This article examines the discourses that are used by the British press to represent obesity in its coverage of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Obesity is understood to be a risk factor for COVID-19, with people with obesity being more likely to die from the virus. This study adopts a corpus-based approach to Critical Discourse Studies and utilises a novel approach to keyword analysis, based on comparing analysis corpora against two reference corpora in order to yield keywords that are, in this (...) case, characteristic compared to general coverage of both COVID-19 and obesity. It is argued that the context of the pandemic has produced a range of discourses around obesity that are more stigmatising than usual in both the tabloids and the broadsheets, with people with obesity being construed, for example, in especially fatalistic terms and as being responsible for the problems facing the country’s healthcare system. At the same time, the pandemic context also seems to have given rise to some more positive changes to press coverage of obesity, with race-related health disparities receiving more focus than usual and the right-leaning press being more likely to critique the Conservative Government than it usually is, resulting in an arguably more balanced style of reporting. (shrink)

This article examines the metaphors that are used to represent dementia in British tabloid newspapers over a ten-year period (2010–2019). The analysis takes a corpus-based approach to metaphor identification and analysis, utilizing in particular the corpus linguistic technique of collocation analysis. Metaphors are considered in terms of the ‘targets’ they frame, which include the following aspects of dementia: (i.) prevalence; (ii.) causes; (iii.) symptoms and prognosis; (iv.) lived experience; and (v.) responses. A range of metaphors are identified, with the tabloids (...) exhibiting a particular preference for metaphors which construct dementia as an agentive and violent entity and people with dementia as passive victims, and which foreground preventative responses to dementia such as pharmacological intervention and individual behavior change. It is argued that such metaphors have the potential to contribute to dementia stigma and place focus on preventing or eliminating dementia while backgrounding responses which may help people to “live well” with the syndrome in the here-and-now. Metaphors which frame dementia as a companion or which the experience of dementia as a journey are put forward as potentially less stigmatizing alternatives which might better reflect the particularities of this complex public health issue. (shrink)

This article examines discourse representations of vegans in UK newspapers, comparing broadsheets with tabloids published between 2016 and 2020. Taking a corpus-based approach to CDA, we identify a series of discourses, some of which overlap between the broadsheets and tabloids while others are particular to one format or the other. Vegans tend to be evaluated negatively in this context, portrayed as violent, hypocritical, pushy and irresponsible when it comes to their (and their children’s) health. Such representations are characteristic of the (...) tabloids in particular, whereas broadsheets provide more balanced coverage, with a greater propensity to present counter-discourses and to provide page space to airing the first-hand perspectives of vegans themselves. In the paper, we make recommendations as to how coverage can achieve better balance, to the benefit of the vegan movement and – by extension – the wellbeing of humans, other animals, and the environment. (shrink)

This article explores and critically evaluates the potential contribution to discourse studies of topic modelling, a group of machine learning methods which have been used with the aim of automatically discovering thematic information in large collections of texts. We critically evaluate the utility of the thematic grouping of texts into ‘topics’ emerging from a large collection of online patient comments about the National Health Service in England. We take two approaches to this, one inspired by methods adopted in existing topic (...) modelling research and the other using more established methods of discourse analysis. In the study, we compare the insights produced by each approach and consider the extent to which the automatically generated topics might be of use to discourse analysts attempting to organise and study sizeable datasets. We found that the topic modelling approach was able to group texts into ‘topics’ that were truly thematically coherent with a mixed degree of success, while the more traditional approach to discourse analysis consistently provided a more nuanced perspective on the data which was ultimately closer to the ‘reality’ of the texts it contains. This study thus highlights issues concerning the use of topic modelling and offers recommendations and caveats to researchers employing such approaches to studying discourse in the future. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article examines right-leaning press representations of people living in the UK who can’t speak English, or at least speak English well, following the 2011 Census, which was the first to ask respondents about their main language and proficiency in English. The analysis takes a corpus-assisted approach to critical discourse analysis, based on a 1.8 million-word corpus of right-leaning newspaper articles about ‘speak English’ in the years following this historic Census. The analysis reveals the tendency for the press to focus (...) on immigrants – particularly in the contexts of education and health – who are represented with recourse to a series of argumentation strategies, or ‘topoi’. Over the course of this paper, we argue that these topoi are problematic, as they present paradoxes, obscure the role of the Government in ensuring integration, overlook the difficulties of language learning and cultural assimilation, and generally contribute to a broader anti-immigrant UK media narrative which serves to legitimise exclusionary and discriminatory practices against people from minority linguistic and ethnic backgrounds. (shrink)

