Political Self Research Articles

Conjuring Unity: The Politics of the Crowd and the Poetics of the Candidate

Although the rhetorical gifts of Barack Obama have been copiously examined, considerably less attention has been paid to one of the principal actors in political campaigns: the crowd. This critical analysis examines the nature and influence of the crowd as a political actor in the Obama campaign. Drawing on dramaturgical theory and literary history, the article also considers how a candidate’s strategic performance of his or her political self can be understood within the legacy of American romantic and transcendental conceptions of the self and its mystical and sacramental relationship to the crowd.

Political Internet games: Engaging an audience

This article is concerned with Internet games that critically address political issues. Developers and players of six online games were interviewed about the expressive and engaging power of the games, in particular with respect to the performance of a ‘political self’. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in order to explore this issue in some detail. Interviews with the six game-developers revealed that building a game contributed to the enhancement of their everyday political engagement. Players were addressed by an online questionnaire which also included playing a political game ( N = 80). The results showed an impact of playing a political game on their knowledge and opinion about the issue addressed in the game.The results also suggested that the construction and expression of a ‘political self’ through the act of playing a political game may have consequences in the real world.

The Influences of Activities and Kinds of Associations on Democratic Political Self

The Influences of Activities and Kinds of Associations on Democratic Political Self

The Taboo of Politics in Pastoral Counseling

The political realities of society are present in counseling in subtle and overt ways. In this article, I argue that the client's (and counselor's) political experiences, beliefs, and commitments can be and, in many cases, should be explored. The idea of the political self or subjectivity and its identifying features and sources are described. I posit that political subjectivity forms through the processes of internalization, identification, and idealization. In identifying several reasons for the taboo of political discourse in pastoral counseling, I suggest a number of ways pastoral counselors may manage the political self in the counseling relationship. The three goals for exploring a client's political subjectivity for the client are: (1) to have a deeper and broader understanding of one's political beliefs, values, and commitments; (2) develop a more empathic understanding of the beliefs and experiences of Others; and (3) be able to take responsibility for the harm that results from one's political commitments.

NARRATIVES OF SELF AND RELATEDNESS IN ECO-COMMUNES

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on eco-communes as sites of resistance and political activism. Based on a post-structuralist narrative analysis of interview materials, this paper elaborates on the ways in which life in a commune is narrated and represented as an identity project with a mission to bring about social change. The environmentalists studied make sense of their choice to live in an eco-commune as something that was triggered and facilitated by important crossroads and fateful moments that they had encountered in their past life. They also work on their identity as eco-communards by discursively problematizing their personal relation to themselves (self) and to others (spouse and family), as well as by constructing new forms of subjectivity, intimacy, and relatedness through communal life. Life in the eco-commune thus represents a form of resistance and political struggle that Michel Foucault has referred to as politics of self; it represents not only direct opposition against the social order of contemporary Western consumer society but also more subtle resistance against the normalized forms of subjectivity that it entails.

Dividuated selves: on Renaissance criticism, critical finitude and the experience of ethical subjectivity

This paper situates the work of Renaissance criticism as a type of belated work of mourning or memorial aesthetics. In particular I want to focus on the emergence of a supposedly “modern” form of subjectivity during the theorisation of Renaissance criticism in the eighties –its distinctiveness as well as its occlusions. For the purpose of this essay I take the work of the British critic Francis Barker as, in some sense, broadly representative of a trend in political criticism that was focused on a recovery of the lost significance of the body as a site of subjection. However, I will also argue that the relocation of the mind-body split in the first wave theorisation of Renaissance criticism needs to be read again. The founding dividuation of self in this early criticism is now often criticised for positioning the subject in reductively functionalist or mechanistic terms, as the product of the discourse of power/knowledge that produced it. However, in much of the work that we label cultural materialist or new historicist, the experience of dualism also secreted an ethical standpoint that is worthy of our re-evaluation. In particular, and in building on the insights of Gillian Rose and Judith Butler on mourning, I suggest that the lyrical contemplation of lost bodies in radical criticism implicates our ties to others, as well as the relational ties to others implicit in any political sense of community. In turn, this suggests a more sophisticated account of political subjectivity, as well as a potential reparation of the concept of a political self for radical criticism.

Presentation of the Political Self

This study focuses on the presentation of political self in electoral media dialogue. The situated event of a presidential election forces the politician to construct an identity of president-to-be and therefore to create a persuasive relationship with the public hoping to have the perlocutionary effect of voting. The notion of commitment is defined from the intersubjective perspective as the accountability of the words and actions towards the co-participant. It manifests itself in the discursive positioning of the speaker in subjectifying expressions of commitment. The data analyzed are from a TV debate held in France in 2007 when two presidential candidates, Ségolène Royal and Nicholas Sarkozy, were elected for the second round. In her talk, Royal constructs a presentation of political self as an expert in social and political matters, whereas Sarkozy focuses mostly on his personal qualities that demonstrate he will be a reliable future president.

