This edited volume brings together a range of perspectives on Educational Leadership, Management and Administration (ELMA) and various theories of resistance or compliance along with how policy and politics play out in school communities. The book makes a significant contribution to debates around theorising educational leadership and the implications of discourses on schooling and the politics of education. It brings together a broad array of international scholars to examine theories of resistance in ELMA and establish a resistance-oriented agenda (...) for critical ELMA research that promotes change and diverse ideas about leadership. Using both empirical data and conceptual analysis, the chapters provide opportunities for theorising the work and working conditions of educational leaders alongside questions of compliance and resistance that further improve the understanding of these concepts in the field. Providing cutting-edge research and theorisation into this emerging area, the book will be highly relevant for researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of educational leadership, management and administration, and educational policy. It will also be of interest to school leaders. (shrink)

In this book Reynold Macpherson initiates a politically-critical theory of educative leadership as a fresh line of inquiry in the practice, research and theory of educational administration and educational leadership. Divided into four parts, the book introduces the sub-discipline of political philosophy to the field of educational administration, management and leadership. It does this by clarifying the knowledge domain of each and identifying how four political ideologies, specifically pragmatism, communitarianism, communicative rationalism and egalitarian liberalism, have primarily informed (...) and surreptitiously provided contestable justifications for power in the development of practice, research and theory in the field of study. The book goes on to offer three case studies illustrating how political philosophy can be used to interpret how people become leaders and administrators of educational institutions and systems. Additional case studies then demonstrate how crises in governance in educational institutions and systems can be analyzed and improvements made using the tools of political philosophy. The final part uses the sub-discipline to critique the author's decades of research into educative leadership, and concludes the book by both establishing the relativity of politically-critical critique and the ideology it favours; neo-pragmatism. Political Philosophy, Educational Administration and Educative Leadership will provide practitioners, researchers and theorists in educational administration, management and leadership with a deeper appreciation of power by formally introducing them to the assumptions, limits and tools of political philosophy. (shrink)

The authors are national school resource experts and have teamed up to write a comprehensive book on ethics and politics. It covers everything you need to know about ethical leadership and dealing with politics in schools. The book starts with an ethical framework and moves on to politics with unions, administrators, and School Boards with suggested strategies for effective conflict resolution. There are realistic cases in every chapter of the book with the final chapter focused on comprehensive ethical (...) and political cases to test the reader in addressing such issues in the educational or related settings. Benefits and Features of Book:.A comprehensive book covering all aspects of ethics and school politics..Each chapter objectives are aligned with the ELCC, InTASC, ISLCC, and TLEC standards used for accreditation and alignment in program content..Many federal and various state data sources are included..Each chapter contains a comprehensive case study and exercises for practical application..Provides a blend of academic, theoretical, and practical perspectives in handling and dealing in ethical and political situations..Several handy resources are included in the appendices.". (shrink)

Financing Public Schools moves beyond the basics of financing public elementary and secondary education to explore the historical, philosophical, and legal underpinnings of a viable public school system. Coverage includes the operational aspects of school finance, including issues regarding teacher salaries and pensions, budgeting for instructional programs, school transportation, and risk management. Diving deeper than other school finance books, the authors explore the political framework within which the schools must function, discuss the privatization (...) of education and its effects on public schools, offer perspectives regarding education as an investment in human capital, and expertly explain complex financial and economic issues. This comprehensive text provides the tools to apply the many and varied fiscal concepts and practices that are essential for aspiring public school administrators who aim to provide responsible stewardship for their students. (shrink)

Introduction A book with this title, dealing as it does with the political machinery and political education appropriate to a democratic society, ...

Management and organization researchers are being called to conduct research that is more caring, yet the concept of care and how to practice it within the profession is undertheorized. Adopting a feminist epistemology and methodology, we develop the concept of care by weaving the personal, ethical, and political into the research process. First, we reflect critically on how aspects of care—attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness (Tronto, Moral boundaries: a political argument for an ethic of care, (...) Routledge, 1993; Tronto, Caring democracy: markets, equality, and justice, New York University Press, 2013)—unfolded in our personal research experiences, and secondly, we conduct a review of articles published in management and organization studies and analyse expressed or concealed conceptions of care in scholars’ accounts of research purpose and ethics. We find three ethical sensibilities at the heart of enacting care: encountering the ‘other’, interpreting roles and responsibilities, and deliberating needs and resources. We contribute to a feminist research ethics by highlighting issues related to care that are concealed in dominant ethos guiding management and organization research. Further, we develop methodological insights for implementing an ethic of care as an alternative ethical standpoint in business research ethics. Finally, we provide suggestions for how to embed more care within research ethics practices in academic institutions. (shrink)

The Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership provides an aesthetic critique of educational administration and leadership. It demonstrates the importance of aesthetics on all aspects of the administrative and leadership world: the ways ideas and ideals are created, how their expression is conveyed, the impact they have on interpersonal relationships and the organizational environment that carries and reinforces them, and the moral boundaries or limits that can be established or exceeded. The book is divided into three sections. · (...) Section I examines various philosophical traditions in aesthetics as they inform administrative life, focussing on major modern traditions arising from Kant, romanticism and Nietzsche, Collingwood, the pragmatic school, and critical theory. · Section II explores four aesthetic sources for administrative critique - architecture, literature, film, and movement - as they serve both to understand the social construction of administration and leadership and provide a critique of values, roles, power and authority. · Section III examines more topical and applied problems of charisma, heroism, and authority in practice, concluding with a discussion of the aesthetic analysis of politics and power within the context of contemporary educational administration and leadership theory. While presenting a significant departure from conventional studies in the field, the international contributors reflect a continuity of thought on the creation, use and abuse of administrative and leadership authority from the writings of Plato through to contemporary theory. This book should appeal to school administrators and leaders and those aspiring to these roles. (shrink)

This article offers an interpretation of theories of management and organisation from the perspective of Hannah Arendt’s theory of free action. This endeavour will contribute to criticism and eventually improvement of the conceptual framework of management and organisation theory. We discuss conceptual tensions in this field, for instance with respect to the relationship between human action and the constraints of an organisation. To the extent that management and organisation theory are practiceoriented, such an analysis can help to (...) understand tensions and ambiguities in practice. Some of the optimism and high hopes found in the literature may have to be tempered as a consequence of a more adequate analysis of free action. The analysis therefore provides a critical point of view on the problems of managing freely acting people. (shrink)

This article offers an interpretation of theories of management and organisation from the perspective of Hannah Arendt’s theory of free action. This endeavour will contribute to criticism and eventually improvement of the conceptual framework of management and organisation theory. We discuss conceptual tensions in this field, for instance with respect to the relationship between human action and the constraints of an organisation. To the extent that management and organisation theory are practiceoriented, such an analysis can help to (...) understand tensions and ambiguities in practice. Some of the optimism and high hopes found in the literature may have to be tempered as a consequence of a more adequate analysis of free action. The analysis therefore provides a critical point of view on the problems of managing freely acting people. (shrink)

Although Taylor’s scientific management is often severely criticised, his publications are seldom the subject of scrutinised, philosophical, reading. The latter is the aim of the present text. Attention is given to the idea of science, the role of extra-scientific values, the relationship of theory and practice, the societal meaning of management, presenting demarcations, presuppositions and unclarities. The conclusion notes several topics, implied by Taylor’s views and still worth reflecting upon. One example is efficiency as a seemingly context-independent concept.

