Citing history

ABSTRACT

Although rarely considered within the existing scholarship on social movements, even a cursory analysis of protest activity suggests that movements regularly invoke historical citations (whether consciously or not) while working to clarify aims and mobilize constituencies. In order to make sense of this process, and to account for the variations that arise among the different citation modalities favored by movements on opposite ends of the political spectrum, I draw upon the theoretical contributions of Marxist cultural critic Walter Benjamin and, in particular, on his exploration of ‘wish images’ and ‘dialectical images,’ their attributes, and their interrelationship. According to Benjamin, such images summoned the past either to project visions of future happiness (as with the wish image) or to deposit the witness before a moment of decisive, present-tense reckoning. After outlining the role of historical citation in social movements and in the broader cultural field through which these movements find expression, I analyze two recent protest events – the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, VA, in which wish images were actively deployed, and the 2017 Women’s Strike in New York City, where a dialectical image arose from the constellated nodes of the march’s route – to consider the relationship between citation modality and protest outcome. Following from this analysis, and in keeping with the unapologetically partisan nature of my investigation, I conclude by advancing some strategic recommendations for movements seeking – as Benjamin once enjoined – to ‘improve our position in the struggle against Fascism.’     

在绝望处寻找希望--论瓦尔特·本雅明的艺术发展观

瓦尔特·本雅明指出,由史诗分裂形成的三种文体———故事、小说、新闻消息等随着时代变迁,在艺术场的位置发生相应的变化。传统艺术灵韵消失,机械复制时代的电影等新艺术形式展示了全新的艺术功能。在《小说的危机》《讲故事的人》和《机械复制时代的艺术》等篇章中,本雅明深入探讨了从故事、小说到新闻、电影的艺术链条上展示出来的艺术形式演变以及艺术和技术的关系,进而提出了他的艺术发展观,即一时代必然有一时代之艺术。他强调,技术进步影响并改变了各种艺术形式、接受方式及其功能,现代技术在艺术变革中的潜能因而是绝对不可忽视的。     

论作为文学文化学的“西安学”

＂西安学＂从理论上说是一个学科集群。但中外城市学研究经验及成果表明,城市学主要是一种文学文化学,目标在于构建城市精神镜像。作为文学文化学的西安学应以城市的精神体验为主要方式构建城市镜像知识。其方法有直观体验城市和通过文学体验城市两种。本雅明对19世纪巴黎的研究及李欧梵对20世纪三四十年代上海的研究为文学体验提供了范例,西安学应以此为借鉴拓展其研究视界。     

In the sovereign machine: sovereignty,governmentality, automaticity

Abstract

This essay explores a series of sovereign ‘machines’ – slaves, puppets, automata – in political theory from Benjamin to Agamben. It is now well-documented that the philosophical question of ‘the machine’ – of whether a complex system requires a human operator or whether it can function autonomously – is also a crucial political question that haunts every discussion of sovereignty from Hobbes onwards. However, my wager in what follows is that this machine is not just a metaphor for a metaphysical situation – whether it be rationality (Hobbes), bureaucratization (Weber), neutralization (Schmitt), historicism (Benjamin) or governmentality (Foucault) – but a material phenomenon that carries transformative political promise and threat. To summarize the argument of this essay, I contend that ‘sovereign machines’ like slavery (Aristotle, Hegel, Kojève, Agamben), puppets, automata or clockwork (Descartes, Hobbes, Schmitt, Benjamin, Derrida), lens, optics and mirrors (Hobbes, Kantorowicz, Benjamin, Lacan, Foucault) and so on do not merely reflect but change our understanding of the causal relationship between sovereignty and governmentality, decision and norm, exception and rule. If the self-appointed task of the modern political theorist has so often been to obtain or regain sovereignty of, or over, the machine – to jam its gears – I seek to expose what the later Derrida calls the ‘machine’ of sovereignty itself. In conclusion, I argue that political theory’s attempt to reveal or retroactively invent the sovereign person at the heart of the machine only ends up revealing the sovereign machine at the heart of the person. What – if anything – is really inside the machine of sovereignty?     

