Singular Idea Research Articles

Transnational DREAMer Narratives

I trace transnational movement of the term DREAMer as it travels alongside deported and self-returned undocumented youths to Mexico, where the DREAMER narrative serves a neoliberal agenda. In the 2000s, the DREAMer narrative gained momentum as a popular trope in political and activist discourse across the United States, utilized as a tool to justify the inclusion of some (but not all) undocumented youths. As an UndocuScholar—a scholar researching and writing about the immigrant experience from an undocumented perspective—I join a growing number of current and former undocumented scholars who interrogate the DREAMer narrative for prioritizing a singular idea, based on neoliberal ideologies, that excludes the diverse experiences of immigrant communities. I use original testimonials captured in Los Otros Dreamers, edited by Jill Anderson, to document the experiences of deported and self-returned undocumented youths and application of the term DREAMer in Mexico. In so doing, I show how the unique routes and choices of immigrant communities are shaped by political discourse, notions of cultural belonging, and opportunities.

Future Imaginings in Art and Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT In considering future imaginings of art and Artificial Intelligence (AI), we point out two key premises to our approach: the human-machine relation without opposition between the two terms; and the implications of artificial intelligence within practice-led art practices. According to Gilbert Simondon, there is a biological and technological evolution that does not separate nature and technics or culture and technics, since what is defined by human nature is already part of a technological system. Yuk Hui criticizes the idea of technological singularity supported by strong artificial intelligence which converges on itself. However, there is also the possibility of multiple bifurcations emerging from technodiverse practices and aesthetics. On algorithmic art, Lev Manovich points out that AI is increasingly culturally influencing our imagination, choices, and behaviours and that it has built its own imagery and cognitive patterns in society. Joanna Zylinska connects the dots between AI, creativity and innovation, which by bringing AI to research into practice-led art practices, opens the problematization of AI to the possibilities of reprogramming the human sensory-cognitive apparatus. In this paper, we extend these approaches to examine whether these computer systems that enable the processing of big data can or cannot program our imagination, desires, likes, sensations, perceptions and attitudes. Finally, in order to think the worlds built through these emerging AI technologies, we ask what kind of society we want to live in, and what roles we will allow ubiquitous computational technologies, such as AI, to play in our daily lives.

From liminal spaces to the spatialities of liminality

AbstractGeographical engagement with liminality to explore and conceptualise threshold and ambiguous experience is growing, with calls being issued to attend to its spatial qualities, yet it seems difficult to move beyond the application of liminality as an umbrella term to an ever‐increasing array of spaces and places despite disciplinary uses of liminality diverging from its conceptual origins as it is applied to broader contexts. My interest is in how we can progress from identifying more and more spaces as liminal to spatialising liminality itself. Here, I engage critically yet constructively with three themes that commonly feature in work on liminality: its reliance on binary thinking, the common association of this binary thinking with hybridity, and the in/discernibility of thresholds. I propose that if we distinguish between liminality arising from a singular binary, multiple binaries and multiple (non‐binary) states, we can start to appreciate the diversity and complexity within supposedly singular liminal situations and experiences. Subsequently, by applying such thinking to three previously published papers on liminality by other authors, I propose that we can visualise multiple spatialities of liminality that can be characterised as nested, staggered, scattered and mobile. Overall, I argue that we should be more specific as to how our engagements with liminality differ from its original formulation as a productive step in moving beyond singular ideas of liminal spaces to examine liminality as both multiply spatial and actively spatialising.

Dramaturgy of Extinction: Sentient Landscapes, Spectral Bodies, and Unthought Worlds in Kris Verdonck’s Conversations (at the end of the world) and SOMETHING (out of nothing)

Among the challenges posed by the Anthropocene, perhaps none has been more central than redefining ‘the human’ that this epoch seems to name. It is no secret that the European liberal subject has been the directing force of the Anthropocene and the model from which a global humanity, and its globalising technology, has been envisioned. This essay begins by bringing together a diversity interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives to ask: does the Anthropocene mark the realisation of this homogenous human subject, or its end? Extinction seems constitutive of a climate narrative dominated by a Euro-American imaginary, wherein a fixation on endings suggests the anxieties – and the possibilities – of that imaginary coming to an end as a globalising worldview. Two recent performances by Kris Verdonck / A Two Dogs Company, Conversations (at the end of the world) (2017) and SOMETHING (out of nothing) (2019), imagine extinction through scenarios depicting human figures displaced and overtaken by sentient landscapes. Composed of synthetic materials and activated by bio-technical forces, these landscapes scale down a computational planet, embodying an accumulated history of technological progress and human interventions in environments. Extinction, in these works, is not the end, however, but rather the slow dying out of a singular idea of the human subject, if not its singular narrative of technological progress