The Globalization of Self: Role and Identity Transformation from Above and Below

AbstractThe process of globalization is transforming society with unprecedented speed and scope. Along the way, social roles are being altered and identities are being transformed. How do the forces of globalization shape the self? How do changes to the self affect social relationships and alter larger social structures? This paper offers a conceptual framework for addressing these questions. The ‘role‐as‐resource’ perspective is employed as a tool for differentiating between two opposing processes. On the one hand, top down forces associated with technocapitalism serve to colonize the self by sustaining roles associated with global consumption and production, while disrupting or erasing traditional roles. On the other hand, bottom‐up forces associated with local grassroots organizations and democratic social movements facilitate resistance by providing resources for a more agentic political self.

Conceptualising spirituality and religion for healthcare

To discuss some of the challenges of conceptualising spirituality and religion for healthcare practice. With the growing interest in spirituality in healthcare, has come the inevitable task of trying to conceptualise spirituality, a daunting task given the amorphous nature of spirituality, the changing understandings of spirituality among individuals and the diverse globalised society within which this task is taking place. Spirituality's relationship to religion is a particularly challenging point of debate. Critical review. Three social and historical conditions - located in the context of Western thought - have contributed to current conceptualisations of spirituality and religion: the diminishment of the social authority of religion as a result of the Enlightenment focus on reason, the rise of a postmodern spirituality emphasising spiritual experience and current tensions over the ideological and political roles of religion in society. The trend to minimise the social influence of religion is a particular Western bias that seems to ignore the global megatrend of the resurgence of religion. Current conceptualisations are critiqued on the following grounds: that they tend to be ungrounded from a rich history of theological and philosophical thought, that a particular form of elitist spirituality is emerging and that the individualistic emphasis in recent conceptualisations of spirituality diminishes the potential for societal critique and transformation while opening the door for economic and political self interest. Constructing adequate conceptualisations of spirituality and religion for clinical practice entails grounding them in the wealth of centuries of philosophical and theological thinking, ensuring that they represent the diverse society that nursing serves and anchoring them within a moral view of practice.

The body as a battlefield: approaching children's politics

This article discusses the active role of children in everyday politics. Distinct from empowerment, it is suggested that children can be political on their own terms. The article focuses on revealing the social production of childhood, which takes place in the confrontation between child policy and children's own politics. Children's bodies are found to be both the main focus of policy practices and a central avenue of children's own agency. Hence, children are understood to be not only objects of policy, but also embodied political subjects. Using the example of Finnish child evacuees’ experiences during the Second World War, it is shown that, despite their positions in policy fields, children do act as political selves. Using the ideas of Michel de Certeau and Carl Schmitt, it is argued that there is an autonomous politics to children which can be recognized as a significant means of coping in their everyday lives. On these grounds, the article sets out to use Pierre Bourdieu's concept of political struggle in considering childhood spatialities in more detail. Overall, children's politics are understood as a wider geographical concept which requires further examination.

Inventing Citizens, Imagining Gender Justice: The Suffrage Rhetoric of Virginia and Francis Minor

From the late 1860s through the mid-1870s, woman suffrage activists developed an ingenious legal argument, claiming that the U.S. Constitution already enfranchised women citizens. The argument, first articulated by St. Louis activists Virginia and Francis Minor, precipitated rhetorical performances by movement activists on public platforms and in polling places, and the Minors pursued their line of reasoning to the Supreme Court. The Minors’ arguments enacted a hermeneutic practice that venerated foundational texts while at the same time subverting their conventional meanings. The rhetorical figure of the gender-neutral, race-neutral citizen provided a basis for imagining a new political subjectivity for women. In the infamous Minor v. Happersett decision of 1875, however, the Court formally dissociated citizenship from voting rights. This analysis of the Minors’ rhetoric illustrates the capacity of argument that “failed” in law to invigorate cultural movements, assisting in the production of new ways of imagining political selves and performing political identities.

The Family and the Political Self - by Laurence Thomas

The Family and the Political Self - by Laurence Thomas

Performative Bodies, Tactical Agents and Political Selves: Rethinking the Political Geographies of Childhood

Theoretical elaboration and conceptualisation of children's political geographies is presently in a state of modification. Since the concepts of childhood and politics are not commonly brought together, there is plenty of work to be done. This article concentrates on revealing some political aspects of childhood and bringing up other focal questions concerning children's political geographies. Special attention is paid to children's agency and tactics to reach a better understanding of their ways of participating in politics. The theoretical foundations for this paper are in critical social theory. Following the thoughts of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau and Nigel Thrift on the potentials of non-representational theory, it explores performativity and body politics in general.

