“Speak,You Also”: encircling trauma

This paper offers a circling around the interrelations of language and trauma, identity and forgiving through the figure and poems of Paul Celan. In this context, the circle itself becomes a cipher for the trauma of the Shoah and the (im)possibility of speaking or writing poetry after Auschwitz. Via Jenny Edkins, Giorgio Agamben, and Derrida, the poetic is interrogated as an ethical response to the political and social betrayal that is trauma; the subsequent effect of trauma on speaking and listening to testimony is then considered. Finally, the paper explores the poetic as a cipher for forgiving, distinct from moral forgiveness and guilt and equally separate from legal responsibility and debt. Celan's own suicide and one of his elegies are considered as final, literal ciphers in this perpetual and imperfect circling.     

New forms of writing,new visual competencies

This article discusses two crucial issues in the social semiotics of visual communication. The first is the move from accounts of specific semiotic modes towards an integrated multimodal approach to visual communication in which the analysis of images becomes less central than the analysis of semiotic resources such as composition, movement and colour, which are common to a range of semiotic modes including images, graphics, typography, fashion, product design, exhibition design and architecture. The second is a new emphasis on the discourses, practices and technologies that regulate the use of semiotic resources, and on studying the take‐up of semiotic resources by users in relation to these regulatory discourses, practices and technology. Here, the article will discuss a number of semiotic ‘regimes’, including codification, tradition, expertise, best practice or role modelling, and technological control. The article ends with a discussion of the way normative discourses are built into the latest visual communication technologies (e.g. PowerPoint, HTML, Photoshop, Illustrator) and an affirmation of the need for a critical and well‐contextualised semiotics of visual technology.     

Knowing,Participative Thinking,Emoting

In this paper, I refer to two notions which are basic to the theory of Cognitive Pluralism. First, there are multiple semiotic means. Language is a primary one, but it is not the only one. Second, semiotic means are based on cultural practices. In the theory of Cognitive Pluralism, as in other pluralistic theories, musical and mathematical notation systems, diagrams, maps, and other semiotic means are examined. The use of diverse cognitive approaches is illustrated by the accounts of experienced thinkers. I discuss analytical and analogue cognitive styles in mathematics in relation to historically shifting emphases in the discipline. The developmental and cultural implications of this theory are illustrated with analyses of narratives as they are retold by children. In closing, a contrast between Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences and the theory of Cognitive Pluralism is presented.     

Mxolisi Nyezwa’s Poetry of No Sure Place

A change in direction of the journal New Coin during the 1990s saw the emergence of a diverse group of poets who had previously struggled for publication. This article recognises this often overlooked collective and argues that they quickly established their own style of “Poetry of No Sure Place”, which expresses a malaise of sadness within South Africa that is popularly felt but rarely articulated. Focusing on three collections of poetry by Mxolisi Nyezwa, I show how this group’s work rests on a permanent – and possibly worsening – sense of imbalance. The article explores how Nyezwa attempts to reconcile a felt public and private need to write, struggles to find a source of connection and questions the permanence of social change in South Africa. Nyezwa epitomises the marginalisation, apprehension and uncertainty of New Coin’s Poetry of No Sure Place.     

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?     

Allen Ginsberg’s Blakean Albion

Abstract

Focusing on a selection of poems written during Allen Ginsberg’s visits to Britain between 1958 and 1979, an attempt is made to show how Ginsberg’s British poetry might productively be read in the context of William Blake’s mythopoetic system, particularly in so far as it relates to the Blakean figures of Albion and Jerusalem. Ginsberg’s poetic vision of a Blakean Albion is revealed to be more complex, and more problematic, than might be supposed. This is partly because Ginsberg’s own position is conflicted; as a key representative of American Beat poetry and later of American counterculture, he is nonetheless engaged in these ‘British’ poems in re-envisioning and reshaping Blake’s Albion. Such nationalist tensions are not, however, restricted to Ginsberg’s work; they can also be linked to similar conflicts between nationalism and internationalism which already exist within Blake’s own vision of Albion.     

The responsibilities of sociological poets

My contention is that we can't meet our aims and responsibilities as qualitative sociologists by writing poetry. I propose that our responsibilities include creating access to social worlds by exposing and analyzing the frameworks of meaning that uphold those worlds; writing as clearly and accessibly as we can; and making the rules of our craft known to outsiders. Poetry fails at these things because it keeps its foundations hidden, functions as a restricted code, and gives primacy to form over analytic content. I use the work of Laurel Richardson, an advocate for the use of poetry in qualitative sociology, as a foil for developing my argument. My conclusion is that, while there are ways we can use poetry in our research, the only way to meet the aims and responsibilities that define our craft and discipline is to write better prose.     