Cohen’s (2023) mapping exercise of possible bioethical issues emerging from the use of ChatGPT in medicine provides an informative, useful, and thought-provoking trigger for discussions of AI ethic...

Big Data has been variously defined in the literature. In the main, definitions suggest that Big Data possess a suite of key traits: volume, velocity and variety, but also exhaustivity, resolution, indexicality, relationality, extensionality and scalability. However, these definitions lack ontological clarity, with the term acting as an amorphous, catch-all label for a wide selection of data. In this paper, we consider the question ‘what makes Big Data, Big Data?’, applying Kitchin’s taxonomy of seven Big Data traits to 26 datasets (...) drawn from seven domains, each of which is considered in the literature to constitute Big Data. The results demonstrate that only a handful of datasets possess all seven traits, and some do not possess either volume and/or variety. Instead, there are multiple forms of Big Data. Our analysis reveals that the key definitional boundary markers are the traits of velocity and exhaustivity. We contend that Big Data as an analytical category needs to be unpacked, with the genus of Big Data further delineated and its various species identified. It is only through such ontological work that we will gain conceptual clarity about what constitutes Big Data, formulate how best to make sense of it, and identify how it might be best used to make sense of the world. (shrink)

"By combining recent advances in the physical sciences with some of the novel ideas, techniques, and data of modern biology, this book attempts to achieve a new and different kind of evolutionary synthesis. I found it to be challenging, fascinating, infuriating, and provocative, but certainly not dull."--James H, Brown, University of New Mexico "This book is unquestionably mandatory reading not only for every living biologist but for generations of biologists to come."--Jack P. Hailman, Animal Behaviour , review of the first (...) edition "An important contribution to modern evolutionary thinking. It fortifies the place of Evolutionary Theory among the other well-established natural laws."--R.Gessink, TAXON. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to assess whether, and how, the attitudes towards business ethics of former South African business students have changed between the early 1990s and 2010. The study used the Attitudes Toward Business Ethics Questionnaire and applied a comparative analysis between leading business schools in South Africa. The findings of this study found a significant change in attitudes based on a set time frame, with a trend towards stronger opinions on business ethics and espoused values. Eleven (...) factors came out as fundamental, although they were less able to explain the variation in the attitudes than the previous study. A significant change in the rankings of variables was noted and indicated a shift in attitude toward a teleological moral philosophy as well as utilitarian motives. This shows a clear trend towards compliance-based ethics, which can be explained by the proliferation of business legislation and regulation in the wake of recent corporate governance failures and the subsequent global financial crisis. (shrink)

This book explores the diverse understandings of the archaeological record in both historical and contemporary perspective, while also serving as a guide to reassessing current views. Gavin Lucas argues that archaeological theory has become both too fragmented and disconnected from the particular nature of archaeological evidence. The book examines three ways of understanding the archaeological record - as historical sources, through formation theory, and as material culture - then reveals ways to connect these three domains through a reconsideration of (...) archaeological entities and archaeological practice. Ultimately, Lucas calls for a rethinking of the nature of the archaeological record and the kind of history and narratives written from it. (shrink)

'We will overcome it [and] I hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge, and those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any' Her Majesty The Queen The Coronavirus pandemic forced the great British people to dig to the very depths of their resolve. It was during this crisis, the gravest crisis the country has faced since the Second World (...) War, that members of the Greatest Generation - Tom Moore, Dame Vera Lynn, the Queen - proved vital reminders of the self-effacing stoicism required in times of emergency; to summon our 'Blitz spirit' and to 'Keep Calm and Carry On'. Taking twelve qualities of the wartime generation, including fellowship, courage and integrity, and drawing on personal interviews with over two hundred Second World War veterans - from SAS officers to London firewomen to Dame Vera herself - Guidance from the Greatest shows us how we can improve our individual character and our collective approach to life. Guidance from the Greatest reminds us of all that is great about Britain and shows how we can build upon that greatness for the future. (shrink)