Audience reactions to Hollywood politics

In this article I analyse people’s reactions to popular American movies and TV series about politics, in order to find out whether and how they use such stories to perform a ‘political self’. The material used for this study was selected from the Internet Movie Database and consisted of comments of viewers. The analysis produced four types of performance which show how particular movies and series enable people to think about the dilemmas that politicians and politics face (reflection), criticize or praise politicians for their morals and stories for their ideology (judgement) and express their hopes and ideals (fantasy). In addition, some stories give their viewers the feeling that they have acquired new knowledge about specific elements of politics, which provide them with means to describe what they see as politics (description). In contrast to ‘television malaise’ perspectives, the results suggest that people ‘do’ politics in relation to films and series and construct in their reactions a particular and public version of their political selves.

La recta final del íter autonómico

El Estatuto de Autonomía para Andalucía durante el proceso de su tramitación final por el procedimiento contemplado en el artículo 151 de la Constitución, representa el definitivo examen del articulado por parte del Congreso de los Diputados así como la convocatoria posterior de un referéndum para la ratificación popular del texto. De esta forma, los acuerdos políticos suscritos entre UCD y PSOE condicionarán la gestación en Cortes del texto. El trabajo examina cómo se desarrollan los instantes finales de aquel proceso de conquista de un autogobierno político, en el marco de los grandes acontecimientos que deparan aquellas fechas para el proceso de restauración democrática, y a partir de los acuerdos y desacuerdos de las formaciones políticas alrededor del articulado. Una cuestión que resulta vital conocer ahora que Andalucía culmina un proceso de reforma estatutaria.

Paul Celan und Gottfried Benn: Zwei Poetologien nach 1945 (review)

Reviewed by: Paul Celan und Gottfried Benn: Zwei Poetologien nach 1945 B. Venkat Mani Paul Celan und Gottfried Benn: Zwei Poetologien nach 1945, by Agis Sideras. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005. 218 pp. €28.40 Studies of conjectures of subjectivity through a poet's reflections on the Self in his/her poetry and theoretical writings are not new to literary scholarship. A study of this nature becomes ambitious and merits attention when it simultaneously unravels poetic and political Selves in the works of Paul Celan and Gottfried Benn—two of the most influential German/European poets from the 20th century. Agis Sideras's book promises such an investigation. Through a reconsideration of hitherto under-discussed works of these two poets, Sideras attempts to reconfigure and challenge prevalent understandings of Paul Celan and Gottfried Benn's poetical theories (Poetologien). At the very outset, Sideras claims that extant research on these two poets has largely limited itself to outlining the intersections between their modernist poetics, without taking into account distinctive nuances. This mode of study impedes a clearer understanding of key elements that form and inform their poetry (p. 8). While research on Celan, Sideras points out, has concentrated almost exclusively on the essay Der Meridian (1960); scholarly studies of Benn have heavily drawn upon Probleme der Lyrik (1951), without considering the textual and intertextual genealogies of either of these texts. In order to illuminate the bifurcation in the poetics of Celan and Benn, Sideras argues convincingly for reconsideration of hitherto neglected texts: Roman des Phänotyp (1945) by Gottfried Benn, and Edgar Jene und der Traum von Traume (1948) by Celan. In addition to isolating important strands from these two works, that eventually contribute to, and are assimilated in Probleme der Lyrik and Meridian respectively, Sideras provides detailed discussions on textual moments from the Meridian whereby Celan fashions his poetics against that of Benn. A sustained engagement with this counter-fashioning becomes the engine of study. The juxtaposition of the two poets and their works is carefully carried out under two long sections, each of them bringing several distinguishing contours of their distinct poetics to relief. While the first section locates the features of their poetics in the concept of subjectivity, the second section expands the evaluation of self, individuality, and collectivity in conceptions [End Page 218] of existentialism and reality on the one hand, and poetic techniques such as dialogue and monologue on the other. One of the achievements of Sideras's study is his careful explication of the tensions that underlie poetic theories of Celan and Benn that depart from the larger poetic agenda of early 20th century modernism. Notable in Sideras's evaluation of Benn are, for example, the discussions on the split between individuality and the poetic "I" as expressed through language (28 pp.), the discrepancy between an ostensibly hermetic character of poetry and Benn's larger poetic program (p. 62), and, most important, Benn's belabored incorporation of a destructed and obfuscated reality after the Second World War (p. 117). These tensions play out differently in Celan. As Sideras demonstrates, Celan operates with a fundamental schism that registers in his struggles against the language with the language as a medium (p. 50). It is this very schism that moves Celan's poetry from hermetic inclinations, thereby elucidating multiple degrees of freedom for the poetic and the political "I" in Celan's poetry. This distinction becomes key to understanding the two poets' conceptualization of the poetic Self, as well as to their construction and intuition of the Other (p. 152). Such conceptualizations are rendered explicit, among other techniques, in their preferences for monologue (Benn) and dialogue (Celan) respectively (p. 166). While the two poets converge in their thematic decoding of concerns of modernity—indexed especially in their dissociations they propose between poetry, the artistic enterprise, and the predicament of representation—they diverge in their radically different stances toward these issues. As reactions to their perceptions of reality, they posit the abstraction of reality rather differently, thereby providing not identical, but two distinctly traceable poetics of European modernism. The merits of Sideras's book lie in a clear demarcation of the differences in the two...