"沃尔夫假说"实质之探讨

文章首先指出了国内出版物中对沃尔夫假说在阐释方面存在的一些分歧以及对其评述方面存在的几个纷争;其次对产生的原因作了详细的探讨;最后依据沃尔夫原作的内容和精神,结合国外一些重要文献探究了这一局面产生的原因,并在此基础上提出了作者的看法和判断。     

摄影之外 历史之中——对本雅明《摄影小史》的一种解读

<摄影小史>是本雅明对摄影艺术的论述;但更为重要的是,它又是本雅明艺术哲学与历史哲学的重要文本之一,有着深广的理论内容与历史意义.<摄影小史>区区万字,却凝聚着本雅明对摄影这一社会文化形式的全面深刻认识,对社会现实的思索与关心.以文本细读为基础,本论文力求突出本氏此文强烈的社会责任感与历史意识,以及强有力的历史视角.他的态度与方法无疑有助于我们对摄影与影像艺术进行历史哲学式的思考与批判,也为自己的理论建构与实际行动提供具有社会历史方向的契机与可能.     

批评·真理·救赎——本雅明《论歌德的〈亲和力〉》

本雅明的文学批评区分了“批评与评论”,作品的“真理内容与物质内容”;并在弥赛亚救赎的神学思想视野内构想了批评的本质和任务。《论歌德的<亲和力>》一文集中蕴含了本雅明文学批评思想中的神学维度。     

严复的能力观及其对当代公共管理创新的启示——对史华兹《寻求富强:严复与西方》的一种解读

对美国著名汉学家史华兹的代表作<寻求富强:严复与西方>进行文本解读发现:该著所反映出的严复能力观对当代公共管理的创新发展具有重要的启示意义.严复认为中西方的关键性差别在于能力,而隐含其中的是以能力为导向的主体意识和公共意识方面的差距."-3代公共管理的创新发展有必要吸收严复能力观中的思想精髓,以国家能力建构为着力点,以公民启蒙为社会基石,以突显公正为其内在灵魂.对正处于社会转型期的国家而言,努力实现国家能力与公民自由问的平衡是达致善治的关键.     

"毛主义"话语的起源、性质与内涵--简评史华慈《中国的共产主义运动与毛泽东的崛起》

美国哈佛大学已故教授史华慈是当代最著名的现代中国问题研究专家,其名著<中国的共产主义运动与毛泽东的崛起>是其博士论文并是其成名作.该书中,史华慈首次提出"毛主义"的学术范式,对其形成、内涵和意义进行了最早的论证.他强调"毛主义"在革命的理念上与斯大林主义有着明显的差异,毛主义是"由农民所进行的革命",而不仅仅是"为了农民而进行的革命".前者强调农民自身就是革命的主体、性质和动力,而后者则只把农民利益当作革命的重要目标之一.显然二者的意义有着本质的不同.史华慈的这些论点对西方毛泽东研究领域影响极大,并引起了广泛争论.     

Ethical injunctions: the University of the Western Cape in the face of the ‘here and now’

This essay poses the question of the ethical in relation to the work of memorialising the University of the Western Cape (UWC) after apartheid. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s statement on the ethical in The Logic of Sense and reading its implications through Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ and Jeremy Cronin’s ‘Even the Dead’, I argue that the ethical entails becoming adequate to the fracturing of event, leading to an understanding of the subject effect prior to its stamping by race, gender and identity. The ethical, in this formulation, reckons with the materiality of the past as its weight orders the present. It is this possibility of becoming adequate, of ‘not being unworthy of what happens to us’, which is offered in Ingrid Masondo’s photo-essay on UWC. I read Masondo as offering an encounter with images of the Leibnizian world as they appear at UWC, an encounter that registers alternate trajectories as they are expressed in ‘point of view’. Becoming adequate, here, involves registering the role of UWC (both conscious and unconscious) in the subjectification of persons during and after apartheid. This essay punctuates the rhythm of the memorialisation of UWC, by asking that this weight of the past be reckoned with while articulating alternate trajectories for both the university (and particularly the disciplines of the humanities) and for the understandings of subjectivity that attend to it, a demand that cannot be settled cheaply.