This review sets out the central arguments of Onora O’Neill’s book Justice Across Boundaries: Whose Obligations? and argues that whilst she puts forward a variety of incisive criticisms of the international human rights movement she fails to present any positive argument for improving it. Ultimately the book is an exceptional piece of criticism that lacks any significant attempt to solve the many problems that O'Neill highlighted.

Conducting “difficult conversations” with patients and caregivers is one of the most difficult aspects of the medical profession. These conversations can involve communicating a terminal prognosis, advance care planning, or changing the goals of treatment. Although they are challenging, the need for these conversations is underwritten by the tenets of medical ethics. Unfortunately, medical professionals lack adequate training in communication skills and overestimate their abilities in conducting difficult conversations. I suggest that one way to improve that ability would be the (...) strategic use of pharmaceutical neuroenhancements. Pharmaceutically augmenting a professional’s capacity for recognizing masked emotional expressions might conduce to his or her development of open and responsive communication with patients and caregivers. I conclude by examining the limitations and objections to this use of a communication enhancement by illustrating that it would still require the development of, and indeed a greater emphasis on, communication skills in medical education and training. (shrink)

Can we respond to injustices in the world in ways that do more than just address their consequences? In this book, Brooke A. Ackerly argues that what to do about injustice is not just an ethical or moral question, but a political question about assuming responsibility for injustice. Ultimately, Just Responsibility offers a theory of global injustice and political responsibility that can guide action.

The detective story in which the investigator is an amateur without official standing is a peculiarly English genre. Perhaps the earliest example, telling of an investigation that was pursued unofficially by an individual who arrived on the scene after the crime, disagreed with the official stand, pursued his own investigation, and reported the results, is “The Life and Passion of Saint William the Martyr of Norwich,” which Thomas of Monmouth started in 1149/50 and completed in 1172/73. Book 1 of theLife, (...) apparently completed by 1150, is a flowing narrative of the events of William's life and of his death in 1144 as Thomas had reconstructed them. And although books 2–6, written in 1154/55, consist primarily of descriptions of the translations of William's body between 1150 and 1154 and of the miracles attributed to him, Thomas devoted the first part of book 2 to a lengthy defense of the truth of his reconstruction of the crime, a defense in which he carefully marshaled the evidence or arguments that had led him to his conclusions. The last book, book 7, which was only completed by 1173, describes the further miracles attributed to William between 1155 and 1173. (shrink)

In the Law of Civilisation and Decay, Adams considers various societies and civilisations by the symbolism, manner and influence of their coinage, and concludes that a society or civilisation becomes sapped of its culture-vigour, when entering a cycle where money becomes the dominant factor rather than merely serving as a mechanism.

This paper explores the embedding of data producing technologies in people's everyday lives and practices. It traces how repeated encounters with digital data operate to naturalise these entities, while often blindsiding their agentive properties and the ways they get implicated in processes of exploitation and governance. I propose and develop the notion of ‘data doxa’ to conceptualise the way in which digital data – and the devices and platforms that stage data – have come to be perceived in Western societies (...) as normal, necessary and enabling. The ‘data doxa’ concept also accentuates the enculturation of many individuals into a data sharing habitus which frames digital technologies in simplistic terms as panaceas for the problems associated with contemporary life, figures of progress and convenience, and mediums of knowledge, pleasure and identity. I suggest that three types of data-based relations contribute to the formation of this doxic sensibility: fetishisation, habit and enchantment. Each of these relations come to mediate public understandings of digital devices and the data they generate, obscuring the multifaceted nature and hidden depths of data and their propensity to double up as technologies of exposure and discipline. As a result of this situation, imaginative educational programs and revamped regulatory frameworks are urgently needed to inform individuals about the contribution of data to the leveraging of value and power in today's digital economies, but also to protect them from experiencing data-based harms. (shrink)