NO ROOM FOR ABUSE

In Canada, media reports on health care tend to focus on the high costs of the health care system; reporting privileges the economic aspects of this social service. In the Canadian system, long-term care or chronic care is a type of service that is situated within the health care system. Long-term care institutions typically house older individuals who have lost a significant amount of autonomy and require constant care. Until recently, the services dispensed within these institutions were unseen by the media, and thus the public did not reflect much on these services. The publication of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Future on Health Care in Canada in 2002 has fostered a growing public awareness of the vulnerability of older individuals and those with chronic illnesses, and their relationship with their care-givers. Although it may be the case that the typical care for such persons in these situations is now emerging from a zone of invisibility, it is uncertain that the media coverage accurately portrays the realities of institutionalized care-giving. This essay examines the care practices in long-term care institutions in order to understand the processes at work in an environment in which care is commodified. The ‘area’ in which this caring labour is located is an area where constant moral compromise can create a climate where abuse can become endemic. This paper considers these environments and the potential for abuse in them in relation to the concept of ‘grey zone’, first formulated by Primo Levi and later adapted by Giorgio Agamben and Claudia Card, as well as in relation to the related concept ‘bare life’, also formulated by Agamben. The author argues that the ‘greyness’ produced by care practices that are bound to a cost-effective and task-oriented framework create an environment that is not conducive to proper moral behaviour.     

Challenging perceptions of disability through performance poetry methods: the ‘Seen but Seldom Heard’ project

This paper considers performance poetry as a method to explore lived experiences of disability. We discuss how poetic inquiry used within a participatory arts-based research framework can enable young people to collectively question society’s attitudes and actions towards disability. Poetry will be considered as a means to develop a more accessible and effective arena in which young people with direct experience of disability can be empowered to develop new skills that enable them to tell their own stories. Discussion of how this can challenge audiences to critically reflect upon their own perceptions of disability will also be developed.     

Exploring Poetry as Philosophy of Communication

This article shows that philosophy of communication offers a constructive lens, and an open, invitational structure, for analyzing poetic texts as “philosophical pictures” that give expression to the depths of human reality beyond rational thought. I first offer a brief discussion on poetic knowledge as an intimate way of knowing that is prerational and prescientific. Next, I present a discussion on poetry and existential attentiveness through an examination of Rainer Maria Rilke’s prose poem “For the Sake of a Single Poem” that further illustrates the discussion on poetic knowledge. This discussion is textured through Jean Luc-Nancy’s writing about poetry and sense, and a poetic “dawning of sense” from his essay “Making Poetry.” Before the final section that analyzes a specific poem highlighting two philosophical themes (“Learning to See” and “Exposed Heart”), there is a discussion of “philosophical pictures.” Finally, I examine Rilke’s poem “Turning Point” and present a philosophical reading of the poem that guides us in our collective communicative existence, offering ways of seeing (seeing others as an object or through “being-with”) and ways of being-in-the-world (relation of self/other), as well as opening up possibilities of relating with “tact” and “love.”     

“Spoken Word” and “Poetry Slams”: the voice of youth today

In this article the authors discuss a relatively new cultural expression that has become popular in high schools across the United States: Spoken Word and Poetry Slam. This type of poetry appeals to teenagers because it allows them to express themselves in their own language, and it allows them to address issues that they find important. This article describes the history of poetry slams, as well as the educational developments presently taking place in the United States and Europe.     

Searching for self in a world of labels

Searching for Self is a performance poetry piece that demonstrates the difficulties of identity construction in contemporary life. The author challenges the ‘self’ and ‘other’ dichotomy, and in so doing she attempts to reduce the distance between the ‘client’ and ‘expert’; the researcher and researched; the service provider and service user; and theory and practice. The poems are linked to the authors’ experiences of being labeled with a disability.     

Derrida’s way out of the dead end of contemporary messianism

This article seeks to determine which role Jacques Derrida’s notion of messianicity without messianism (1993) plays within the contemporary discussion of the value of the messianic tradition for political theory. My point of departure is the belief that Benjamin’s, Taubes’, and Badiou’s antinomic approaches to the issue of justice oversimplify some aspects of law. Is there a real need to abrogate the law? I also claim that even Scholem, Rosenzweig, and Lévinas, who believe that a certain law, namely divine law, serves to overcome natural law, fail to provide a consistent account of the interaction between law and justice. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate, firstly, that a messianic narrative that develops a way to achieve justice without needing to turn to transcendence can be found in Agamben and Derrida. And secondly, that they also provide the most complete understanding of the law. They base their arguments on a subtle distinction between the laws in force – which in their messianic narratives must be surpassed – and the force of law, a force that keeps its validity but is not translated into concrete laws [Geltung ohne Bedeutung]. Yet while Agamben considers that even the force of law must be overcome in order for justice to arrive, Derrida says it constitutes the most redemptive stage to which we can aspire. I compare their messianic narratives and claim that Derrida seems to offer a more substantial strategy – not completely exempt from problems, though.     

