Hegemonic Pretensions Research Articles

Queering Transgender and Translation

Queering Transgender and Translation

Editorial. Giordano Bruno, un agitador de las conciencias libertarias

Editorial. Giordano Bruno, un agitador de las conciencias libertarias

Bloodlands Fiction: Cultural Trauma Politics and the Memory of Soviet Atrocities in Breaking Stalin's Nose, A Winter's Day in 1939 and Between Shades of Gray

The field of trauma theory emerged in the 1990s out of the confluence of psychoanalysis, deconstruction and Holocaust studies. It soon consolidated into a trauma paradigm with hegemonic pretensions, which was ill-equipped to recognise traumatic experiences of non-Western and postcolonial groups or nations. It likewise tended to dismiss from trauma fiction any narratives that deviated from the aporetic model of normative trauma aesthetic. These limitations were exposed by the postcolonial turn in history and memory studies, which made it incumbent upon trauma theory to expand its focus to other literatures that bear witness to the so-far neglected, minoritarian trauma traditions. This essay introduces one such tradition, which is the recently emerged body of historical fiction about Soviet deportations, atrocities, genocide and other forms of persecution meant to subdue or eliminate entire ethnic or national groups in Eastern Europe between 1930 and the late 1950s. The genre of Bloodlands fiction, as I have called it elsewhere, 1 first exploded in national literatures of Eastern Europe in the mid-1990s, after fifty years of suppression of cultural memory under the Communist regimes. About a decade later works of Bloodlands fiction became available in English, often written by diaspora authors. Starting with a challenge to the conventional definition of trauma fiction, this essay argues for a wider model that accommodates genres including Bloodlands fiction. Readings of Breaking Stalin's Nose (2013) by Russian American Eugene Yelchin, A Winter's Day in 1939 (2013) by Polish New Zealander Melinda Szymanik and Between Shades of Gray (2011) by Lithuanian American Ruta Sepetys are used to illustrate some of the key features, textual strategies and cognitive effects of Bloodlands fiction as a genre of global trauma fiction.

ENTRE O TODO E O SUJEITO: CONDIÇÕES PARA A CONSTRUÇÃO DE UMA AGENDA POSITIVA DE DIREITOS HUMANOS

Procura-se discutir a relação entre o sujeito e a totalidade a partir das visões de Søren Kierkegaard, e a respectiva interpretação de sua obra feita por Theodor Adorno, para a partir daí desenvolver raízes teóricas de atuação política em relação à efetivação de direitos humanos. A partir da virada ao subjetivo operada pela filosofia kierkegaardiana em “Temor e tremor”, estabelecer a capacidade de ação política transformadora inserida em um contexto com pretensões hegemônicas e conservadoras.

¿Quedará espacio para el campesinado entre los megaproyectos centroamericanos?

Las reestructuraciones territoriales en Centroamérica siempre correspondieron a los intereses económicos y geoestratégicos del momento. A las pretensiones hegemónicas del Norte, combatidas en su tiempo por amplios movimientos sociales, se han sumado las ambiciones más reciente de los bloques económicos emergentes que se proponen rediseñar el área, de acuerdo a sus propias prioridades. En la mayoría de los casos, el afán de desarrollar el país y la creación de empleos para una población rural pauperizada son los principales argumentos desplegados por las instituciones (o las empresas privadas) a favor de estos proyectos. Apoyándose en la observación de sus impactos en tres regiones (de Guatemala, Honduras y Nicaragua) se analiza como grupos campesinos e/o indígenas reaccionan frente a la imposición de preceptos contradictorios en materia de producción, haciendo énfasis en las herramientas pero también en los obstáculos de orden político y económico que, a veces, son el principal condicionante de las estrategias de lucha adoptadas.

Wandering Things: Agency and Embodiment in Late Sixteenth-Century English Miniature Portraits

This essay engages with current debates on the character of objets as material artefacts, focusing on a genre that can be reappraised especially fruitfully from such a perspective: the small-format portrait medallion. The first part sets out how lockable portrait medaillon were 'wandering things', artefacts of transcultural networks, and possessed 'agency' (to use Alfred Gell's term). The second part is devoted to analysing an example from England around the year 1600 by Nicholas Hiliard, the so-called Gresley Jewel, against the backdrop of European slavery at that time. It vividly exemplifies, it is argued, the active semanticization of skin coulour, and in doing so repositions white, aristocratic identities. To what extent, the study centrally asks, have portrait medallions like this not only helped to establish the hegemonic pretensions of white aristocratic identity but also to undermine them as well?