Many normative political theorists have engaged in the systematic collection and/or analysis of empirical data to inform the development of their arguments over the past several decades. Yet, the approach they employ has typically not been treated as a distinctive mode of theorizing. It has been mostly overlooked in surveys of normative political theory methods and methodologies, as well as by those critics who assert that political theory is too abstracted from actual political contestation. Our aim is to unearth this (...) grounded normative theory (GNT) approach – to identify its definitive practices and highlight its potential significance. We detail four overlapping commitments characteristic of GNT. These include commitments to expanding the comprehensiveness of input for normative arguments through original empirical research and/or analysis, recursivity in the development of normative claims, attentiveness to the systematic inclusion of a range of voices and ways of knowing, and accountability to those engaged by the theorist in empirical contexts. We discuss methodological distinctions within GNT, including between more- and less-solidaristic approaches. We discuss how GNT answers calls for theorists to engage more closely with empirical political dynamics and we consider responses to possible critiques. (shrink)

In this article I consider the uses of the concepts ‘society’ and ‘culture’ in various sociological and anthropological traditions, arguing that sociology needs to learn from the division between social anthropology and cultural anthropology. First I distinguish the social and the cultural sciences: the former use ‘society’ as leading concept and ‘culture’ as a subordinate concept; the latter do the contrary. I discuss the origins of the terms société and Kultur in the classical French and German traditions respectively, and their (...) subsequent uptake in Anglo-American sociology and anthropology, ‘society’ becoming the leading concept for sociology and social anthropology, ‘culture’ the leading concept for cultural anthropology. I contrast the sociology of culture with the cultural anthropological consideration of society. I next examine the terms for ‘society’ in the classical German tradition, especially Weber, pointing to interpretivism as a cultural theory of society. I then consider Weber’s Kultursoziologie, arguing that it is culture (Kultur) not society (Gesellschaft) that is the ultimate object of Weber’s sociology. I conclude that sociology needs to identify classical German sociology and its derivatives as cultural science not social science, and to make comprehensive adjustments to its methodological debates accordingly. The implications of this for the problem of sociology’s encounter with the natural world are noted. (shrink)

This is Thomas Reid's greatest work. It covers far more philosophical ground than the earlier, more popular Inquiry. The Intellectual Powers and its companion volume, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, constitute the fullest, most original presentation of the philosophy of Common Sense. In the process, Reid provides acutely critical discussions of an impressive array of thinkers but especially of David Hume. In Reid's eyes, Hume had driven a deep tendency in modern philosophy to its ultimate conclusions by creating (...) a phantom-world of so-called 'ideas' that sprang from objects of observation; the self was a conglomeration of perceived ideas; and the will as the source of action was nothing but the balance of passionate impulses. -/- Reid's Common Sense philosophy answers these problems by suggesting that sceptics, such as Hume, unavoidably affirm what they purport to deny, namely the existence of a stable external world, of other minds, of the continuity of their own minds, and of their own and other people's ability to ascribe and accept responsibility for actions. We can understand all of this by proper empirical observation and philosophical analysis of the activity of the mind. Reid's major positive contribution to philosophy is a detailed account of the various innate powers of the mind. While particularly influential in the first half of the nineteenth century, Reid's work has retained a significant role in philosophy, not least in recent years. At the same time, his role in the Scottish Enlightenment is becoming much better understood. -/- This is the only properly established text. It is accompanied by manuscript lectures on the nature and immortality of the soul, as well as helpful editorial annotation and introduction, making it useful to a wide variety of readers. -/- Key Features: -/- Accurate, reliable and critically established text; The Introduction explains the work's genesis and its place in Reid's system; Annotations provide an understanding of Reid's context; An Appendix contains manuscript material covering an important topic not represented in the hitherto published work. (shrink)

