Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Film theory and its emphasis on political and ideological readings of films dominated much of cinema studies in the '70s and '80s. Since then, in response to what some view as the shortcomings of theoretical approaches, a variety of other methods have emerged or reemerged. In many ways, as Nico Baumbach argues, "Anti-Grand Theory" has won the day but its victory is, in part, based on misreadings or simplifications of '70s film theory. In particular, Baumbach views contemporary critical approaches (...) to film as abandoning the crucial and productive ways in which theory understands the relationship between cinema, politics, and art. Baumbach does not advocate a return to the orthodoxies of the seventies but rather reads the work of Ranciere, Badiou, and Agamben as providing new ways of thinking about the history of film theory and how film creates its own way of thinking about politics. Moreover, at a time when digital technologies are asking us to think of film and the film image in new ways, the work of these thinkers once again asks, "What is Cinema?" but in a more expansive sense that can help us account for transformations in how moving images are produced, distributed, and exhibited in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

En el actual contexto global de pluralismo religioso, el reconocimiento social e institucional de los grupos religiosos depende, por una parte, de los marcos normativos y de la voluntad política de los representantes públicos y de sus gestores; y, por otra, de las estrategias de institucionalización que adopten los grupos religiosos, como su visibilización en el espacio público o la participación ciudadana en la vida política del municipio. El análisis de estas relaciones y de su incidencia en la sociedad, permite, (...) analizar la emergencia de nuevos modelos de gobernanza de lo religioso en el ámbito local. Este artículo pretende, a partir del estudio de caso de la comunidad musulmana bangladesí de Madrid en el barrio de Lavapiés, analizar la gestión del Ayuntamiento de Madrid de la diversidad religiosa de la ciudad entre 2015 y 2019, coincidiendo con la alcaldía de Manuela Carmena y la candidatura ciudadana de Ahora Madrid. (shrink)

The purpose in this text is to focus on one of the possible use of broadly psychoanalytic concepts in history: the analysis and treatment of historical testimonies by witnesses of “traumatic events”. A number of historians have proposed that some witness accounts could be understood as “elaborations of the past”, in the technical psychoanalytic sense. My interest is in the question whether the discourse of the psychoanalytic patient and the historical testimony by the traumatized witness possess the same epistemological status, (...) as claimed by the historians alluded to. My view is that the claims of similarity should be resisted.Is philosophyrelevant to everyday life? Is it not too abstract and general? The knowledge of priests, psychologists or physicians is as abstract and general, yet its relevance is not contested. Is not its relevance limited to the case of the rare sage which is both able to discuss complex philosophical matters and ready to adopt “the philosophical attitude” to life? Such popular notions ignore controversies with regard to the existence of such sages, the content of their alleged wisdom, or the nature or impact of their “philosophical attitude”. Modern philosophy is generally much more skeptical, realistic, pluralistic and therefore “democratic” thanthe elitist classics. It does not trust myths about the “good life” of the wise, nor ignore their preoccupation with death. (shrink)

What are 'emotions'? This book offers a balanced survey of facts and theory.

This article sets out to replace the concept of basic emotions with the notion of “ur-emotions,” the functionally central underlying processes of action readiness, which are not emotions at all. We propose that what is basic and universal in emotions are not multicomponential syndromes, but states of action readiness, themselves variants of motive states to relate or not relate with the world and with oneself. Unlike emotions, ur-emotions can be held to be universal and biologically based.

