‘Forest passages’: Narratives of withdrawal and ecological thought

Passing the Life in the UK Test is an essential requirement for those who seek UK citizenship. This citizenship test, attempted around 150,000 times per year, has incurred criticism for its content and difficulty, and for its role in causing psychological distress. We examined, among a representative adult UK population, people's reactions to this important instrument. Results showed that two-thirds (66.4%) of UK residents, most of whom held citizenship, failed their own countries' citizenship test. Participants on the right (vs. left) of the political and ideological spectrum were more likely to overestimate their own performance and demand higher performance from immigrants than left-leaning voters, even though these voters' actual performance did not differ. Strikingly, completing the Life in the UK Test caused participants to subsequently endorse milder test requirements, a finding that generalized well across political ideology and voter categories. Initial overconfidence in one's own test performance mediated this change in attitudes. Results suggest that support for improving the Life in the UK Test can be garnered across the political spectrum by confronting people with the content of this life-changing tool.

ABSTRACTAs a form of resistance against heteronormativity, queer theology has often also been very critical towards colonialism and capitalism. The queer perspective thus became a privileged standpoint of critique of these three levels of oppression. However, it seems that today, capitalism itself has been “queered”: the hierarchy of the heterosexual “core family” has been replaced by a global hymn of diversity and flexibility centred around consumerism. Within the context of neoliberal capitalism, queer theology seems to have lost its queerness. This contribution is inspired by Giorgio Agamben’s book The Highest Poverty (2011), in which he presents the evolution of the Franciscan rule from a “form of life” (forma vitae) to a “rule” that is a form of proto-capitalism. The Franciscan ideal of poverty is corrupted as soon as the hierarchical Church (the instance of power) affirms this rule, thereby taking it up within a discourse of the law: poverty is no longer a theological concept, but an economical one. Following Agamben’s strategy, I will ask how another spiritual movement of around the thirteenth century, the Beguines, attempted to live an alternative life, a vita apostolica, and understand this as a form of queerness. The Beguine model, I will argue, can help us imagine a deepened queer theology today that cannot be captured and rigidified by the logic of capitalism, but continues to be able to critique it.

The article examines two ‘postmodern’ critiques of modernity: a general history that argues that it was never solely Western, and a work of Latin American cultural criticism that petitions for the region to leave behind a modernity seen as Eurocentric. It argues that to understand the modern elements of Latin America entails keeping present the European, and in part pre-nineteenth-century, genealogy of modernity. This is in order to grasp that both the pitfalls of claiming modernity is a common project (colonialism vanishes) and the difficulty of going beyond it (European modernity bequeathed the language of breaks and dialectical incorporations). The piece identifies the rhetorical choreography involved when the limits of the critique of Western modernity become apparent.