From the diverse work and often competing insights of women's human rights activists, Brooke Ackerly has written a feminist and a universal theory of human rights that bridges the relativists' concerns about universalizing from particulars and the activists' commitment to justice. Unlike universal theories that rely on shared commitments to divine authority or to an 'enlightened' way of reasoning, Ackerly's theory relies on rigorous methodological attention to difference and disagreement. She sets out human rights as at once a research ethic, (...) a tool for criticism of injustice and a call to recognize our obligations to promote justice through our actions. This book will be of great interest to political theorists, feminist and gender studies scholars and researchers of social movements. (shrink)

In this article, I criticize environmental sociology’s conventional diagnosis of its methodological situation and overly narrow definition of its field. I argue for a greater engagement with the natural science base and consideration of anthropological approaches. I start with conceptual analysis, identifying the human-environment relationship as a pro-active two-way interaction. I then present an outline of global environmental dynamics, highlighting the unequal size of human activities on geosphere and biosphere scale, and the role of the biosphere as manager of the (...) geosphere, this as context for the human population problem. Three types of environmental problems are next identified: urban-industrial, rural-agrarian, and high hazard exposure. These are seen as forming a continuum, with anthropogenic and natural factors synergizing at the centre. I comment on their geographic distribution, noting Europe’s limited and specific environmental experience. Lastly I attempt an overview without biological metaphors of the humanenvironment relationship through time, commenting on its inherent imbalances and how these might be diagnosed. I conclude that sociology’s bias to modernity and the West renders it inadequate to the global environmental question. A wider and deeper spacio-temporal consideration is needed, with the whole continuum of environmental problems considered. For this, environmental sociology should seek a synthesis with cultural anthropology centring on the anthropological concept of culture, an approach, I argue, that is accessible through the sociology of Max Weber. (shrink)

Thomas Reid (1710–96) is increasingly being seen as a highly significant philosopher and a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. This new edition of Reid's classic philosophical text in the philosophy of mind at long last gives scholars a complete, critically edited text of the Inquiry. The critical text is based on the fourth life-time edition (1785). A selection of related documents showing the development of Reid's thought, textual notes, bibliographical details of previous editions and a full introduction by the (...) editor makes this an important contribution to the study of this increasingly respected philosopher. -/- Key Features - Complete, critically edited text of the Inquiry accompanied by a judicious selection of manuscript evidence relating to its composition - Comprehensive Introduction providing an historical and philosophical account of the formation of the Inquiry - Detailed textual notes which include bibliographical details and allusions, translations, references to secondary literature and selected passages from Reid's manuscripts. (shrink)

In Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism, Brooke Ackerly demonstrates the shortcomings of contemporary deliberative democratic theory, relativism and essentialism for guiding the practice of social criticism in the real, imperfect world. Drawing theoretical implications from the activism of Third World feminists who help bring to public audiences the voices of women silenced by coercion, Brooke Ackerly provides a practicable model of social criticism. She argues that feminist critics have managed to achieve in practice what other theorists do only incompletely (...) in theory. Complemented by Third World feminist social criticism, deliberative democratic theory becomes critical theory - actionable, coherent, and self-reflective. While a complement to democratic theory, Third World feminist social criticism also addresses the problem in feminist theory associated with attempts to deal with identity politics. Third World feminist social criticism thus takes feminist theory beyond the critical impasse of the tension between anti-relativist and anti-essentialist feminist theory. (shrink)

This essay, and the special issue it introduces, sets out to reignite ethical interrogations of the theory and practice of Human Resource Management (HRM). To cultivate greater levels of boundary-spanning debate about the ethics of HRM, we develop a framework of four tenors for scholarly work: the ethical-declarative, the ethical-subjunctive, the ethical-ethnographic, the ethical-systemic. Each of these tenors denotes particular grounds for ethical critique and encourages scholars to consider the subjects and objects of their enquiry, the disciplinary scope of their (...) work and the limits to subsequent claims about ethics and HRM. We provisionally locate each of the papers comprising the special issue with regard to one, or more, of these tenors. (shrink)