Zur Soziologie der Wissenschaftssoziologie* Von Nico Stehr Die Wissenschaftssoziologie ist in Bewegung geraten und mit ihr Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftstheorie sowie eine Reihe weiterer, im akademischen Bereich insti­ tutionalisierter wissenschaftlicher Spezialgebiete, die sich "Wissenschaft" reflexiv als Forschungsobjekt gewählt haben!. Die in diesem Band zusammengetragenen Aufsätze sind sowohl Ausdruck als auch Er­ gebnis dieser neuerlichen Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet der Wissenschaftssoziologie in verschiedenen Ländern und, wie man immer mehr feststellen kann, der ihr einerseits verwandten, andererseits aber auch vorausgehenden und komplementären theoreti­ (...) schen Ansätze in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte und der Wissenschaftstheorie. Der Zu­ sammenhang von Wissenschaftssoziologie (und Wissenssoziologie), Wissensgeschichte und Wissenschaftstheorie als solcher ist zwar keineswegs neu, schon in der Vergangen­ heit haben sich die in diesen Spezialgebieten dominierenden theoretischen Annahmen gegenseitig beeinflußt. Allerdings blieb der angedeutete Zusammenhang, und hier be­ sonders was die Wissenschaftssoziologie angeht, häufig implizit und war zudem von einem, die in der Wissenschaft herrschende Hierarchie von Disziplinen und Spezial­ gebieten wiederspiegelnden Abhängigkeitsverhältnis gekennzeichnet, bei dem die in einem Spezialgebiet vorherrschenden Annahmen die des anderen weitgehend bestimm­ ten. Im Gegensatz dazu kann man immer häufiger beobachten, daß Abhängigkeits­ verhältnisse von Strukturen abgelöst werden, die auf eine wachsende Zusammenarbeit der sich mit (wenn auch verschiedenen) Aspekten der Wissenschaftsentwicklung be­ schäftigenden Spezialgebiete schließen läßt. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Pages de début Présentation I. Parcours : vers un eurocommunisme problématique - Juillet 1979 II. Gramsci : entre Sartre et Althusser III. L'État du capital - 1976 IV. Questions sur le pouvoir - 1977 V. La crise (...) despartis - 1979 Pages de fin. (shrink)

Why does the world look to us as it does? As Nico Orlandi argues, it is simply because of how the world is. This answer emerges from understanding vision as situated in a structured environment, and it contrasts with the view that visual perception involves an inference.

Jecker et al. (2024) propose seven ethical principles to guide international bioethics conferencing, applying them to the selection of Qatar as the location for the 2024 World Congress of Bioethics...

Animal ethics has often been criticized for an overreliance on “ideal” or even “utopian” theorizing. In this article, I recognize this problem, but argue that the “nonideal theory” which critics have offered in response is still insufficient to make animal ethics action-guiding. I argue that in order for animal ethics to be action-guiding, it must consider agent-centered theories of change detailing how an ideally just human-animal coexistence can and should be brought about. I lay out desiderata that such a theory (...) of change should suffice so as to be helpful in guiding action. Specifically, a theory of change should determine (1) who needs to do what in order for ideal justice to be achieved in the long run, (2) who should be expected to refuse compliance and how they should be moved to comply, and (3) why specific intermediate steps are necessary. I show how previous “nonideal” contributions, though helpful in other ways, are insufficiently determinate on these points and I sketch a (still somewhat utopian) theory of change for one specific context. This brings animal ethics a crucial step closer to being action-guiding in the real world. (shrink)

Arguments against inflicting violence on people to defend animal rights have relied on the view that inflicting violence is always wrong. But these arguments end up prohibiting too much, as defensive violence should be permissible in certain extreme cases. We argue that considerations about the counterproductiveness of defensive violence are better at distinguishing permissible and impermissible instances of animal rights violence than a blanket rejection of violence. We respond to the objection that assuming violence to be counterproductive is ad hoc, (...) discussing real-world and fictional examples of animal rights violence. We argue that defensive violence on behalf of animals should almost always be assumed to be counterproductive because it threatens to trigger self-reinforcing reactions on the part of the socio-technical regimes that violate animal rights in the first place. (shrink)

Galasso (2024) reiterates the problem of medical research being grounded on data from people with European ancestry and subsequently describes efforts made by the All of Us Research Program in the...