William F. May, Testing the National Covenant

In 1985, Robert Bellah and his co-authors published the first edition of Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. It was an instant classic—a profound cultural analysis of American individualism and a sophisticated moral Jeremiad against its destructive consequences. The problem, as they identified it, was not the presence of individualism in American culture, but its growing tyranny over the moral imagination of the American people. Their remedy was to strengthen other significant, yet neglected, strands of the American cultural conversation, including, especially, its biblical and republican heritage. American social life and democratic public discourse required, they proposed, a richer, more communally oriented set of moral resources than individualism alone could provide. Over a quarter century later, William F. May’s Testing the National Covenant: Fears and Appetites in American Politics makes a similar argument in a different historical context. In fact, May’s volume can be seen, in style and substance, as an heir to that classic work. Testing the National Covenant is a profound theological and moral Jeremiad against possessive individualism and social contract liberalism. Like Habits of the Heart, it does not so much propose to eliminate individualism from the American cultural consciousness—as though that were even possible—but to point out its moral insufficiency and restrain its hegemonic pretensions. And also like Habits of the Heart, May’s volume enriches the moral

Desenvolvimento local - ou sobre exegeses ideológicas, lutas hegemônicas e descaminhos societários

Este artigo examina a natureza e as implicações do chamado Desenvolvimento Local (DL). Para tal, tendo em vista o também chamado Desenvolvimento Econômico (DE), bem como as transformações estruturais operadas no capitalismo contemporâneo, ele dialoga com temas como "Estruturas produtivas e seus espaços", "Estado e práxis escalares", mostrando a apropriação procedida pelos liberais acerca deles, toda ela orientada para a afirmação de uma dada perspectiva - com pretensões hegemônicas -, a saber: a da inexistência de caminhos societários de desenvolvimento alternativos ao DL. O autor defende ainda que a proclamada modéstia dos partidários do DL não resiste à análise mais séria, nem tampouco seu também proclamado caráter progressista, posto ser essa práxis ora ressurgida, ao fim e ao cabo, uma das faces da hodierna internacionalização do capital. O autor, ainda, igualmente defende que o DE também se afirmou historicamente com as mesmas pretensões exegéticas e hegemônicas, conquanto dos delistas receba tantas e tamanhas críticas mais por suas virtudes que propriamente pelos seus defeitos. Por fim, provocativamente, pergunta se não seria o velho desenvolvimentismo a resistência possível (e não o DL) ou se não seria o caso de se voltar a invocar alguma alternativa verdadeiramente insurgente (?).

Identité et résistance: fondements et enjeux philosophiques

La résistance est toujours résistance à une hégémonie ou à une homogénéisation, à ce que Derrida nomme une "homohégémonie". Elle entre toujours en résistance à la figure de la maîtrise - et d'abord dans le domaine de la culture. C'est contre la prétention hégémonique de la raison hégélienne - et donc de l'universel -, entendue comme l'identité absolue à soi, que la philosophie contemporaine entre en résistance. Elle s'efforce, en effet, renonçant au fantasme d'une pureté originaire, de penser une identité qui non seulement accueille une altérité mais se laisse altérer par elle. Qu'il s'agisse de jazz ou de langue, d'interprétation (Adorno et Patrick Williams) ou de traduction (Walter Benjamin), qu'il s'agisse même de l'art contemporain et de son rapport au Musée (Breton, Picasso, Malraux), c'est toujours dans la résistance que se constitue une véritable identité - qui est refus d'une clôture sur soi.

‘Neither Jew nor Greek’: The Church in Africa and the Quest for Self-Understanding in the Light of the Pauline Vision and Today's Context of Cultural Pluralism

The foundation of Paul's vision of the Christian community as ‘neither Jew nor Greek’ is his radical appreciation of the Grace of God at work in the Christ-Event. This radical notion of divine grace enables Paul to affirm Jews and Gentiles in their cultural particularities as well as to humble them in their cultural hegemonic pretensions. In this way, Paul lays the foundation for mutual tolerance and respect between Jews and Gentiles in the Christian community. This article argues that a re-presentation of the Pauline vision in today's context of cultural pluralism could serve African theologians as a biblical-ecclesiological model in their quest for a proper self-understanding of the African Church, that will lead to the formation of a local Christian culture and local Christian churches existing alongside other local churches and sharing the same status in terms of access to salvation and other aspects of the Church's life.