Co-published with UCEA, this new textbook tackles Standard #2 of the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL)¿Ethics and Professional Norms. This volume includes specific strategies for school leaders to develop knowledge and skills in supporting the learning and development of all students, as well as understanding the dynamics and importance of ethics in leadership practice. By presenting problem-posing cases, theoretical grounding, relevant research, implications for practice, and learning activities, this book provides aspiring leaders with the background, learning experiences, and (...) analytical tools to successfully promote ethical leadership and student success in their contexts. Special features include: ¿ Case Studies¿provide an opportunity to practice ethical reasoning and engage in the discussion of complexities and debates within each case. ¿ Learning Activites¿a range of exercises help readers make connections to the PSEL standard. ¿ Important Resources¿includes resources that support and encourage students to explore each of the chapter¿s elements. (shrink)

A contribution to management philosophy is made here by the development of a postcolonial-storytelling theory, created by drawing together parallel developments in quantum physics and tribal peoples’ storytelling. We argue that these developments resituate the hegemonic relationship of discursive representationalism over material storytelling practices. Implications are two-fold. First, this dissolves inherent dualisms presumed in the concept of interactionamong entities like actor–structure, subject–object and discursive–nondiscursive in favour of a profound ontology of entanglement and intra-action of materiality and discourse, where storytelling (...) is a domain of this discourse. Second, postcolonial phenomena are understood as results of entangled genealogies in which plural voices are present. This implies an understanding and awareness of the intra-action of imperial narratives and material storytelling and antenarrative resistance, and thus the resistance and contestation to imperial and colonising monologic narratives of spatial and temporal alignment. (shrink)

Paradox — the simultaneous existence of two inconsistent states — has become orthodox. The orthodox is now the paradox. The orthodox world of ordering, controlling and organizing is increasingly opposed to a normalizing world of disordering, disrupting and disorganizing. And organization studies cannot avoid changing its conceptions of reality as that reality changes. In the future, organization studies will be the study of paradox, how to understand it, how to use it. In this book of original contributions addressed (...) to management and organization paradoxes the authors address the new state of the field in terms of representations — representing paradoxes — and materialisations — materialising paradoxes. The themes — although varied, ranging from dialectics to internal tensions; from collaborations to ethics and value conflicts; from resistant labourers and wharfies to cartoon characters such as The Simpsons; from the irrationalities of finance to the psychoanalytic rationalities of auditing, and from issues of governance in Asian and international business to the composition of the new knowledge work force in the business professions — cohere around core aspects of paradoxicality. Overall, the contributions to Management and Organization Paradoxes are diverse and challenging. Each contribution takes a different angle on the central theme. All of the chapters illuminate diverse aspects of contemporary paradoxes in management and organization theory. The book provides, in each of its chapters, a challenge to the still overwhelmingly rationalist views of theory and practice that dominate the field and provides new directions for understanding organizations and management.The contributors are drawn from leading European, Australian and Latin American contributors. (shrink)

This volume offers a holistic, empirically grounded examination of the factors which influence educational leaders' ethical judgments in their day-to-day work in schools. Drawing on a range of quantitative studies, the text utilizes organizational psychology to explore multiple ethical paradigms. It considers social aspects including ethnicity, gender, hegemony-minority relations, and leadership styles which influence and drive ethical judgment patterns employed by educators and principals. The book ultimately demonstrates the Ethical Perspectives Instrument (EPI) as an effective tool for the assessment (...) of various ethical viewpoints and their interactions, suitable for application to diverse cultures and socio-educational circumstances. An important study of the leaders' ethics and preparation in handling marginalized populations, this book will be valuable for academics, researchers, and graduate students working in the fields of educational leadership, organizational psychology, and the sociology of education. (shrink)

This book offers 32 texts and case studies from across a wide range of business sectors around a managerial framework for Sustainable Business. The case studies are developed for and tested in executive education programmes at leading business schools. The book is based on the premise that the key for managing the sustainable business is finding the right balance over time between managing competitiveness and profitability AND managing the context of the business with its political, social and ecological risks (...) and opportunities. In that way, a sustainable business is highly responsive to the demands and challenges from both markets and societies and managers embrace the complexity, ambivalence and uncertainty that goes along with this approach. The book presents a framework that facilitates the adoption of best business practice. This framework leads executives through a systematic approach of strategic analysis and business planning in risk management, issues management, stakeholder management, sustainable business development and strategic differentiation, business model innovation and developing dynamic capabilities. The approach helps broaden the understanding of what sustainable performance means, by protecting business value against sustainability risks and creating business value from sustainability opportunities. (shrink)

During the last couple of decades, there has been an expansion in a number of related and overlapping fields producing evidence of covert activities: toxic cultures, destructive leadership styles, micropolitics, ethical problems in organisations and administration, abusive power and authority, and many other topics of dysfunctional management and leadership studies that frequently make reference to secretive and deceptive behaviour.In this book, Eugenie A. Samier draws on a range of disciplines including education, psychology, administration and management studies and organizational (...) theory to provide a comprehensive examination of the ways in which organisational leaders and administrators carry out their roles in a secretive or deceptive manner. Samier presents a theory of covert administration that can be used to:provide an analysis and interpretation of secretive and deceptive activity inform decision-making both theoretically and practically offer a means of diagnosing errant management using secretive and deceptive practicesprovide a general set of guidelines for determining when clandestine activities may be legitimate and moral. Alongside a detailed presentation of the theory of covert administration, the book explores covert administration in practice, factors leading to it, and the results of attempts to combat its many forms. It will be key reading for researchers and postgraduates with an interest in the field, as well as administrators and policy makers. (shrink)

Ethics for School Leaders: The Human Condition and Organizational Dynamics focuses on the ethically complex situations school leaders face and how they balance a complex array of organizational demands, interpersonal dynamics, and ethical concerns to achieve the greater good for their students and for everyone else in the school environment.

This paper examines an aspect of the grammar-interaction interface with respect to how participants orient to intra-turn phrasal unit boundaries as a locus that has interactional import for turn and sequence organization in Korean conversation. Phrasal unit boundaries in Korean serve as a space within a turn in which the speaker of the turn in-progress invites the recipient to acknowledge the speaker's point expressed up-to-that-point and collaboratively display his/her understanding thereof. In a sequentially and topically 'ripe' context, such unit (...) boundaries often constitute places where more active participation on the part of the recipient is invited in the form of collaborative completion in which the recipient co-constructs the primary speaker's on-going turn. Phrasal unit boundaries also provide interactional resources which the speaker may exploit to sequentially delete out a problem in talk, e.g., by a sort of tying operation in which a subsequently added phrasal unit ties back to the speaker's previous utterance to the effect that the intervening talk containing a problem is canceled out by way of being shown to have been an interruption of the speaker's turn in-progress. This practice points to an aspect of the way in which the 'agglutinative' grammatical process involving the use of phrasal units shapes interactional patterns as observed in the course of organizing turns/sequences and managing problems in talk. (shrink)

Describes 100 real-life ethical dilemmas faced by school administrators.