Moving Forward by Moving BackOn Some Recent Works by Giorgio Agamben Adam Kotsko (bio) GIORGIO AGAMBEN, KARMAN: A BRIEF TREATISE ON ACTION, GUILT, AND GESTURE TRANS. ADAM KOTSKO Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2017 GIORGIO AGAMBEN, TASTE TRANS. COOPER FRANCIS New York: Seagull Books, 2017 GIORGIO AGAMBEN, WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? TRANS. LORENZO CHIESA Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2018 The books under review here represent only a portion of Agamben’s output in recent years. While Agamben has been an increasingly prolific author over the course of his career, there has been a veritable explosion of new material since the conclusion—or, as he puts it, “abandonment”—oftheHomo Sacer project with the publication of The Use of Bodies (2014/2016).1 This “abandonment” was in no sense a conclusion, as he clarifies in the preface to The Use of Bodies, but it is in some sense an act of closure, even if it is the paradoxical closure of leaving the project definitively unfinished and open-ended. The Use of Bodies—which, far from answering all the questions raised by the earlier volume, piles on even more of its own—is a massive work by Agamben’s standards, matched only by The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Glory (2007/2011). Hence it is perhaps understandable that many of the works that have appeared in its wake (including Stasis: Civil War as a Political Paradigm [2015/2015], which was [End Page 141] belatedly inserted into the architectonic of the series after the publication of The Use of Bodies) are shorter—in the case of Taste (2015/2017), very short indeed. In a way, publishing such a short essay, which originally appeared as an entry in an Italian philosophical reference work, is no departure for Agamben. He has always been attracted to publishing very short texts as stand-alone books. Many of the pieces later collected in Profanations, for instance, initially appeared in small chapbooks consisting of two short essays. Several of his other short works have been published in English (also by Seagull Press) in attractive hardcover editions with supplemental essays and artworks, and other chapbook-length texts have periodically been gathered together into slightly larger collections (like What Is an Apparatus? And Other Essays [2006/2009]) that still manage to preserve the small scale Agamben aimed at with the original publications. Even in his larger works, one can see a preference for the fragmentary and suggestive. Many individual chapters could just as easily have been published as stand-alone pieces, and the overall argumentative flow of his longer texts is often unclear. He seems to work by accumulation and iteration, whether within a “single” book or a sequence of shorter “independent” pieces. Thus the length alone does not make Taste an outlier in his cor-pus. (Even so, one could justifiably ask about the ethics of publishing such a short text—my first reading took approximately an hour—as a stand-alone, full-price hardcover book with no supplemental materials whatsoever.) What is surprising is the original date of the text’s publication: 1979. At that point, Agamben was the author of a few relatively brief books on aesthetics, which certainly made him an appropriate candidate to supply the entry on “taste” in a philosophical dictionary. And in fact, many of the distinctive features of this text—the unexpected reference to political economy and the surprisingly appreciative engagement with psychoanalysis—are shared with such early works as The Man without Content (1970/1999) and Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture (1977/1992). In retrospect, however, the text appears to be a backward-looking one. In only a few short years, Agamben would publish Language and Death: A Seminar on the Place of Negativity (1982/1991), whose conclusion would evoke the figure of the sacred man or homo sacer that would come to define his life’s work. It would still be nearly a decade until [End Page 142] Agamben announced something like a “political turn” with The Coming Community (1990/1993). Five years after that, Agamben would definitively launch his political theoretical project with Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1995...

Reconstructing the Internet: How Social Justice Activists Contest Technical Design in Cyberspace

Ecofeminism can be described as both an ecological philosophy and a social movement that draws on environmental studies, critiques of modernity and science, and feminist critical analyses and activism to explicate connections between women and nature, and the implications of these relationships for environmental politics. Feminist writer Françoise d’Eaubonne is widely credited to be the founder of ecofeminism in the early 1970s. Ecofeminists embrace a wide range of views concerning the causal role of Western dualistic thinking, patriarchal structures of power, and capitalism in ecological degradation, and the oppression of women and other subjugated peoples. Collectively, they find value in extending feminist analyses to the simultaneous interrogation of the domination of both nature and women. The history of ecofeminism may be divided into four decade-long periods. Ecofeminism emerged in the early 1970s, coincident with a significant upturn in the contemporary women’s and environmental movements. In the 1980s, ecofeminism entered the academy as ecofeminist activists and scholars focused their attention on the exploitation of natural resources and women, particularly in the developing world. They criticized government and cultural institutions that constrained women’s reproductive and productive roles in society, and argued that environmental protection ultimately depends on increasing women’s socioeconomic and political power. In the current postfeminist and postenvironmentalist world, ecofeminists are less concerned with theoretical labels than with effective women’s activism to achieve ecological sustainability.

Praised for its ability to kill insects effectively and cheaply and reviled as an ecological hazard, continues to engender passion across the political spectrum as one of the world's most controversial chemical pesticides. In DDT and the American Century, David Kinkela chronicles the use of around the world from 1941 to the present with a particular focus on the United States, which has played a critical role in encouraging the global use of the pesticide. Kinkela's study offers a unique approach to understanding both this contentious chemical and modern environmentalism in an international context.