The Family and the Political Self—Laurence Thomas

The Family and the Political Self—Laurence Thomas

Narrating the political self in a campaign for U.S. Congress

On the basis of data collected during a year-long study of a Congressional campaign in California in the mid-1990s, this article uses semantic, pragmatic, and narrative analysis to show how candidates for political office construct and defend the coherence of their actions, including their choice to run for office. First, semantic and pragmatic analysis is used to discuss two charges of lack of coherence against one candidate. Second, three discursive strategies used by candidates for building existential coherence are identified: (i) constructing a narrative of belonging; (ii) casting the present as a natural extension of the past; and (iii) exposing potential contradictions in order to show how to solve them. After examining the extent to which each strategy is common across candidates and situations, it is shown that candidates who frame themselves as “independent” tend to use these strategies more than those who choose to identify more closely with a party's platform and ideology.The research on which this article is based was in part supported by two small grants from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1996–1997 and 1997–1998, and by a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship supplemented by funds from UCLA during the 1999–2000 academic year. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Discourse Lab in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA on 2 June 2004. I thank my colleagues and students for their generous feedback and comments. Among my research assistants over the years, special thanks go to Jeff Storey, Sarah Meacham, and Jennifer Reynolds for their help in transcribing the talk in dozens of videotapes I recorded. I am also indebted to Anjali Browning for her careful reading of the first draft of this article. Some of the data and ideas presented in this article were first introduced in a number of seminars, workshops, and conferences at the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” the University of Florence, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. I would like to thank the participants in those events for their engagement with this material and their comments. I am also grateful to Jane Hill, former editor of Language in Society, and three anonymous reviewers for specific suggestions on how to improve the organization and content of the article. A number of people made the project on which this article is based possible and a rewarding experience. First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to the late Walter Capps and to his wife Lois Capps – now Rep. Lois Capps (D-California) – and to their extended family for letting me enter their home and giving me access to their lives as they experienced an extraordinary series of events. I am also very grateful to Walter's brother, Doug Capps, who was Walter's campaign manager in 1996 and has continued over the years to be my liaison with the rest of the Capps family. Others members of the Capps-for-Congress campaign staff I could rely on for information include Bryant Wieneke, always most generous with his time, Steve Boyd, Thu Fong, and Lindsey Capps. After Walter Capps's death, I benefited from conversations with Capps's colleague and friend Richard Hecht, professor and former chair of the Department of Religious Studies at UCSB. I am also grateful to the 1995–1996 Independent candidate Steven Wheeler, who, in June 1998, consented to meet with me and to being interviewed. This project was born out of conversations with Walter Capps's daughter Lisa while she was a graduate student at UCLA. She remained a strong supporter of my efforts to capture her father's adventure in politics after she accepted a position in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and even during the last year of her life, as she struggled with cancer. This article is dedicated to her memory.

Teologi Kritis di Masa Teror: STrategi Pendidikan Teologi Teroris

This article tries to discus about possibility of theology reconstruction (religious comprehension) in its relation with terrorism action in the name of religion in Islamic education practice. The first, the writer discuses about meanings of theology and terrorism, which are key concepts in this study. Then to investigate the roots, of terrorism in the name of God through religion fundamentalism concept with jihad whose mascot whose roots is political problem. According to the writer, this problem needs the new formula of theology in Islamic education practice. This theology is critical theology inspired by the Islamic universal good norms (The Qur'an and Sunnah). This theology always criticizes comprehension of religious which is loaded by political self interest of certain group caused conflict.

Designing Redistricting Institutions

Recent movements to reform redistricting in the United States have focused almost exclusively on the possibility of replacing state legislatures with nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions. The nearly exclusive focus on who draws districts overlooks at least two other ways to reform redistricting: by altering the decision rules that constrain legislatures when they redistrict; or by changing the institutional structures available to review legislatures' initial decisions. This Article sketches the broader suite of options and introduces a novel decision-rule constraint - deferred redistricting implementation. The deferred implementation rule would leave legislatures with authority to craft redistricting plans after each census, but the rule would defer the implementation of those plans for a few election cycles. Deferred implementation creates a partial temporal veil of ignorance that would curtail egregious partisan gerrymanders. In addition, it would improve the incentives of legislators in charge of drawing district lines, making them less interested in using the redistricting process to pursue their political self interest.