_Ideologies in Educational Administration and Leadership_ explores ideological dimensions of educational administration in a number of Western and Central European contexts as they influence or shape the understanding, analysis, and practice in the field covering a broad range of topics, such as ethics, governance, diversity, and power. The first section, Philosophical and Theoretical Foundations, includes a range of sociological, political and linguistic approaches to examining ideology in an educational context. The second section, Ideologies of Research and Teaching, includes examinations (...) of neoliberal and technological effects on research and teaching, as well as ideological shifts and challenges, in the West and in Eastern Europe. The last section, Contemporary and International Issues, includes critiques of social media, neoliberal impact on schooling, managerial leadership, university ideologies in Finland, the rationalisation of universities, and the impact of administrative ideologies on school systems. The book will appeal to researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, academics, as well as post-graduates in educational administration theory, and related courses in the ethics and politics of education, educational leadership, and organisational studies. (shrink)

This groundbreaking work was the first to propose an inquiry into the forms, dynamics, and constructs of educational policy. This fine book remains the only treatment of educational policy incorporating an account of the differences between various kinds of educational goods. Professor Green explored the nature of policy and prospects for the future, and it is a rare treat that we can now (more than fifteen years later) revisit the text to discover his uncanny accuracy.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, and regular corporate scandals, there has been a growing concern with the moral and ethical foundations of business. Often these concerns are limited to narrow accounts of governance codes, regulatory procedures or behaviour incentives, which are often characterized by neo-liberal bias underpinned by western masculine logics. This book challenges these limited accounts of ethics and responsibility. It looks at the writing of Gayatri C. Spivak who takes globally networked markets, people, and ideas and (...) provides tools to rethink subjectivity, ethics, and corporate governance. Eschewing strict hierarchical notions of authority and identity, Spivak's work invites us to consider who speaks for whom and for what in organizational contexts. Relationality is also to be found in the radical politics and feminist ethics of Judith Butler who continues to draw on and develop her account of performativity to interpret contemporary organizations, management and work. While popular accounts of corporate ethics often concern themselves with the aims and actions of those at the top of organisations, Lauren Berlant focuses on the struggles of those at the bottom of the new social structures created by contemporary forms of capital. Finally, the book also considers ecological challenges through the work of Val Plumwood, who spent a lifetime considering the threats and responsibilities we face in environmental terms, and developed a feminist ecological philosophy for understanding social and species differences. This book will be relevant to students and researchers across business and management, organizational studies, critical management studies, gender studies and sociology. (shrink)

Every school has a mission statement based on values and ethical beliefs. Ethics for Teachers and Middle Leaders sets out a way of thinking through the key issues of ethics in teaching and shows how a school's ethical values can be translated by students and staff into action. It is designed to help rehearse certain ethical dilemmas and guide teacher leaders in helping others to think through and develop appropriate behaviours. Chapters consider the role of ethics in all (...) aspects of school life including teacher professionalism, teaching methods, lesson planning and assessment. This book not only examines everyday concerns such as class management and presenting curriculum ethically, but also touches upon emerging issues in e-learning, career building, leadership and school governance. Packed full of real examples from schools and opportunities to reflect, the book will help readers to understand how their behaviour, decisions and advice to others might be guided and to avoid some of the common pitfalls in school. This insightful book will instil confidence in teachers and middle leaders as they face such ethical dilemmas in their daily work. (shrink)

The importance of professional and/or practical ethics cannot be overstated in most occupations, especially in light of our contemporary, interconnected world. Within formal education, the management paradigm is shifting as a result of a continuing refocus on the moral and ethical dimensions of working and leading in schools. Although professional norms and personal qualities of the educator can be powerful in directing and informing work-related judgment and behavior, this book puts forth and expands upon the viability of a professional (...) ethic for education and educational administration and leadership in particular. The expansion of such an ethic for education has been underway, but in its current state could be viewed as underdeveloped or commonly misunderstood as obvious and simplistic. In this book, such an ethic for educational administration is presented, developed, and interrogated. This critical reader makes a strong argument for the legitimacy of a professional ethic for the field of education by drawing together a diverse collection of literature that explores, critically examines, and further develops a practical ethical paradigm for the field. (shrink)

It is evident that, being a member of the organization, the team has to cue the influx of the green management concepts. This study focuses on the aspect of team management in green enterprises. Applying leadership theory to sample green enterprises, this paper proposes that political skills of team leadership have moderating effects on the relationship between team conflict and performance at both the individual and team levels. Empirical data were collected from 85 dyads of leaders (...) and team members in 36 green enterprises in China. It was found that the leaders’ political skills weakened the negative effects of relationship conflict on individual performance and team performance. Further, leaders’ political skills strengthened the positive effects of task conflict on individual and team performance. The results of this study deepen the cognition of two types of team conflict in theory and provide theoretical guidance for green enterprises in carrying out effective team conflict management and practical political skills training for leaders. (shrink)

Management and organization studies (MOS) scholarship is at a crossroads. The grand challenges (such as the climate emergency) humankind must face today require an improved contribution from all knowledge fields. The number of academics who criticize the lack of influence and social impact of MOS has recently grown. The scientific field structure of MOS is based on its members’ accumulation of symbolic capital. This structure hinders speaking truth to the elite dominating neoliberal society. Our literature review suggested that (...) a deeper interaction between MOS and philosophy could aid in improving the social impact of MOS. Specifically, an attitude by MOS scholars based on parrhesia (παρρησíα, to speak truth to power) could revitalize the field through heterodox approaches and, consequently, allow them to utter sound criticisms of the capitalist system. Parrhesia would lead MOS scholars towards a convergence of ethics and politics. We investigate whether daring to speak inconvenient truths to the powerful (some peers in the field and some individuals and corporations in society) can be a straightforward tool for revitalizing MOS. Boosting a candid philosophy-MOS interaction requires the fulfilment of three objectives: practical dialogue between these fields, reconsideration of the fields’ structures based on symbolic capital, and a post-disciplinary approach to philosophy. That fulfilment implies the delimitation of the MOS-philosophy interaction, a respectful mutual framework, mutual curiosity, and moving from prescriptive theoretical reflection towards more socially useful MOS. Ethical betterment through parrhesia could be the key to surpassing MOS stagnation. (shrink)

This valuable resource provides academic and student affairs practitioners with the tools to make informed legal and ethical decisions in their college and university contexts. Law is constantly changing and is interpreted differently from campus to campus based on institutional culture and history. This text provides higher education practitioners with tools to anticipate practical and responsible action, engaging readers in anticipatory and reflective practice. In this text, Boettcher and Salinas introduce the Institutional Intelligence Model, a helpful framework that guides practitioners (...) in examining a wide variety of campus issues. Throughout the book, readers can explore perspectives from current practitioners and utilize case studies to examine specific topics including admissions, academics, student living, confidential resources, and graduate student experiences. By using the strategies in this book, practitioners will be equipped to successfully navigate legal and ethical issues on their campuses. This text is ideal for graduate students, student and academic affairs professionals, and those in leadership positions responsible for working with and supporting students and staff teams. (shrink)

Writers on organisational change often refer to the cosmology of Heraclitus in their work. Some use these references to support arguments for the constancy and universality of organisational change and the consignment to history of organisational continuity and stability. These writers misunderstand the scope of what Heraclitus said. Other writers focus exclusively on the idea that originated with Heraclitus that the universe is composed of processes and not of things. This idea, which has been particularly associated with Heraclitus’s thought from (...) the time of Plato, does indeed provide a rich source of insights into organisational analysis, not least the current trends towards giving proper attention to processual studies of organisational change. Yet there is some uncertainty as to whether Heraclitus actually said that the universe was composed exclusively of processes rather than things, and even if that was what he thought, he intended his ideas on flux to be understood not in isolation but in the context of other aspects of his cosmology. Writers on organisational change seldom make reference to this wider context. Heraclitus was a rational but also a religious thinker. A central element in his thought was the notion of divine Justice, which to a Greek of his era meant the order of the universe. Remote as his Olympian theology may seem today, it sets a crucial and entirely rational context for understanding his ideas about flux. It means that ideas about continuity and stability were quite as important in Heraclitus’s cosmology as his more commonly quoted ideas about change. This paper sets out an overview of Heraclitus’s philosophy, insofar as it appears to have potential relevance to organisational analysis, and discusses how far it supports or contradicts the ideas that organisational change scholars have drawn from it. (shrink)