Religious Studies' Mishandling of Origin and ChangeTime, Tradition, and Form of Life in Buddhism Ananda Abeysekara (bio) Most of religious life works quite well without "critique" because most of life does. — Talal Asad, interview in the Bulletin for the Study of Religion Every use is first of all use of self: to enter into a relation of use with something, I must be affected by it …; in the using of something, it is the very being of the one using that is first of all at stake. — Giorgio Agamben, The Use of Bodies The modern (postcolonial-minded) narrative of religion is a critique of the problem of time, in that it "separates" (krinein) origin (arche) from change. Central to this narrative is the idea that religion or religious life, as something that belongs to history, changes. Change is assumed to be history's "force of movement." It is often difficult for a modern scholar to narrate the story of religion without the paradigmatic notion of change. But is this critical narrative of religion as self-evident as is often assumed? I think not. The idea of history-time that guides this narrative is based on a "decision." Decision in this narrative effects an "incision" (i.e., cutting into) or "excision" (i.e., cutting out) of the origin of religion's time from its change. Thus, a closer look at this narrative reveals an unquestioned relation between decision and critique.1 Decision simply becomes "critique." That is, decision-critique—from the Greek heritage of the word krino—seeks merely to "separate" the problem of origin from change, a problem that haunts our secular politics and temporality.2 This "decisive critique" turns out be a kind of "decisionism" that is caught up in the paradox of deciding that which [End Page 22] cannot be decided. In such decisionism, it becomes difficult to think the inseparability between life and its "form." This necessarily prevents us from thinking about tradition itself in other ways than the distinction between origin and change.3 In this essay, I try to think how this critique of time works in very different postcolonial-minded texts on religion, particularly those by scholars of Buddhism such as Anne Blackburn, Steven Collins, Donald Lopez, and Richard Gombrich.4 These texts, which are informed by different theoretical-political orientations, present contrasting conceptualizations of time and life in modern and premodern Buddhism. Nonetheless the texts produce a common problem of temporality by way of seeking to separate the point of origin from successive changes of religious life within history. The problem we find in this narrative is not restricted to the area of Buddhist studies or religion. The problem remains in how we understand history-time as a particular secular object of study and critique. Thus the examples of texts (in terms of essentialist and antiessentialist critics of history) discussed here help us understand the problem of the secular practice of critique and the assumptions that such practice takes for granted about history, tradition, religion, and life itself. To that extent, my interest is not in what critique is, but how critique works in the secular practice of time and life.5 This general problem can be found in the way the modern narrative of religious life, as something that exists and changes in history, is assumed to be governed by critique. For the antiessentialist critic, the division between origin and change is crucial to determining how religion or religious life changes in history. For the self-proclaimed essentialist, the nemesis of the antiessentialist, the same separation of origin from change is crucial to defending the very idea of "origin." My argument is that the antiessentialist critique of origin cannot undermine the essentialist's argument for origin, because both are informed by the same critical decision of time and life that takes the separation between origin and change to be empirically axiomatic.6 My aim here is only to ask questions about the aporetic difficulties that the modern critique runs into in deciding on the question of religious life and time in the above way. The aporia of the modern critical narrative of religion helps us ponder a not-often-posed question...

In recent years, nations have regained prominence as central symbols of political unity and mobilization, and proved capable of serving political goals across the political spectrum. Yet, the current revival of the national extends well beyond the realm of politics; it is anchored in the logic of global capitalism, and has become inextricably intertwined with the practices of promotion and consumption. Our article seeks to map the interface between nationalism and economic life, and bring some clarity to the so far fragmented debate on the topic, which developed under diverse headings such as ‘economic nationalism’, ‘nation branding’, ‘consumer ethnocentrism’ and ‘commercial nationalism’. We focus more closely on developing the concept of consumer nationalism, which received little sustained attention in cultural studies and in social sciences and humanities more generally. We offer a definition of consumer nationalism, situate it vis-a-vis the broader phenomena of economic nationalism and political consumerism, and propose an analytical distinction between political consumer nationalism and symbolic consumer nationalism. Drawing on existing literature we then consider a range of examples and examine how these two forms of consumer nationalism become involved in the reproduction of nationalism, taking into account both consciously nationalist discourses and practices as well as the more banal, everyday forms of nationalism.