Echoes of No Thing seeks to understand the space between thinking which Martin Heidegger and the 13th-century Zen patriarch Eihei D ogen explore in their writing and teachings. Heidegger most clearly attempts this in Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event) and D ogen in his Sh ob ogenz o, a collection of fascicles which he compiled in his lifetime. Both thinkers draw us towards thinking, instead of merely defining systems of thought. Both Heidegger and D ogen imagine possibilities not apparent (...) in the world we currently inhabit, but notably, find possible, through a refashioning of thinking as a soteriological reimagining that clears space for the presencing of an authentic experience in the space which emerges between certainties. Jenkins elucidates this soteriological reimagining through a close reading of both authors' conceptions of time and space, and by developing a practice of listening that is attuned to the echoes that resonate between the two thinkers. While Heidegger often wrote about new beginnings (as well as about gathering oneself, preparing the site, clearings, and practicing) in preparation for the evental un-concealing of truth, nowhere is this as present as in the enigmatic, difficult, and in fact beautiful, Contributions. To call a text beautiful, especially a work of philosophy, risks committing an act of disingenuity, and yet Contributions, like Jacques Derrida's Glas or Walter Benjamin's unfinished Arcades Project, rises to this acclaim through its very resistance to a system, its refusal to be easily digested, or even understood. Contributions is unfinished, partial, even at times muttered; it is the beginning of a thinking which takes place on a path and as such cannot imagine--or refuse--its final destination. It invites us to take up towards, but not to insist on, its thinking; it is a "turn" away from the reason and logic of a technologized world and returns philosophy--as a thinking--to a place of wonder and awe. D ogen's Sh obogenz o, from another culture and time entirely, is also a beautiful text, for similar reasons. The Sh obogenz o, gathered first as a series of talks given by Eihei D ogen (and later composed as written texts) details the process of understanding which leads, for D ogen, to a position of pure seeing, or satori, and yet these talks are not simply rules for monks, nor merely imprecations and demands for a laity; rather, they open a being's thinking to the possibility of something purely other and work as a transition across worlds that also opens us to an other world. What both thinkers illustrate, as do the other thinkers drawn on in this project--most notably, those philosophers associated with the Kyoto School, who were both intimately aware of D ogen's work, and studied, or studied with, Heidegger--is that world is not a fixed, stable entity; rather it is a fugal composition of possibility, of as yet untraversed--and at times un-traversable--spaces. Echoes of No Thing seeks to examine, within the lacunal eddies of be-coming's arrival, that space between which both thinkers point towards as possible sites of new beginnings."--https://punctumbooks.com/titles/echoes-of-no-thing-thinking-between-heidegger-and-doge n/, accessed 06/05/2020. (shrink)

There is a certain excitement in vision science concerning the idea of applying the tools of bayesian decision theory to explain our perceptual capacities. Bayesian models are thought to be needed to explain how the inverse problem of perception is solved, and to rescue a certain constructivist and Kantian way of understanding the perceptual process. Anticlimactically, I argue both that bayesian outlooks do not constitute good solutions to the inverse problem, and that they are not constructivist in nature. In explaining (...) how visual systems derive a single percept from underdetermined stimulation, orthodox versions of bayesian accounts encounter a problem. The problem shows that such accounts need to be grounded in Natural Scene Statistics (NSS), an approach that takes seriously the Gibsonian insight that studying perception involves studying the statistical regularities of the environment in which we are situated. Additionally, I argue that bayesian frameworks postulate structures that hardly rescue a constructivist way of understanding perception. Except for percepts, the posits of bayesian theory are not representational in nature. bayesian perceptual inferences are not genuine inferences. They are biased processes that operate over nonrepresentational states. (shrink)

This article attempts to clarify the commitments of a predictive coding approach to perception. After summarizing predictive coding theory, the article addresses two questions. Is a predictive coding perceptual system also a Bayesian system? Is it a Kantian system? The article shows that the answer to these questions is negative.

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

PART I PROLEGOMENA ACTING ON ORDERS "First, words are our tools, and, as a minimum, we should use clean tools: we should know what we mean and what we do ...