The authors developed this textbook in response to an increasing interest in ethics, and a growing number of courses on this topic that are now being offered in educational leadership programs. It is designed to fill a gap in instructional materials for teaching the ethics component of the knowledge base that has been established for the profession. The text has several purposes: First, it demonstrates the application of different ethical paradigms (the ethics of justice, care, critique, and the profession) through (...) discussion and analysis of real-life moral dilemmas that educational leaders face in their schools and communities. Second, it addresses some of the practical, pedagogical, and curricular issues related to the teaching of ethics for educational leaders. Third, it emphasizes the importance of ethics instruction from a variety of theoretical approaches. Finally, it provides a process that instructors might follow to develop their own ethics unit or course. * Part I provides an overview of why ethics is so important, especially for today's educational leaders, and describes a multiparadigm approach essential to practitioners as they grapple with ethical dilemmas. * Part II deals with the dilemmas themselves. Ethical dilemmas written by the authors' graduate students bring readers face-to-face with the kinds of dilemmas faced by practicing administrators in urban, suburban, and rural settings in an era full of complexities and contradictions. * Part III focuses on pedagogy and provides teaching notes for the instructor. The authors discuss the importance of self-reflection on the part of both instructors and students, and model how they thought through their own personal and professional ethical codes as well as reflected upon the critical incidents in their lives that shaped their teaching and frequently determined what they privileged in class. (shrink)

Managing a company or organization in today’s market is a challenge that each leader has to face. Companies have to adapt and embrace challenges, or they will be left behind by the competitors in the market. The leadership of a company has to be creative in order to fulfill the needs of the customers, the market, and its employees. The same rules apply for language teaching organizations, which have to follow the rapid changes in the field of education, technology (...) and marketing all the same. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to acquire knowledge of key aspects of instructional leadership in private and public schools, to find the parameters that make an organization successful, and to compare key management decisions taken by organizations over the years. In focus of this paper is a case study with two primary schools in Kosovo, one public and one private, how they operate, how are they managed and the possible ways of further development. Interviews with the leaders of the schools have been conducted, and the findings have been compared and supported with contemporary literature review. The paper starts provides an introduction, the literature review, the framework used, an interpretation and critical discussion of the data collected, and it ends with the conclusion on instructional leadership. (shrink)

This book examines business education from the perspective of the social sciences and humanities, specifically sociology and ethics. In particular, it offers the rare combination of liberal arts and business management education which is used to investigate how aspects of business education might be responsible for and connected to the distribution of wealth that currently dominates the global economy. Through interviews with business ethics faculty members, students, and graduates around the world, as well as attendance in business ethics (...) classes and examination of classroom materials, the author presents patterns of theory, perspectives, and outcomes from culturally and geographically diverse business schools. This research provides insights into how business ethics educators are responding to the growing diversity in student populations, and the dual crises of environmental destruction and lack of ethical stewardship. The book also discusses alternative discourses within business schools and makes recommendations for future improvements. (shrink)

This thesis studies the enabling properties of ICT and their effects and potential for social change, and prepares the ground for a sustainability-oriented ethico-political assessment of this technology. It primarily builds on interdisciplinary scholarship to describe and explain the multifaceted co-evolution between the global deployment of ICTs and the emergence of the Information Society, understood as a socioeconomic restructuring of capitalism. Beyond the role of ICTs in this regime transition, the thesis delivers other philosophical insights about crucial aspects (...) of ICT development, applications and management. These include arguments about how we should conceptualize ICTs on the basis of their different roles in extending human communication and in performing or facilitating the remote control of humans and animals, machines and systems operations; about the entanglement between telecommunications, transport networks, urban development and work and organization; and about the relations between ICTs, culture and human values. Examples are offered to illustrate the potential that these empirical and philosophical lessons may hold for the construction of a framework for the ethico-political assessment of ICTs. (shrink)

How can head teachers live up to expectations? What makes them fail? What keeps the profession in good standing in the taxpayer's eye, and what undermines it? This book sets out a new vision for school leadership, moving beyond leadership styles and best practice to reflect on the intrinsic motivation in becoming a leader within a school setting, and proposing a way for the profession to develop and maintain ethical standards. Chapters explore the 2017-18 Commission on Ethical Leadership (...) in Schools, considering the core principles and behaviours we should expect from our school leaders, and providing a clear, ethical code for thinking about and reinforcing ethical standards in schools. (shrink)

Think tanks became key political and economic actors during the twentieth century, creating and occupying an intellectual and political position between academic institutions, the state, civil society, and public debate on organization and management. Think tanks are especially active in setting frames for what constitutes politically and socially acceptable ways of thinking about economic activity and the rights or obligations of corporations. Their operation and influence has been acknowledged and analysed in political science and policy (...) analysis, but in organization and management studies they are almost entirely ignored. In this paper, we review the existing literature on think tanks to develop an ethical–political framework based on a Gramsci’s account of state–civil society relations, referring to historical case materials relating to a significant Brazilian think tank, the Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Sociais. We show how the IPES was successful in bringing then-controversial neoliberal perspectives on management and organization into mainstream political debate, where they could be discussed and ultimately accepted as morally and intellectually legitimate. We note the importance of management education and business schools with respect to think tanks in the development of a hegemonic pro-capitalist interpretation of corporate responsibility, and suggest this is worth more investigation. We conclude by outlining how think tanks are central to civil society acceptance of pro-corporate ideologies, how they might be researched regarding the ethical implications of the work they do, and how our approach provides a foundation for this. (shrink)

Workplace spirituality deals with paradoxes. This concept has been taken on board since the late 1980s, but very few human resource managers have realised that workplace spirituality could make an essential contribution to a better understanding of workplace and corporate reality. Increasing numbers of academic papers are being published on this subject but mere remain many grey areas for researchers. The aim of this paper is to use Simone Weil’s philosophy as a reading grid to get an insight into workplace (...) spirituality as a new paradigm of management. Initial studies attempting to apply Weil’s philosophy to management highlight the necessity for all the actors within the organisation to define their job tasks and contents according to their own way of thinking. Our interpretation of Weil’s philosophy also sheds light on the impossibility of dissociating thinking and acting and reminds us that work is done to nourish both the body and the soul. By concentrating on the spirituality of work, we can establish new links between ethics and human resource management. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, two different paradigms have reshaped industrial societies: the Neoliberal paradigm and a Research and Innovation paradigm. Both have been conceptualized and translated into strong policies with massive economic and social consequences. They provide divergent responses to the environmental transition. The Neoliberal paradigm is based on economic models and geopolitical solutions. The Research and Innovation paradigm's goal is to manage knowledge differently in order to reorient the evolution of society. Since the mid-1990s, a version of the Research and (...) Innovation paradigm has led to the design of large-scale research and innovation policies. This book examines how these policies have evolved and how they can be extended and reformed to respond to present and future environmental constraints. It studies the transformation of the conception, organization and role of science and technology in the evolution of industrial societies and explores the future of these developments. The book offers three unique lines of enquiry. The first is to focus not specifically on economics, sociology, political science or history, but on knowledge creation from an institutional and reflexive point of view. The second is to establish a convergence between the British school of science and technology studies and the research trends opened by the work of Michel Foucault. Both introduced trans-disciplinary and policy-oriented research associating case studies, long-term perspectives and theory. The third is to consider climate change as the overwhelming challenge of our time. The book is an insightful guide for students, scholars and researchers across the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, political science, law, economics, business and media. (shrink)