LANGUAGE STRUCTURING OF RELIGIOUS AWARENESS: A LEXICOGRAPHIC APPROACH

We take a semiotic approach to studying religion in order to assess how basic English conveys the structure of the institution of religion and provides the lay public with knowledge about religious identities. Our data consist of definitions of religious identities provided by two dictionaries. The identities we consider are from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions. From the dictionary definitions, we created a semantic network showing how the meaning of one identity is elucidated by references to other identities. The network can be interpreted as roughly mapping the institutional layout of religion. Identities in the network partition into clusters corresponding to the major faiths, and status hierarchies of some institutional structures like abbeys are evident within faiths. A few bridging identities link different faiths, so the overall structure is loosely connected apart from a few semantic isolates. Our results suggest that basic English biases its speakers' awareness overwhelmingly toward Christian identities, provides meager knowledge regarding Judaism, and offers limited and sometimes eccentric views of other major faiths.     

What Do We Do When We Discuss? A Micro‐genetic Analysis of Couples’ Conflict

This article focuses on dialogic discursive dynamics present in couples’ conversations about unresolved conflicts. The phenomenon of conflict is addressed as a semiotically mediated process of co‐construction of the self and the relationship. The purpose of this article is to report on patterns of meaning construction in couples’ conflict, with the identification of strategies that promote or hinder resolution. A qualitative exploratory approach was used to focus on the interactional process at the micro‐processing level. Eight married couples participated in the study. The procedure considered asking the couple to discuss unresolved conflict. Recorded data of couples’ dialogues were transcribed to text and assessed through semiotic analysis using a microgenetic protocol (Molina, Del Río, & Tapia, 2015). The results document the use of strategies for conflict regulation such as psychological distancing, opposition, and generalisation on the border between protecting the bond and regulating tension. The dynamics of non‐resolution manifested in polarisation and rigid patterns with increased tension. The ‘in‐motion’ nature of dialogue about conflict is pushed by the semiotic tension that induces variations in subjective positions manifested in speech and actions.     

‘It Does Not Mean Me,But a Supposed Person’: Browning,Dickinson, and the Dramatic Lyric

Although scholars have explored the importance of the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Emily Dickinson, very little research exists on the implications of her admiration for Robert Browning. Within the context of Browning’s nineteenth-century US reception, this essay considers the profound and seminal effect this writer had on Dickinson’s vocation as a poet and her understanding of poetry. Focusing in particular on Dickinson’s reading and response to Browning’s Men and Women (1855), it explores connections between Browning’s dramatic lyrics and Dickinson’s creation of dramatic speakers and situations. Developing earlier scholarship on Dickinson’s use of personae and the influence of drama and performance on her works, this essay argues that Dickinson found in Browning’s poetry distancing strategies that complicated the notion of the lyric as a form of personal address and/or biographical revelation. Rather than granting the reader access to the poet’s interiority or corporeal presence, Dickinson, like Browning, creates ‘supposed persons’ who speak in a confidential, intimate manner about particular events and incidents. Following Browning, Dickinson constructs speakers whose identities are divided, contradictory, and fragmented, and, in so doing, she further impersonalizes the personal lyric by creating the possibility of a difference between what her speakers say and what her poems mean.     

Sociological discourse of the relational: the cases of Bourdieu & Latour1

Pierre Bourdieu's approach to sociology has been so widely recognized as being innovative that his innovations can be said to have been academically incorporated to the degree of having‐been‐innovative. On the other hand, the more recent work of Bruno Latour seems to offer a fresh innovative impetus to sociology. Over against Bourdieu's relational sociology, Latour's relationist sociology overcomes the subject‐object dichotomy, and abandons the notions of ‘society’ and ‘the social’. In this contribution, a comparison is made between the ideas of Bourdieu and Latour on the question of what sociology should look like, specifically focusing on their respective ideas on what can be called the relational. A Latourian critique of Bourdieu is provided, as well as a Bourdieusian analysis of Latourian sociology. Rather than ending up with two different ‘paradigms’, an attempt is made on the basis of Foucault's archaeology of discourse to view Bourdieusian and Latourian sociology as distinct positions within a discourse on the relational.     

Toddlers Activate Lexical Semantic Knowledge in the Absence of Visual Referents: Evidence from Auditory Priming

Language learners rapidly acquire extensive semantic knowledge, but the development of this knowledge is difficult to study, in part because it is difficult to assess young children's lexical semantic representations. In our studies, we solved this problem by investigating lexical semantic knowledge in 24‐month‐olds using the Head‐turn Preference Procedure. In Experiment 1, looking times to a repeating spoken word stimulus (e.g., kitty‐kitty‐kitty) were shorter for trials preceded by a semantically related word (e.g., dog‐dog‐dog) than trials preceded by an unrelated word (e.g., juice‐juice‐juice). Experiment 2 yielded similar results using a method in which pairs of words were presented on the same trial. The studies provide evidence that young children activate of lexical semantic knowledge, and critically, that they do so in the absence of visual referents or sentence contexts. Auditory lexical priming is a promising technique for studying the development and structure of semantic knowledge in young children.