This open access book revises Kant’s ethical thought in one of its most notorious respects: its exclusion of animals from moral consideration. The book gives readers in animal ethics an accessible introduction to Kant’s views on our duties to others, and his view that we have only ‘indirect’ duties regarding animals. It then investigates how one would have to depart from Kant in order to recognise that animals matter morally for their own sake. Particular attention is paid to Kant’s ‘Formula (...) of Humanity,' the role of autonomy and the moral law, as well as Kant’s notions of practical reason and animal instinct. The result is a deliberately amended version of Kantianism which nevertheless remains faithful to central aspects of Kant’s thought. The book’s final part illustrates the framework’s use in applied contexts, addressing the issues of using animals as mere means, the ethics of veganism and vegetarianism, and environmental protection. Nico Dario Müller shows how, when furnished with duties to animals, Kant's moral philosophy can be a powerful resource for animal ethicists. (shrink)

Several philosophical issues in connection with computer simulations rely on the assumption that results of simulations are trustworthy. Examples of these include the debate on the experimental role of computer simulations :483–496, 2009; Morrison in Philos Stud 143:33–57, 2009), the nature of computer data Computer simulations and the changing face of scientific experimentation, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Barcelona, 2013; Humphreys, in: Durán, Arnold Computer simulations and the changing face of scientific experimentation, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Barcelona, 2013), and the explanatory power of (...) computer simulations :277–292, 2008; Durán in Int Stud Philos Sci 31:27–45, 2017). The aim of this article is to show that these authors are right in assuming that results of computer simulations are to be trusted when computer simulations are reliable processes. After a short reconstruction of the problem of epistemic opacity, the article elaborates extensively on computational reliabilism, a specified form of process reliabilism with computer simulations located at the center. The article ends with a discussion of four sources for computational reliabilism, namely, verification and validation, robustness analysis for computer simulations, a history of successful implementations, and the role of expert knowledge in simulations. (shrink)

Autonomous labor and its attendant values have now become familiar tools of neoliberal capitalism: work has become freelance, flexible, mobile, project-based, hybrid and temporary. If these conditions are novel to the general economy, this way of working is not new to artists, who began experiencing these precarious conditions long before Post-Fordism was a buzzword. The contributors to Mobile Autonomy, drawn from a variety of disciplines including art, political philosophy and sociology, examine the alternate working methods and economic models developed, in (...) theory and in practice, by artists and other creative professionals to make artistic work viable in contemporary social, economic and political conditions. (shrink)

Žižek s work on Heidegger has not been examined in the same way as his work on Hegel, Lacan, Marx and Kant. In order to shed light on his political thought – oscillating between a heroic Leninism and a subversive _ Ideologiekritik _ – we are reconstructing his critique of Heidegger as it follows from the first chapter of _ The Ticklish Subject _. In that we want to show how his critique is essentially Kantian – Which means for Žižek: (...) A critique that doesn’t retreat from the full consequences of the subject’s finiteness. That is excactly what Žižek traces in both Heidegger and Kant, focussing around the role of transcendental imagination. In a last step we are showing how his doubled political position follows from this and hint at the intuition that his heroic Leninism itself could be conceived as a sort of retreat from those very consequences. (shrink)

In his seminal Islam Observed: Religious Developments in Morocco and Indonesia from 1968, the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz placed the comparative study of Muslim societies on the research agenda. In view of my knowledge on the history of Islam in Indonesia, it stroke me that the political dimension of religion did not take an important place in the book. This is the more remarkable because during Geertz’s fieldwork in Java in 1953-4 manifestations of political Islam regularly popped up, and Geertz (...) did not only notice those, but also recorded them in his book The Religion of Java from 1960. In this paper I will go into the question of why Geertz did not give a more prominent place to political Islam in his analysis of Muslim cultures, and what concepts of both Islam and religion he used. (shrink)