Corporate sustainability reports are supposed to provide a complete and balanced picture of corporate sustainability performance. They are, however, usually voluntary and thus prone to interpretation and even greenwashing tendencies. To overcome this problem, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides standardized reporting guidelines challenging companies to report positive and negative aspects of an organization’s sustainability performance. However, the reporting of “negative aspects” in particular can endanger corporate legitimacy if perceived by the stakeholders as not being in line (...) with societal norms and values. Starting from the theoretical lenses of economics-based disclosure theories and socio-political theories of disclosure, the focus of this study therefore was to analyze the communicative legitimation strategies companies use to report “negative aspects,” i.e., negative ecological and social impact caused by corporate activity. Using qualitative content analysis of GRI-oriented sustainability reports from companies listed on the US Dow Jones Industrial Average Index and on the German DAX Index, we identified six legitimation strategies. We discuss these strategies regarding to symbolic and substantial management of legitimacy. We show that symbolic legitimation strategies aiming at modifying the perception of legitimizing stakeholders dominate in the reports at hand. Such persuasion, however, does not meet the requirement of impartiality as postulated by the GRI guidelines. Building upon this conclusion we propose a concise characterization of “negative aspects” and develop a GRI-compliant schema of reporting about them. In doing so, we offer a way to improve the overall “balance” of sustainability reporting contributing to a true and fair view in sustainability disclosure. (shrink)

This book illuminates contemporary educational reform discussions regarding teacher education programs and pre-K-12 schools by providing a clear analysis and application of John Dewey's relevant educational writings and ideas. The volume addresses issues of how future teachers should be liberally educated as well as prepared to be professional educators. Pre-K-12 education is evaluated through a Deweyan lens, involving a discussion of such topics as the teacher's responsibilities, charter schools, a common curriculum, professional development schools, new curricula, school administration, and (...) cooperative learning. In the concluding chapter, the authors point out many of the questions and concerns that those who are interested in educational reform are well-advised to ask and discuss. (shrink)

(1980). Differences between the Views of Teachers and Students to Aspects of Sixth Form Organization at three Contrasting Comprehensive Schools in South Wales. Educational Studies: Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 225-239.

I argue that meta-ignorance and meta-insensitivity are the key sources influencing the reoccurrence of the (un)conscious misrepresentation of marginalized groups in management and organization research; such misrepresentation, in effect, perpetuates epistemic neocolonialism. Meta-ignorance describes incorrect epistemic attitudes, which render researchers ignorant about issues such as contextual history and emotional and political aspects of a social problem. Researcher meta-ignorance can be a permanent feature, given how researchers define, locate, and make use of their epistemic positionality and privilege. (...) In contrast, meta-insensitivity is a special issue that arises when researchers miss multiple opportunities to capture valuable aspects of marginalized groups’ voices or their life experiences and expectations. The problem of meta-insensitivity during fieldwork is more serious because researchers—despite their apparent willingness to be innovative—fail to understand how to be sensitive toward marginalized groups. The perpetuation of these elements’ misrepresentation contributes to long-lasting negative consequences for marginalized groups. To counter this, I introduce and conceptualize the idea of oppositional views which researchers can mobilize to address misrepresentation of marginalized groups and challenge epistemic neocolonialism. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was a troublesome genius, a figure outside the mainstream philosophical tradition whose very apartness has made him central to contemporary philosophy. Nietzsche and Political Thought reclaims the political implications of Nietzsche's work: it shows how his philosophy of power addresses key issues in modern political thought especially those having to do with the historical and cultural nature of human agency.In this thought-provoking study, Mark Warren claims entirely new ground. He develops a "postmetaphysical" political philosophy (...) that provides a link between Nietzsche's work and the later philosophies of the Frankfurt School and Michel Foucault.Warren comes to terms with Nietszche's views on power, freedom, domination, equality, ideology - topics that recent interpretations have neglected in favor of a focus on the literary and philosophical aspects of his work, but that in fact make these literary and philosophical concerns relevant to social and political thought. Importantly, Warren draws a distinction between the implications of Nietzsche's theories concerning power and agency for contemporary political thought and Nietzsche's own politics. He demonstrates how Nietzsche's actual political views did not reflect - and in large part falsified - his own philosophical insights which taken by themselves point toward a pluralistic society in which egalitarianism underscores individuality. But his politics, Warren argues, derived too heavily from a deficient understanding of modern social and political organization.Mark Warren is Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. Nietzsche and Political Thought is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

In view of the current fragmentation in management and organisation studies, we argue that there is a need to elaborate techniques that help reconcile contradictory and superficially incommensurable standpoints. For this purpose, we draw on ‘pre-modern’ Aristotelian epistemological and methodological sources, particularly the idea of ‘saving the appearances’ (SA), not previously introduced into organisation studies. Using SA as our starting point, we outline a methodology that helps to develop reasonable and acceptable intermediary positions in contemporary debates between ‘modernism’ and (...) ‘post-modernism’. We illustrate the functioning of SA in the case of three issues in the philosophy of science where ‘modernist’ and ‘post-modernist’ scholars seem to have incommensurable standpoints: the nature of scientific knowledge; the conception of causality; and the epistemology of practice. We show in particular how to use the logics of ‘qualification’, ‘new conception’, and ‘complementary combination’ to form the basis for mediating positions which could then be accepted by less extreme proponents of both ‘modernism’ and ‘postmodernism’. (shrink)

In this essay I propose a new reading of Michel Foucault’s main thesis about biopower and biopolitics. I argue that organisation represents the neglected key to Foucault’s new conceptualisation of power as something that is less political and more organisational. This unique contribution was lost even on his closest interlocutors. Foucault’s work on power had a strong influence on organisation and management theory but interestingly not for the reasons I am proposing. In fact, although theorists in management (...) and organisation studies have emphasised power in relation to discipline, control and subjectivity they have overlooked the transformative meaning of Foucault’s organisation. His work on biopolitics has attracted opposition, too, as evidenced by the controversy sparked by Giorgio Agamben about Foucault’s biopolitics. From Agamben’s critique, it appears that Foucault’s notions of politics and power do not allow a deconstruction of the violence of the concentration camp. However, a critical reading of Primo Levi’s biographical narratives reveals the camp as a place where the prisoners’ability to organise their daily lives secured survival. To make sense of Levi’s revelation, I use John Dewey’s notion of habits as forms of organisation and reconnect it to Foucault’s organisation. A shared understanding of the objective conditions of human activity and experience highlights the similarities between Dewey’s pragmatism and Foucault’s pragmatic metaphysics. In the end, however, Foucault’s metaphysical background has caught up with him, pushing him away from his own most radical proposal that organisation was the new form of power and the new substance of politics. (shrink)

This article is a transcript of an interview with Onno Bouwmeester, Professor in the Department of Management and Marketing, Durham University Business School, UK, and the Department of Management and Organization, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The interview focused on his new book Business Ethics and Critical Consultant Jokes. New Research Methods to Study Ethical Transgressions, Springer, 2023.