Today’s bodies are akin to ‘walking sensor platforms’. Bodies either host, or are the subjects of, an array of sensing devices that act to convert bodily movements, actions and dynamics into circulative data. This article proposes the notions of ‘disembodied exhaust’ and ‘embodied exhaustion’ to conceptualise processes of bodily sensorisation and datafication. As the material body interfaces with networked sensor technologies and sensing infrastructures, it emits disembodied exhaust: gaseous flows of personal information that establish a representational data-proxy. It is this (...) networked actant that progressively structures how embodied subjects experience their daily lives. The significance of this symbiont medium in determining the outcome of interplays between networked individuals and audiences necessitates that it is carefully contrived. The article explores the nature and function of the data-proxy, and its impact on social relations. Drawing on examples that depict individuals engaging with their data-proxies, the article suggests that managing a virtual presence is analogous to a work relation, demanding diligence and investment. But it also shows how the data-proxy operates as a mode of affect that challenges conventional distinctions made between organic and inorganic bodies, agency and actancy, mortality and immortality, presence and absence. (shrink)

We give an overview of the practice of developing and using complex climate models, as seen from experiences in a major climate modelling center and through participation in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. We discuss the construction and calibration of models; their evaluation, especially through use of out-of-sample tests; and their exploitation in multi-model ensembles to identify biases and make predictions. We stress that adequacy or utility of climate models is best assessed via their skill against more naïve predictions. The (...) framework we use for making inferences about reality using simulations is naturally Bayesian, and has many points of contact with more familiar examples of scientific epistemology. While the use of complex simulations in science is a development that changes much in how science is done in practice, we argue that the concepts being applied fit very much into traditional practices of the scientific method, albeit those more often associated with laboratory work. (shrink)

Stem cell research has important implications for medicine. The source of stem cells influences their therapeutic potential, with stem cells derived from early-stage embryos remaining the most versatile. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a source of embryonic stem cells, allows for understandings about disease development and, more importantly, the ability to yield embryonic stem cell lines that are genetically matched to the somatic cell donor. However, SCNT requires women to donate eggs, which involves injection of ovulation-inducing hormones and egg retrieval (...) through laparoscopy or transvaginal needle aspiration. Risks from this procedure are fiercely debated, most notably risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). This review examines risk of OHSS resulting from oocyte donation. We conclude that risk posed by OHSS in egg donation is not significant enough to warrant undue concern, and much of this can be eliminated when proper precautions are taken. This bears relevance to the future of stem cell research policymaking. (shrink)

My aim is to show that the accounts of depiction offered by Christopher Peacocke and Robert Hopkins assume rather than explain one of the central features of depiction. This feature is pictorial realism. It is a constraint upon any adequate theory of depiction that it be able to explain pictorial realism; however, Peacocke and Hopkins seek to meet this constraint by employing the notion of resemblance. I raise three problems with Peacocke's account and point out an error in Hopkins's use (...) of solid angles (upon which his notion of resemblance rests). It is suggested that while these theories must be rejected, there are various non-resemblance theories, including that proposed by Gombrich, which might prove adequate. (shrink)

Carl Jung has always lain at the edge of sociology's consciousness, despite the existence of a long-established Freudian tradition. Yet, over the years, a small number of sociological writers have considered Jung; one or two Jungian writers have considered sociology. The range of perspectives is quite wide: Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Levi-Strauss, feminism, mass society, postmodernism. These scattered writings, however, have had little cumulative impact and inspired little debate. The authors seem often not to have known of each other, while the (...) sociological mainstream has remained unmoved or unaware. This is the situation that this book seeks to change. Jung and Sociological Theory brings together a selection of articles and excerpts in a single volume, together with some writings from anthropology, and seeks to begin the task of critical evaluation. Presented in three parts, the book covers anthropology, sociology and an appraisal of Jung and sociological theory. Gavin Walker explores the relationship between Jung and sociology, asking what the writers included here wanted from Jung, how we should locate Jung on the sociological landscape, and how this might link to anthropology. In conclusion he suggests that sociology's problem with Jung is less that he is difficult to place, than that he compels sociology to face some of its own inconsistencies and evasions. Jung and Sociological Theory will be of interest to all academics and students working in the fields of Jungian studies, analytical psychology and psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, feminism, comparative religion and the history of ideas. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: The Teleological Conception of the Practicable Good Human Function The Final Account of Human Good Conclusions Acknowledgments Notes References Further reading.