Der wechselseitige Einfluss von Wissen und Freiheit (und damit Demokratie) in modernen, hochkomplexen Gesellschaften wie auch der Wandel ihrer Beziehungen im Laufe der Moderne ist eines der faszinierendsten Themen unseres Zeitalters. Es handelt sich dabei wohl kaum um eine einmal festgeschriebene, statische Beziehung, sondern um eine historisch-dynamische Relation, die immer von der Entwicklung der Wissensformen und der jeweils relevanten Definition von Freiheit mitbestimmt wurde und wird. Dieses Buch beleuchtet die neuartigen Probleme und Herausforderungen der Demokratie im Angesicht der rapide anwachsenden (...) wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse in gegenwärtigen Gesellschaften und gibt einen Überblick über soziologische Perspektiven von Weber, Dewey und Foucault bis in die Gegenwart. (shrink)

A review of the literature was conducted to better understand the (potential) role of mental health professionals in physician-assisted suicide. Numerous studies indicate that depression is one of the most commonly encountered psychiatric illnesses in primary care settings. Yet, depression consistently goes undetected and undiagnosed by nonpsychiatrically trained primary care physicians. Noting the well-studied link between depression and suicide, it is necessary to question giving sole responsibility of assisting patients in making end-of-life treatment decisions to these physicians. Unfortunately, the use (...) of mental health consultation by these physicians is not a common occurrence. Greater involvement of mental health professionals in this emerging and debated area is advocated. Beyond describing mental health professionals' role in the assessment of patient competency or decision making capacity, other areas of potential involvement are described. A discussion of ethical principles relevant to this area follows, along with comments on the training necessary to adequately serve patient needs. (shrink)