This book systematically elaborates Scott Eacott's "relational" approach to organizational theory in education. Contributing to the relational trend in the social sciences, it first surveys relational scholarship across disciplines before providing a nuanced articulation of the relational research program and key concepts such as organizing activity, auctors, and spatio-temporal conditions. It also includes critical commentaries on the program from key figures such as Tony Bush, Megan Crawford, Fenwick English, Helen Gunter, Izhar Oplatka, Augusto Riveros, and Dawn Wallin. As such, the (...) text models an approach to, or social epistemology for building knowledge claims in relation rather than through parallel monologues. Eacott's relational approach provides a distinctive, post-Bourdieusian variant of the relational sociological project. Shifting the focus of inquiry from entities (e.g., leaders, organizations) to organizing activity and recognizing how auctors generate - simultaneously emerging from and constitutive of - spatio-temporal conditions unsettles the orthodoxy of organizational theory in educational administration and leadership. By presenting its claims in the context of other approaches, the book stimulates intellectual debate among both relational sociologists and opponents of relational approaches. Beyond Leadership provides significant insights into the organizing of education. As it does not fit neatly into any one field, but instead blends educational administration and leadership, organizational studies, and relational sociology, among others, it charts new territory and promotes important dialogue and debate. (shrink)

This book offers a case-study approach to stakeholder theory that moves beyond theoretical analysis to the applied. As stakeholder theory has moved into the mainstream of management thinking in business ethics and a number of the management disciplines, there is an increasing need to explore the subtleties of stakeholder engagement via examples from practice. The case studies in this volume explore a number of aspects of the idea of stakeholder engagement, via the method of clinical case studies. (...) Edited by leading scholars in the field of business ethics and stakeholder theory, this text affords a solid grounding in theory, brought to new levels of applied understanding of stakeholder engagement. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 29–35. Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "Politieke Poëzie: Enige aantekeningen, Poëtica bij N30 (versie 2006)." In Weerstandbeleid: Nieuwe kritiek . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. L’égalité veut d’autres lois . —Eugène Pottier The modern poem does not have form but consistency (that is sensed), no content but a problem (that is developed). Consistency + problem = composition. The problem of modern poetry is capitalism. Capitalism—which has no (...) image: the unrepresentable Idea of “everything.” The problem is that a poem cannot be justified. There is no excuse for it. Political poetry— pure poetry—has to be problematic, though not in a mannerist way. Yes, its problem is first its own problem—poetry’s existence in the same world as the newspaper—but therefore also always everybody’s problem (the problem of any world at all). The cult of the sublime points at a suspect desire for transcendence, nostalgia for paradise lost (the womb?). Melancholia of the post-. But a problem neither sorrows nor mourns, it is alive, and the fact that it is alive is the problem—the problem for death (rigidity, the status quo). Our symbols and ideologies do not hide any god: symbolic = state; imaginary = human; real = money. Problem: the possibility of communal speech (poetry) in the absence of a “we.” Or: what is a “we” that is not a collective subject (or in any case is not a volonté générale )? What is a universal history that is not a History? This work was started in the shade of the anti-globalization protests at the end of November 1999. I considered N30 to be the closure of the nineties, of my adolescence, and of the a seemingly total extinction of social desire. From the beginning I was skeptical about the alterglobalization movement as the avant-garde of a new politics, but something was happening . Maybe this event did not show that, as the slogan would have it, “another world” is possible, but for me it indicated that such possibility was at least still possible. That naked possibility is carrying forward. And if the fundamental tone of this work sounds more desperate than utopian, this is not caused by the catastrophic sequence that since 1999 has plunged us ever deeper into the right-wing nightmare—a nightmare that this work also gives an account for—but because my hope as yet remains empty. Composition . Composition is no design, but the production of an autonomous block of affects (i.e. a POEM), rhythmically subtracted from the language of a community. A poem does something. Is something. New Sentence . Choosing the non sequitur as compositional unit has the advantage that an abstract composition is subjected to the stress of concrete, social references. Where there is a sentence, there is always a world. (This does not hold necessarily for words on their own.) And where sentences collide, something akin to a textual civil war takes place. It is not about “undermining” whatever, or de-scribing the raging global civil war, but about writing social (or even: ontological) antagonism -- including all its catastrophic and utopian possibilities. Minor resistance. Why would poetry be the no protest zone par excellence? It is nothing but protest, not simply qua “content,” but in its most fundamental essence: rhythm. Rhythm is resistance against language, time, and space, and the basis of (what we will continue to call) autonomy. Rhythm starts with the anti-rhythmic caesura as Hölderlin remarked about Sophocles, a disruption of the quotidian drone. The destruction of everything that is dead inside of us. The noise of the avant-garde has never been the representation of the noise of (post)modernity (from the television or shopping mall), but the sober noise of the systematic exchange of an unbearable worldview. The poet does not describe, but looks for a way out: There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, tis translucent & has many Angles But he who finds it will find Oothoons palace, for within Opening into Beulah every angle is a lovely heaven William Blake was not mad. And there has always been only one poetry: the poetry of paradise. The principle is that there is something in art (the essentially creative element) that is disgusted by that which, unlike art, does not aim for the supreme. Wonder is not supreme, tranquility is not supreme, beauty is not supreme. Even amusement is not supreme! The supreme is supremely open, “das Einfache,/ Das Schwer zu machen ist” 1 : paradise. That is abstract. Literally. For me it is not about a concrete imagination, an idyll or utopia. There is no doubt a need for that, but it is not so much the supposed lack of imagination or ideals (human rights are ideals), but a fundamental lack of desire (human rights are no desires) that we suffer from, and from which we do not need to remove Nietzsche’s label of “nihilism.” “We.” George Oppen: “ Of Being Numerous asks the question whether or not we can deal with humanity as something which actually exists.” What is less actual than humanity? Nowadays it appears as a lifeless ideology of cynical power politics. Or as what makes one think. It is a shame to be human. The event is the caesura that defines rhythm. Writing toward the event is not the description of the event, but marking an abstract and intense space in which the event may unfold and keep itself. It is a task. “Remember that thou blesseth the day on which I seized thee, because such is thy obligation.” The event is a contraction (or a series of contractions) with its own rhythm and unique qualities. It is more than an explosion or demonstration. But at the same time less. The endless repetition of images and stories in the media points to a fear for the indeterminate and indeterminable void of the event. In the end there is nothing to see. We do not live in disaster’s shade or miracle’s light, but rather in the rhythm, which is contracted time, having little to do with omnipresent representations. For this book I did not intend a rhythm of evental representations (a narrative rhythm), but a rhythm which would be an event itself , because it draws the border between artwork and history. My desire for a direct engagement with the “extra-textual reality” has nothing to do with the representation of “rumor in the streets.” (What has less street cred than representation?) Naturally, a poem is no historical event and does not change anything. But a poem is a part of history that wants to be repeated forever, constructed in such a way that it is worthy of repetition. It is a part of desire (composition) made consistent (durable). The “historical event” flares up and burns down, and has to burn down to be effective. The leftovers are images and stories (representations), History—no event. The artwork—that is the ambition— remains event (though monumental and inefficient/inoperable). (No wonder that a historical singularity, a revolution, reminds us of a work of art; the resurrection yearns for a judgment, an affirmation; everything depends on it.) Hence the title does not summarize the book, let alone contract its “content” into a quasi-transcendental signifier. The title is juxtaposed to the book, like everything else inside the book, and in that relation it precisely forms a part of it. The ideal work is an open whole, lacking nothing but to which everything may be added. I have been interested in this “everything,” the world, or as