Crise politique et transnationalisation de l’État en Amérique latine : une interprétation théorique

If the crisis of the state has been a common trait in Latin America, its manifestations have not been the same throughout the continent. This article examines two general and apparently contraditory trends : the trend toward authoritarian capitalism resulting from the crisis of hegemony in South America and the trend towards popularly-based insurgency resulting from a crisis of domination in most of Central America. The author bases his general interpretation of these trends on the analysis of the historical and structural relationships between four factors identified as responsible for the drastic change in the role of the state, from "national development" to "national security" : the crisis in the model of accumulation, the growing polarization of political alliance, the transnationalization of the civil society and the state, and the interplay between relative autonomy of the state and transnationalization. He finds that the combination of transnational integration of the Latin American elites into one U.S.-centered project with hegemonic pretensions, and a growing marginalization and alienation on the part of the bulk of the internal constituencies has brought about an acute crisis of both legitimation and domination. As violence becomes the most common political currency -with repression and plain state terrorism evolving into a distinct style of politics - and the prospects towards redemocratization being very fragile, the author concludes that revolutionary struggles may be the only possibility for an indigenous redefinition of development, national self-determination and democracy.

Subimperialismo à brasileira? Alguns apontamentos sobre o expansionismo e as pretensões hegemônicas brasileiras no cone Sul

The expansion and the maintenance of the Brazilian territorial integrity since colonial times motivated the peculiar shaping of the Brazilian State, which in its Lusitanian roots occurred prior to and independently of the idea of nation. This premise turned into a particular topic in our historical evolution prior to the trajectories of Hispanic countries. It also stimulated the hegemonic pretensions of Brazil in the subcontinent.

New Perspectives on American Grand Strategy: A Review Essay

Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) Shortly after the end of the Cold War, a number of leading structural realists such as Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer, and Christopher Layne predicted that America’s “unipolar moment” was likely to be short lived.1 Drawing on traditional balance of power theory, they suggested that America’s unparalleled status as the world’s only superpower would soon trigger widespread counterbalancing on the part of other major states. The policy implication was that Americans ought to play down their hegemonic pretensions and accommodate the inevitable transition toward a multipolar world order. Not only was a certain degree of strategic disengagement a policy prescription: It was the structural realist prediction for American grand strategy in the post–Cold War era. One decade later, a multipolar world order has yet to appear. Granted, American foreign policy is widely resented abroad, and other countries are deNew Perspectives on American Grand Strategy

A Trio of Hungarian Balkanists: Béni Kállay, István Burián and Lajos Thallóczy in the Age of High Nationalism

