and probability.
Territory: Experiments with the movement and the language of attraction have been conducted in real social situations and in virtual situations. I have taken as my territory the streets, shops, bars and clubs of Newcastle as well as setting up a myspace account in which to test theories and discover laws. Objectives: This project is entitled ‘A Philosophy…’ because it is not the philosophy of attraction. I have looked at the topic from within my immediate, personal experience. My objective is to discover how attraction works for an average male, like myself, and from here to perhaps discover certain general rules or overarching systems. Sources: David DeAngelo: ‘Attraction is not a Choice’ and other works. Neil Strauss: ‘The Game’ and related ‘Mystery Method’ materials. Kierkegaard: ‘Either/Or’ especially the Seducer’s Diary. Hegel: ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’. Levinas: ‘Totality and Infinity – An Essay On Exteriority’.