I said above: capitalism. “Everything” is not the space for “wonder”—a code word, a shibboleth for petty bourgeois imagination (I recognize myself in the strangest things, a speaking dog, a canal, a pond standing straight—oh my god). No. The world is a social world, not YOUR world, poet. Power is number one. I will call “Dutch,” or “shitty,” whatever denies this power. That hurts, but this pain is an expression of the desire in the world to write another world, or as Blanchot says, “the other of all worlds” 2 : the world. Not as what “is there,” but rather as that which urges for an escape from what “is.” This is a testament of how radical reality has become, for me—or rather, a writing body—in a having-been-written. I am not interested in the problem of “meaning” as misunderstood by literary scholarsi: “order” in “chaos,” “symbolization.” Bullshit. What is there, hop, hope, now: the meaning of the taste in my mouth. Bullshit. I am not interested in the frustration of interpretation; I am writing for readers who do not want to interpret. I do not know how many “professional readers” will hear the music of a paragraph like: Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I hope more than I would think. There is a suggestion (or rather, an actual production) of speed and infinitive owing to the absence of plosives, i.e. articulations such as /k/, /t/, or /p/. Can you hear the slick suaveness? Driving car dark, vocal chiaroscuro of the word “sushi.” The unstressed /i/ stands in the middle of dark vowels and thus acquires its own special out of focus , like a momentary flash or brilliance—an obscure light. It is not about recognizing a story, but about avoiding any story whatsoever: the car disappears in the glow, cars and raw fish have nothing in common except their articulation in a language that brings them together, blurring them. A world appears in its disappearance. For a moment, light is a metaphor for language, though it cannot be reduced to tenor. It is not necessary to be a linguist or philosopher to hear this—a “difficult” poem all too often becomes an allegory of its own impenetrable being-language. The only demand: leave your hermeneutical fetish at home. This was no interpretation. Most shit has been stolen etcetera. That is no longer interesting. You cannot shoot the body with information and let your lawyers reclaim the bullets. So every sentence has been stolen. Also the ones “out” “of” “my” “head.” Why would I be allowed to steal from myself and not from others? Man takes what he needs to move forward. Whatever he encounters, finds in front of him, “occurs” to him. The writer as text editor, or singing pirate. Nothing new here. Important difference with for example Sybren Polet’s 4 montage technique: anti-thematicism. Most of the time ferocious citation from whatever I was reading, listening to, ended up in, and so on. I wrote chapter 12 on my laptop while watching CNN. On the air instead of en plein air . I often employed search engines to generate material. Chapter 20 offers the purest example of this. Often I stop recognizing a particular citation after some time. It is not uncommon for a stolen sentence to conform itself to the paragraph in which it finds itself. Sometimes I nearly arbitrarily replace words. Arbitrariness as a guarantee for absolute democracy. It is a poetics of the non sequitur : a conclusion that does not follow from the premises, the strange element in the discourse. A discourse of strangers. No logical, narrative, thematic unity. There is unity in speed/flight. It has to be read linearly, but not necessarily (not preferably) from beginning to end. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but this line precedes every point. The middle, the acceleration, comes first. A point occurs where two lines cross. It has been written from up close, at the level of the tension between sentences. Nothing to be seen from a distance: no form except the exchange of form, no geometrical or mythical meaning. You have to get in, “groping toward a continuous present, a using everything a beginning again and again” (Stein). 5 In Dutch, experimental poetry has been mainly dense: a small rectangular form filled with a maximum amount of poetic possibility. But at the moment the poem starts to relax, the anecdotical content seems to increase. This is what is called “epic”: long, narrative. I believe that an epic is more than that, in fact something completely different. An epic is “a poem including history,” 6 a long poem tied up with the life of community, that as a whole does not need to be narrative. The American poets of the twentieth century (Pound, Williams, Zukofsky, Oppen, Olson, Silliman) have put the epic back on the map by interpreting the poem itself as a map, and writing it as navigation. They have invented the experimental epic, a genre that has generated little original following in “our” poetry. N30 is the middle part—“always start in the middle”—of a trilogy, the contours of which remain as of yet unclear, although each episode investigates one of the three “ecstasies of time”—past, present, future—concerning society X. N30 concerns itself with the PRESENT: not with the description of actual facts but of the rhythm and the intense depth in which facts appear to us. Where are we? We are camping in the desert. Sometimes we are looking at the stars. As opposed to maximum density and minimal tension (a characteristic of most (post-)experimental lyricism), I have sought a minimal density and maximum tension in this book, considered as a long non-narrative prose poem. On the one hand, the minimal density is obtained by the inherent formlessness of prose, on the other hand by the conscious refusal of any active (formal, non-rhythmic) synthesis: the poem tells nothing, shows nothing, has no theme. I did not seek maximum tension either by loading the quotidian with epiphanic radioactivity (“wonder,” confirmation from above), or by means of the intensity of the linguistic structure. I want an abstract tension, but social in its abstraction, in other words, not neutralized by and subjected to Form. Instead of form (transcendent): composition (immanent). The concept is series. Ideal: every unit is necessary for the efficacy of the others and the whole, their relation is purely linear, i.e. non-hierarchic, non-syllogistic, non-discursive, non-narrative. Sentence related to sentence like paragraph to paragraph and chapter to chapter; the whole means nothing and represents nothing. Inside the sentence: syntax (Chomsky’s tree, a type of parallel circuit), outside: parataxis (coordination, an asyntactic line through language and world). I consider duration—the energy of duration (rhythm)—to be the fundament of a poem, the temporal inclination to delimit a “space.” Being as consistency, its consistency. A spatial part of time is not merely a metaphor for an inevitable trajectory, an inescapable time, something like “our time.” Not merely—because rhythm comes from language and is not projected onto it; the poem derives from the world like a scent and a color and a life from a flower. A series, a sequence: nothing potential, but truly infinite—the movement of an infinitude. The infinite series = everything minus totality. That means that there is no container—no Form, no Self, no Image, no Structure, not even a Fragment—just “the prose of the world.” No representation, but also no staging of the impossibility of representation (the postmodern sublime). These are no fragments, no image of a fragmented world or personality, no cautious incantations around the Void. It does not exist. It is a movement. Buying bread, a flock of birds, a bomb falling—they do not depict or represent anything, not literally, not metaphorically. There is an Idea, which is however nothing more than a rhythm, in the same way that capitalism is nothing more than a pure function. Parataxis: the white space between two sentences stresses, which is nevertheless always there, also between words, even between letters: the out of focus of idle talk, the gutter, the irreducible Mallarméan mist which renders even the seemingly most transparent text legible. The white space suggests a neutral medium for free signification, a substance of language. A non sequitur is an element from a foreign discourse, which stresses the white space as space, and problematizes freedom for supra-sentential signification. I start by withdrawing material, leaving the initiative to the sentences. In general a word presupposes less often a discourse than a sentence. What discourse is presupposed by “dog”? We could think of several, but why would we? It is more probable that, when faced with the naked word, we think of its naked (dictionary) meaning, of its denotative signified. By means of two simple interventions we may also write the word as sentence: Dog. In no way this suggests the discourse from which this sentence originates, but in any case we’re presupposing one. This is shown by questions like: “Whose dog? Who’s a dog? What kind of dog?” Etc. (Sentences are question marks.) A sentence implies/is a microcosm—a subject, a verb, an object, and so on. Even an incomplete or ungrammatical sentence does so. My main fascination while writing this book is the worldly and social aspect of language, an aspect that often becomes invisible, or rather, transparent in narrativity—the stretching of sentences into stories. Narrativity organizes a new discourse and a new world, and places a sometimes all too dispersing relation of transparence in between. The conventional novel is the brothel of being. I do not intend to prohibit brothels, and I have certainly not intended to write an anti-novel (THIS IS A POEM), but I do consider narrativity (in general, in poetry, in the news, in daily life) to be ontologically secondary with regard to an