In this issue we include contributions from the individuals presiding at the panel All in a Jurnal's Work: A BABEL Wayzgoose, convened at the second Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group. Sadly, the contributions of Daniel Remein, chief rogue at the Organism for Poetic Research as well as editor at Whiskey & Fox , were not able to appear in this version of the proceedings. From the program : 2ND BIENNUAL MEETING OF THE BABEL WORKING GROUP CONFERENCE “CRUISING IN (...) THE RUINS: THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINARITY IN THE POST/MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY” SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2012: SESSION 13 MCLEOD C.322, CURRY STUDENT CENTER NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON, MA. Traditionally, a wayzgoose was a celebration at the end of a printer’s year, a night off in the late fall before the work began of printing by candlelight. According to the OED, the Master Printer would make for the journeymen “a good Feast, and not only entertains them at his own House, but besides, gives them Money to spend at the Ale-house or Tavern at Night.” Following in this line, continent. proposes in its publication(s) a night out and a good Feast, away from the noxious fumes of the Academy and into a night of revelry which begins, but does not end, at the alehouse or Tavern. continent. proposes that the thinking of the Academy be freed to be thought elsewhere, in the alleys and doorways of the village and cities, encountered not in the strictly defined spaces of the classroom and blackboard (now white) but anticipated and found where thinking occurs. Historically, academic journals have served a different purpose than the Academy itself. Journals (from the Anglo-Fr. jurnal , "a day," from O.Fr. jornel , "day, time; day's work," hence the journalist as writer of the news of the day ) have served as privileged sites for the articulation and concretization of specific modes of knowledge and control (insemination of those ideas has been formalized in the classroom, in seminar). In contrast, the academic journal is post-partum and has been an old-boys club, an insider trading network in which truths are (re)circulated against themselves, forming a Maginot Line against whatever is new, or the distinctly challenging. All in a Jurnal’s Work will discuss (in part) the ramifications of cheap start-up publications that are challenging the traditional ensconced-in-ivory academic journals and their supporting infrastructures. The panel will be seeking a questioning (as a challenging) towards the discipline of knowledge production/fabrication (of truth[s]) and the event of the Academy (and its publications) as it has evolved and continues to (d)evolve. Issues to be discussed will revolve around the power of academic publishing and its origins, hierarchical versus horizontal academic modules (is there a place for the General Assembly in academia?) and the evolving idea of the Multiversity as a site(s) of a (BABELing) multivocality in the wake of the University of Disaster. A CONTINUOUS ACT Nico Jenkins In Pierre Hadot’s extraordinary book, Philosophy as a Way of Life , the practices of philosophy—that is the exercise of what we can term pre-institionalized love of wisdom, what Philo of Alexandria described as a training towards wisdom—are described as, following the Stoics, “a continuous act, permanent and identical with life itself, which had to be renewed at each instant.” This renewal of thinking, this coming to be of being itself —meeting itself on its own ground, concerns the way philosophy is practiced, and more often, taught, or rather not taught. Hadot continues his thinking with a description of what happens to the structure of thought in the medieval ages as it becomes adopted—co-opted— by the university, and by extension, by the institution of the church. Philosophy becomes no longer a way of living, no longer a praxis as such but becomes a condition that is locked in a theoretical construct, one which was literally removed from life (and in life we read then love, wisdom, being etc, also the home, the market, the field, the street) and secured behind the high walls of the monastery (which were shortly replaced by the high walls of the Academy) where thinking unfortunately rests for the most part today. Hadot writes further that this dangerous movement of removal reduces thinking to a theoretical practice akin to the mythical Ouroborous; “education was thus no longer directed toward people who were to be educated with a view to becoming fully developed human beings, but to specialists, in order that they might learn how to train other specialists.” Thought then is trapped behind the walls of the academy, and with the exception of such thinkers as Spinoza, Descartes, and Liebnitz as well as others who think from an outside in, thought remains, in the form of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, a practice reduced or removed from life and restricted to what Schopenhauer will call “mere fencing in front of the mirror.” This is of course the tendency today and philosophy remains, for the most part, a discourse produced and thought inside the academy and disseminated, in seminated through university presses and of course the academic journal. It seems necessary to me that we have to have a place, a return, to a thinking which is closer to the Stoics, closer to the pre-Socratics, to a thinking which is a practice of becoming, a training to think, to live, to die. this is not south romantic than imperative . This thinking is one of a deep ir responsibility because it is not known, it is not figured out. It requires a risk and what Heidegger calls a leap (for there is no bridge to it). I call it irresponsible because for too long sanctioned thought has had as its premise the idea that thinking has a goal, a direction, a telos ; that it is not an activity but a process which gives a product; that the responsibility of thinking in turn demand an answer. In my mind, only freed from that goal can thinking, in contrast, bask in its own thinking, bask in a state in which the unknown can remain unknown, that mystery can rest as mystery. This is not to say that the world needs no answers, or to promote a Whitmanesque “leaning and loafing” as the only valid practice. It is only to say that for too long, thinking has been validated by the academy, by the answerable, by the already decided. To me, this requires—as an answer— the ir responsibility of thought, what Nancy calls, “a world for which all is not already done (played out, finished, enshrined in a destiny), nor entirely still to do (in the future for always future tomorrows).” This is a thinking not sanctified by the academy, made sacred by the church or the palace but rather it takes place on the périphérie , beyond the ring road, in alleyways behind the marketplace, in cafes stained with the syphilitic patina of irresponsible talk, of loose talk, the kind of talk made loose not only by the tankard and the goblet by the practice and training of attuned thinking. continent. was formed as a collective of thinkers coming out of the European Graduate School (also known as the University of Disaster) three years ago, in an effort to combat, or challenge, the dominant paradigm which isolates thinking from the street, from life, from where perhaps wisdom tends to emerge. We feel that not only is the university herself no longer the privileged site of where true thinking takes place—and where only official thought can take place—but that the very artificiality of the academy denies thinking—at times—authentic, thought. Our goal at continent. is to create a media agnostic publication which is rigorous in its intellectual underpinnings but which will remain permanently beyond and out of reach of the academy. Though many of us butter our bread with academic paychecks (maid!) we attempt to keep continent. as a refuge—and a refugee—from the University in ruins, from the University as a site of preformed and institutionalized pre-set dialogues. In concert with other publications-both cyber and print—as well as various blogs we are attempting to re-dialogize the dialogue of thinking. We are attempting both to speak to— as well as with and against —the university as a site of accreted knowledge. We have not been utterly successful and continue to attempt to define what that role of being perpetually beyond is (while still trying to maintain rigorous intellectual standards) but it is just that, a goal, which is perpetually opening, perpetually unanswered, perhaps even by design, perpetually unanswerable. (shrink)