This chapter introduce a framework to approach environmental politics as a cultural politics, acknowledging that the ecological crises facing society in the twenty-first century are intertwined with a deep cultural crisis. It argues we need to dive deeper to move environmental politics beyond the current drama. Observing that contemporary cultures are imbued with fossil fuels, that people’s aspirations are dominated by petrocultures, it observes that no environmental politics can be successful unless it takes cultural aspirations seriously. To see environmental politics as a cultural politics means putting futuring centre stage, see how there is a politics of aspirations that runs counter to a working strategy of environmental regulation and repair. Freed from the strictures of ecological modernization environmental politics can engage in finding how ecology can define a new epoch, building on new aspirations. It challenges deep-seated cultural commitments, preferences, dreams, modes of living, and ideas of freedom. It potentially marks the end of a culture depending on systematically extracting resources from nature and the poor and powerless alike. This, however, necessitates a new political project as well as new mentalities. To provide avenues towards such cultural change, this chapter provides the first step in formulating a post-structural theory of change.

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom customarily has been read as a scandalous artistic exception. In light of the cases of prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib, however, the film can be taken to elaborate a critique of contemporary political conditions that is less than hyperbolic. Indeed, reading the film in contiguity with Giorgio Agamben’s thinking on biopolitics, especially in Homo Sacer , Pasolini’s Salò may be said to unveil its own critical and philosophical seriousness of purpose. Even hostile critics who tend to be dismissive of Pasolini’s rhetoric thus may be forced après-coup to concede that the film paradoxically operates in a quasi-realistic register. Pursuing this line of argument, “Rethinking Salò After Abu Ghraib” examines the overlap between the visual iconography of cruelty in the film and the photographic documentary record of torture at Abu Ghraib, finding a troubling proximity. In particular, the essay dwells on three distinct layers of meaning in the film: 1) the reappropriation of the literary model provided by the Marquis de Sade’s Les 120 journées de Sodome , 2) the film’s ostensive historical background and setting of the Republic of Salò, and 3) the phenomenology of contemporary neofascism that Pasolini considered to be the raison d’etre of the film. “Rethinking Salo” also conducts an investigation of idiotic humor and stupidity as conduits to sadistic violence in both Pasolini’s film and the record of torture at Abu Ghraib, making reference to Adriana Cavarero’s pathbreaking study, Horrorism .

While Christian churches dramatically lost ground during the last decades (at least in European societies), in this very period one of the major Christian figures, Saint Paul, attracted the interest of leading ‘progressive’ intellectuals and philosophers like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, or Giorgio Agamben. In the following text, by focusing on Pasolini and his uncompleted film project San Paolo, I will concentrate on the notion of the split.

The present article aims to map relations between the poetical work by Antonio Reis and his cinematographic work, directed alongside with Margarida Cordeiro. Such relations will be both formal, considering the procedures of film editing and the literary resources, as well as thematic. What’s poetic in Reis and Cordeiro’s films? What’s cinematographic – or shall we say cinematic? – in Antonio Reis’ poems? Taking as starting point the notions of cinema of poetry (Pier Paolo Pasolini) and cinema from poetry (Rosa Maria Martelo), we will try to approach the creation of an atmosphere (Jose Gil) and a common style to the aesthetic productions by Antonio Reis, briefly, a way-of-life (Giorgio Agamben)?