In this article I seek to relate the psychology of Carl Jung to sociological theory, specifically Weber. I first present an outline of Jungian psychology. I then seek to relate this as psychology to Weber’s interpretivism. I point to basic methodological compatibilities within a Kantian frame, from which emerge central concerns with the factors limiting rationality. These generate the conceptual frameworks for parallel enquiries into the development and fate of rationality in cultural history. Religion is a major theme here: contrasts (...) of eastern and western religion; the rise of prophetic religion and the disenchantment of modernity. Weber’s categories ‘ascetic’ and ‘mystic’ seem applicable to his own and Jung’s approaches and indeed temperaments, while a shared ironic view of rationality leads to similar visions of the disenchanted modern world. I conclude that Jung is sociologically coherent, but in an entirely different sense from Freud: rather than a constellation of family, socialization, ideology, social continuity, there is an analysis of cultural history against a background of adult normal psychology. I conclude that sociology should acknowledge Jung, but not in terms of over-arching theory. Rather Jungian insights might be used to orient new enquiries, and for reflexive analysis of sociology’s methodological debates. (shrink)

The debate around labour power, and particularly regarding its status as the ‘most peculiar’ of commodities, has been widely revisited in contemporary Marxist thought and critical theory. This concept, which has often resurfaced in works by Negri, Spivak, Virno and numerous other contemporary thinkers, has a long prehistory in the work of Marx and subsequent Marxist theorists, perhaps most importantly in the work of Uno Kōzō, arguably the most influential and widely known Marxist thinker in modern Japan. Uno’s work, and (...) particularly his major theoretical works of the 1950s, developed an entirelogicalanalysis of the peculiar position of the labour-power commodity within capital’s drive, noting that this site marks the place wherein capital’slogical interiorand itshistorical exteriorinterpenetrate each other, generating a volatile force of excess at the core of capital’s supposedly smooth and pure circuit-process. By developing around this point an extensive theoretical discussion of its dynamics ofimpossibilityorirrationality, centred on a term –muri– that he raises to the level of a concept, Uno formulates a series of original theses in methodology, on the concept of population, and particularly around the figures of thelogicaland thehistoricalin the critical analysis of capitalism. Focusing in particular on this ‘impossibility’ ormurithat is nevertheless constantly ‘passing through’ the capital-relation, this essay investigates the entire range of Uno’s analysis, revealing not only a crucial thread of theoretical inquiry that remains contemporary for us today, but also another set of possibilities linking the critique of political economy to the renewal of revolutionary politics. (shrink)

Everyday surveillance work is increasingly performed by non-human algorithms. These entities can be conceptualised as machinic flâneurs that engage in distanciated flânerie: subjecting urban flows to a dispassionate, calculative and expansive gaze. This paper provides some theoretical reflections on the nascent forms of algorithmic practice materialising in two Australian cities, and some of their implications for urban relations and social justice. It looks at the idealisation – and operational black boxing – of automated watching programs, before considering their impacts on (...) notions such as ‘the right to the city’ and ‘the right to the face’. It will argue that the turn to facial recognition software for the purposes of automating urban governance reconstitutes the meanings and phenomenology of the face. In particular, the fleshly and communicative physicality of the face is reduced to a measurable object that can be identified by a virtualised referent and then consequently tracked. Moreover, the asymmetrical and faceless nature of these machinic programs of recognition unsettles conventional notions of civil inattention and bodily sovereignty, and the prioritisation given to pattern recognition renders them amenable to ideas/ideals from phrenology and physiognomy. In this way, algorithmic governance may generate not only forms of facial vulnerability and estrangement, but also facial artifice, where individuals come to develop tacit and artful ways of de-facing and re-facing in order to subvert the processes of recognition which leverage these modes of biopower. Thus, the datafication of urban governance gives rise to a dynamic biopolitics of the face. (shrink)

This book argues that understandings and explanations of religion are always historically contingent.