immediate being in the world through sentences, also if the latter have been withdrawn from a narrative or otherwise externally structured discourse (which in that case would therefore be chronologically primary ). Naturally, two or more sentences are always in danger of telling stories or arguing, just like the world is always in danger of becoming an objective representation, facing us, strangers. That is why need to wage war—against representation and against the interface, against interaction. AGAINST THE “READER.” To the extent that a sentence is worldly, writing is a condensed global war, and in so far as there is ultimately only one world and one open continuum of languages, it is a global civil war. Nice subject for an epic. The elaboration of a singular problem—prose as the outside of poetry, the form of the novel as purely prosodic composition scheme—“expresses” the universal problem: capitalism as Idea of the world vs. poetry as language of an (im)possible community. The paragraphs are blocks of rhythmically contracted social material. By choosing the sentence as the basic compositional component, an abstract whole may contain social sounds, without telling a story or showing an image. Composition is subrepresentative —a rhythmic, passive synthesis, or rather: a synthesis of syntheses. I never write large blocks of prose in one sitting, because there is no obvious organizational vector —plot, theme, conscience—outside the inherent qualities of the material itself. Usually I write down one sentence, sometimes two, but rarely more than three. Those sentences are usually placed in the text which I am editing at the time. In fact, there is no original composition, new chapters split off from chapters which became too long during the editing process. (Revision mainly consists of adding and inserting, displacing and dividing; only during the last phase, when the text has gained enough consistency, there may be subtraction to tighten the composition; each chapter requires a season of daily revision). This constant revision, accompanied by a continuous influx of collective background noise (to speak with Van Bastelaere), 7 makes every chapter a block condensed (“historical” and “personal”) time. The block itself is a-personal and a-historic; it is ontologically autonomous. If there is such a thing as a spirit of the times, I do not try to offer an image of it, but rather to cancel something of it by erecting a monument of its own excrement within its own boundaries. Tuning and dis-tuning , “in de taal der neerslachtigen een eigen geluid doen klinken,” 8 in other words, desiring in an Elysian way. In this sense I have intended to be able to write a political poetry. The ultimate political poem is the epic, “the tale of the tribe.” I consider N30 to be a prolegomenon to a future epic (of which it in the end will form a part a structural moment, as introduction-in-the-middle), an extended pile on top of an epic as narrative, a question of the tribe and question of its history. I was burdened by too much satire, too much bullshit. But: satire willy-nilly = the only justifiable satire. Against the abstract universalism of the market (“globalism”): concrete disgust, a positive way of saying “No.” Moreover, disgust is a specifically total attitude, which ultimately concerns the world as a whole. I hate this or that, but I am disgusted by EVERYTHING (when I am disgusted), and so it appears that satire is in fact related to the epic, in so far as it concerns society, the cosmos, history. Maybe it is no coincidence that the Dutch literary canon knows no great poet of disgust; what could be more fearful to us than society, the cosmos, and history? The T-tendency (T from Tollens 9 ) clearly points into the direction of the small, friendly, ironic, melancholic, acquiescent, wondrous, and so on. The anti-political, anti-cosmic, anti-historical. (Why am I so philosophical? To scare away the Dutchies.) And most of all: the “poetical” (the pseudo-mysticism from the backyard). Yes, the N in N30 also stands for the Netherlands (just like 30 indicates the number of chapters). I was not in Seattle, I do not live in Iraq. But is not the whole world bleeding to death on Dutch paving stones? Let’s hope that we mowed away something with this total satire, also “in myself.” The arrogant stupidity that definitely thinks to know the essence of freedom (the free development of esthetic needs inside the void), that cannot take anything serious, only believes in the disciplined bestiality of the individual (“norms and values”) and the mere functioning of a social factory which finds no justification whatsoever outside its functioning (“get to work”)… Who knows. A certain aimed destruction leaves grooves and craters, mapping out a next adventure. Pound’s periplum : sailing while mapping the coasts. Immanent orientation. The terrain changes with the map, history changes with the poem. Maps never merely organize the chaos, transcendent schemes imposed on a formless Ding-an-sich . They organize from within, surfing. But they are most of all routes back into the chaos or forward to paradise (final identity of chaos and paradise; Schlegel: “ Nur diejenige Verworrenheit ist ein Chaos aus der eine Welt entspringen kann ”10). A poem is not only a piece of history, it is also a flight from history. Maps give chaos to the form of reality , open escape routes, break through representations, make us shivery and dazed. Paradise is immanent to a fleeting desire. History is the history of labor—this is Adam’s curse—and the poet works too: For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, school masters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world 11 But: the poet works in paradise. The paradox of the artwork, the work that is no work, the piece of history that cannot be reduced to History—this is explained by The Space of Literature , a virtual space, an autonomous rhythm, not outside, but in the midst of the noise, a piece of paradise in hell, a postcard from the vale of tears addressed to paradise, to X. Political poetry means: a poetry that dares to think about itself, about its language and about its world and about the problematic relation between both, which is this relation as problem. A poetry that thinks at all, articulates its problem. It has nothing to do with journalism or morality or debate, let alone the law or the state. It has nothing to do with “criticism” if this means the replacement of incorrect representations by other, more correct representations. It has something to do with ethics in the sense of learning to live. It has something to do with the community and the language of the community (whichever that may be) and the role of the poet regarding the community. It concerns justice without judgement or measure. In the end the just word is just a word , to paraphrase Godard: it is from a future that is unimaginable. It Is no rational engagement, but an aversion against everything that obstructs life, and love for everything what is worthy of having been loved. The world is engaged with me, not the other way round. First Exodus, then Sinai. A desire does not start with an agenda. To answer the question whether I am really so naive as to want to change the world: “We only want the world.” Justice is the world appealing to us to liberate it from all possible chains, from each organization and inequality, to be it, smooth, equal, under a clear sky—a desert and a people in a desert. That moment between Egypt and the Law. It is not a revolution, but the sky above the revolution. Poetry = the science of escape. There is no art that we already know. The weakness of modernistic epic poetry seems to me to be the unwillingness to completely abandon narrative as a structural principle, in favor of a composition “around” or from an event. The China Cantos and Adams Cantos are the low point, and the Pisan Cantos the high point of Pound’s poetry. Two types of research: archival representation of the past vs. ontology of the present (which virtually presupposes the entire history). Presupposing an event means that it is impossible for the poet to stage his own absence, but in no way makes the work personal. An event is the unknown, the new invading into the business as usual, so also the personal. The question heading this research is not: “Who am I?” but “What is happening?” The book is as little illegible as Mondrian’s work is invisible. Form is of interest only to the extent that it empowers liberation. Ron Silliman So no formalism, but what it means to live in this world and to have a future in it. I want something that holds together that’s not smooth. Bruce Andrews The past above, the future below and the present pouring down: the roar, the roar of the present, a speech— William Carlos Williams If my confreres wanted to write a work with all history in its maw, I wished, from the beginning to start all over again, attempting to know nothing but a will to create, and matter at hand. Ronald Johnson NOTES 1) “The easy thing/ that is difficult to make.” Bertold Brecht, Lob des Kommunismus . (All footnotes are the translator’s) 2) Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature , trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press (1989), 75. 3) Mettes uses the word “Neerlandicus,” which refers to scholars of Dutch language and literature. 4) Dutch poet. 5) Gertrude Stein. “Composition as Explanation.” A Stein Reader . Ed. Ulla E. Dydo. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (1993), 495-503. 6) Ezra Pound. 7) Flemish poet. 8) “Resounding an original sound in the language of the despondent.” A. Roland Holst, De afspraak . 9) Dutch poet. 10) “Only such a confusion is a chaos which can give rise to a world.” 11) W.B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse.&rdquo. (shrink)