Background: This paper explores Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) as a critique of capitalist consumer society, focusing on how human beings are transformed into commodified entities under the guise of progress and care. Through the characters of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth—clones raised for the sole purpose of organ donation—this study presents a dystopian reflection of late-stage capitalism, where life itself becomes a consumable product. Hailsham, a seemingly progressive boarding school, is revealed to be a corporate apparatus designed to normalize and aestheticize the commodification of bodies. Methodology: This study employs a Marxist theoretical framework, incorporating Karl Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism and alienation, Fredric Jameson’s analysis of late capitalist culture, and Max Weber’s understanding of bureaucratic rationalization. These frameworks help illuminate how the novel critiques the transformation of human subjects into objects of exchange, where emotional attachments and personal identities are suppressed in favor of utilitarian value. Results: Kathy’s reflective narration becomes a vehicle to expose the internalization of ideological structures that render resistance nearly impossible. The characters’ experiences of love, loss, and longing are systematically subordinated to the demands of bio-capitalism. Organ harvesting is not portrayed as a shocking exception but as the normalized endpoint of a society that values economic productivity over ethical considerations. The transition from Hailsham to the Cottages symbolizes a gradual but irreversible surrender to the capitalist logic that governs their lives. Conclusion: The deaths of Tommy and Ruth, and the anticipated death of Kathy, exemplify the culmination of capitalist logic, where the body is wholly owned, managed, and exhausted for the benefit of others. Once a domain of human development, education is co-opted as a mechanism to produce docile, compliant subjects fit for exploitation. Novelty: Ultimately, Never Let Me Go functions as an allegorical critique of consumer-driven modernity, where the human condition is eroded by systemic commodification. This study warns against a world in which efficiency overrides empathy, and individuals are reduced to replaceable components in a capitalist machine. Through its haunting portrayal of disability and silence, Ishiguro's work demands a rethinking of the ethical limits of consumerism and bio-political control.

The Flavian age, though it lasted only twenty-seven years (69–96 ce), was of critical importance in the development of the Roman empire. The Flavian dynasty, which featured the emperors Vespasian (reigned 69–79 ce), Titus (79–81), and Domitian (81–96), followed in the path of the Julio-Claudian regime by fostering literary composition. The extant literature attests to the flourishing cultural, social, political, and economic environment of the Flavian era. Flavian literature includes not only Latin texts but also Greek. In fact, Greek writers, no less than their counterparts who wrote in Latin, are essential figures to consider when examining the full range of literary dynamics at play during the period. Some of the distinctive features and innovations of the Flavian age include the profoundly intertextual quality of its literature, which self-consciously interacts with both earlier traditions and contemporary works; Vespasian’s creation of salaried chairs of rhetoric, of which the first holder was Quintilian; Domitian’s creation of literary festivals, namely the quinquennial Capitolia at Rome and the annual Alban event, in which a poet such as Statius participated; the dispensation of patronage by the emperors and members of the senatorial and equestrian classes to Flavian writers, who in turn dedicated or addressed works to their patrons; and the fear of violence and civil war that pervades much of its literature. Scholars have published important work on how these Flavian writers communicated their ideas and related to their regimes, with much discussion occurring about the social and political stances they adopted and how they managed to navigate the sometimes murky waters of cultural and imperial politics. The result has been that modern critics are in disagreement about how to interpret passages by Flavian poets and prose writers who suggest meaning and express ideas in provocative and revealing ways both reminiscent of and different from their literary precursors. Both Latin and Greek writers of the Flavian era established themselves in a variety of genres with works that would exert a longstanding influence upon subsequent literature through the Middles Ages and Renaissance to the early modern period. Although for much of the 20th century scholars deemed the poetry and prose of the Flavian era to be secondary to the literature of the Augustan and (even) Julio-Claudian ages, partly because of Flavian writers’ adaptation and reconfiguration of literary conventions, diction, and motifs from these and earlier periods, critical appreciation and understanding of Flavian literature has increased dramatically in recent decades.