SEER,Vol. 8o, No. 2, April2002 A Trio of Hungarian Balkanists: Beni KMalay, Istv'an Burian and Lajos Thalloczy in the Age of High Nationalism ROBIN OKEY ONE of the least attractive products of East European nationalism, open enmity apart, is the lack of interest individual nations display in each other. The respective intelligentsias have been much more familiarwith west European culturesthan with their neighbours', and figureswho concerned themselveswith the latter have regularlybeen viewed with suspicion,aspotential sellersout of the nationalcause.Yet, ironically, the activities of these same individualscan often be seen to have been skewed by their patriotic preoccupations, and their knowledge of neighbouring societies to have been put to manipulative purposes, in the interests of hegemonic pretensions revealed, in hindsight,to be illusoryor worse. Examplescan be found in the history of German-Slavor Serb-Croatintellectualrelations,as alsoin the work of Russian scholars.This articledealswith a Hungarianexample of the genre, which does not merit the odium of some of the instancesjust mentioned, but offersa way into the intellectualmind-set of the age of high nationalism, exposing some of the temptations and even some of the pathos of an ultimatelyunsuccessfulnationalism. Hungary in the later nineteenth century fulfilled all the conditions for an emerging nationalism. Major advances in communications, economic growth and popular literacy transformed the backward feudal society Istvan Szechenyi had deplored, making Budapest by 1914 a city of a million inhabitants, dwarfing Belgrade, Zagreb or Sofia. By an easily explicable paradox, 'modernization' provided the sinews whereby an emerging intelligentsia felt encouraged to revive purported past greatness, matching the national self-assertivenessof larger nations to the west. The national movement against Habsburg absolutism and, from i867, self-governmentunder the Austro-Hungarian Compromise provided the political frameworkfor the development of such perspectives,which could build on Hungarian traditions as a majorBalkanplayerbefore the eclipse of the medieval state on the Robin Okey is Reader in History at the University of Warwick. A TRIO OF HUNGARIAN BALKANISTS 235 field of Moh'acs in I526. Austria-Hungary's occupation and later annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (i 878/I908) was a furtherfactor, which was central to the careersof the three scholar-officialsreviewed below.1 Beni Kallay, Istv'anBuri'anand LajosThalloczy were between them active fromthe finalphase of Europeanliberalnationalismin the i 86os to what is called here the 'high nationalism' that developed in the decades before the FirstWorld War.2All belonged to what was then and remains the small school of Hungarian Balkanists. That there shouldbe such a school is not surprising,bearingin mind that fromthe start of the twelfth century until I9I8 the Croatian kingdom was incorporated into the wider realm of the Hungarian Crown and that medievalHungarylaidclaimto BosniaandDalmatia andled resistance to fifteenth-century Turkish Balkan conquest. The exiled Kossuth himself,in hisplansfora Danubian confederation,had recognizedthat in an age of awakening nationalisms enlightened self-interestshould lead the Magyarsto seek a relationshipwith similarly-sizedSouth Slav and Romanian neighbours.3That the school was smallwas due partly to I 50 years of intervening Turkish occupation, overlaying medieval memories, but also to the Hungarianpolitical class'swestward-looking perspective and absorptionin relationswith Vienna. Hungarianswith Balkan interests have often tended to be of South Slav origin themselves, like the bibliographer of Serb and Croat historiography, Ede Margalits(I849-1940), or, later, the historianof Serb Orthodoxy, Laszlo Hadrovics (i 9' o-). Fewer, and facing an uphill struggle to influence their indifferent countrymen, have been those Hungarians drawnto South Slav issuesby theirbelief in the political importanceof Balkanlinksfortheirfatherland. The three subjectsof this articlebelonged to this latter group:none had South Slav antecedents, except for Serbian ancestry on Kallay's mother'sside, too remote to provide a personalmotivation. Kallay and Buri'anwere members of the Hungarian middle nobility, patriots but supportersof the Habsburg connection. They shared, if in somewhat differentways, the mix of liberal and conservativevalues this stratum had inherited from the Reform Era of I825-48, conditioned by the I There is no satisfactory monograph on Hungarian nationalism in this period. See G. Kem6ny (ed.), Iratoka nemzetisegikerdestdrtMnetMhez Magyarorszagon a dualizmuskordban I867-I9i8, 7 vols, Budapest, I952-99; and F. Poloskei, 'Nacionalismus a dualizmus koraban', in A magyar nacionalismus kialakuldsa e'stdrteete,Budapest, I964, pp. I65-86. 2 In this article 'high nationalism' is...

Historicising representations of 'failed states': Beyond the cold-war annexation of the social sciences?

This article examines the rise of various representations of postcolonial states to highlight how thinking and practice that arose and prevailed during the Cold War still persists in the present ostensibly post-cold war era. After initially outlining the historical construction of the social sciences, it is shown how the annexation of the social sciences evolved in the early post-World War II and cold-war era as an adjunct of the world hegemonic pretensions of the USA. A critique is then developed of various representations of post-colonial states that arose in the making of the 'Third World' during the cold-war annexation of the social sciences. Yet such practices still persist in the present, as evidenced by more contemporary representations of post-colonial states commonly revolving around elements of deficiency or failure, eg 'quasi-states', 'weak states', 'failed states' or 'rogue states'. A more historicised consideration of post-colonial statehood, that recasts conceptions of state-civil society antagonisms in terms of an appreciation of political economy and critical security concerns, offers an alternative to these representations of 'failed states'. By historicising various representations of 'failed states' it becomes possible to open up critical ways of thinking about the political economy of security and to consider alternative futures in world order.