Ontological Solutions to the Problem of Induction

The idea of the uniformity of nature, as a solution to the problem of induction, has at least two contemporary versions: natural kinds and natural necessity. Then there are at least three alternative ontological ideas addressing the problem of induction. In this paper, I articulate how these ideas are used to justify the practice of inductive inference, and compare them, in terms of their applicability, to see whether each of them is preferred in addressing the problem of induction. Given the variety of contexts in which inductive inferences are made, from natural science to social science and to everyday thinking, I suggest that no singular idea is absolutely preferred, and a proper strategy is probably to welcome the plurality of ideas helpful to induction, and to take pragmatic considerations into account, in order to judge in every single case.

Making Sense of Research

Making Sense of Research

“We Gonna Be Alright!” Michael Wyschogrod, Jewish Election, and the Blackness of God

ABSTRACT This paper critically examines the critique of supersessionism offered by Karl Barth in his doctrine of election. It does so from two perspectives: from the perspective of Jewish theology, and from the perspective of radical, antiracist social and political movements in the contemporary US. It argues that Barth’s formulation of the election of the community can be productively modified to answer both of these perspectives. Stressing single subject christology replaces Barth’s picture of a “twofold” elect community, with Jews elected to the form of death and Christians elected to the form of life, with a singular idea of the people of God. The picture that emerges has deep resonances both with Michael Wyschogrod’s understanding of Jewish existence as sacrifice and the black radical tradition’s understanding of black existence in America as a form of social death.

What is the point of fairness?

Work integrating conversations around AI and Disability is vital and valued, particularly when done through a lens of fairness. Yet at the same time, analysing the ethical implications of AI for disabled people solely through the lens of a singular idea of "fairness" risks reinforcing existing power dynamics, either through reinforcing the position of existing medical gatekeepers, or promoting tools and techniques that benefit otherwise-privileged disabled people while harming those who are rendered outliers in multiple ways. In this paper we present two case studies from within computer vision - a subdiscipline of AI focused on training algorithms that can "see" - of technologies putatively intended to help disabled people but, through failures to consider structural injustices in their design, are likely to result in harms not addressed by a "fairness" framing of ethics. Drawing on disability studies and critical data science, we call on researchers into AI ethics and disability to move beyond simplistic notions of fairness, and towards notions of justice.

ДВА МОДУСА СИНГУЛЯРНОСТИ: ТЕХНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ И АНТРОПОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ

The article deals with two concepts of phenomenon of singularity in philosophy. The first one is the idea of technological singularity as a final stage of the formation of the posthuman being. The other concept opposes human as a singularity phenomenon and opposes to idea of technological singularity.

Secular Lyric: The Modernization of the Poem in Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson

Secular Lyric: The Modernization of the Poem in Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson

Chilling effects and transatlantic privacy

AbstractCan the European and American privacy divide be bridged? Bilyana Petkova, in this issue, offers compelling reasons to be sceptical. One recent solution, advanced by Pierluigi Perri and David Thaw, is that common concerns about chilling effects can bridge that divide. However, their discussion of chilling effects was narrow and their analysis limited to procedural transatlantic convergence. This essay explores this idea with a more systematic and sustained discussion of chilling effects theory and research, while arguing that chilling effects does, in fact, provide possibilities for substantive transatlantic privacy. I argue that “chilling effects” is often treated as an ahistorical singular idea but there are, in fact, three separate paradigms of chilling effects theory, research and understanding: (1) speech; (2) privacy and autonomy; and (3) collectivist. I set out each and argue that the conceptualisation of chilling effects exemplified by the second paradigm—focused on privacy‐related chilling effects—offers a shared normative and theoretical foundation to bridge the transatlantic privacy divide. I also explore how new chilling effects theory and research can impact substantive and procedural transatlantic privacy efforts, including re‐thinking consent; empowering stronger judicial enforcement of privacy claims; and balancing competing claims in substantive proposals like the Right to be Forgotten (RTBF).

Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler's Prose: Five Psycho-Sociological Readings by Marie Kolkenbrock

Reviewed by: Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler's Prose: Five Psycho-Sociological Readings by Marie Kolkenbrock Helga Schreckenberger Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler's Prose: Five Psycho-Sociological Readings. By Marie Kolkenbrock. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. Pp. 268. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-1501330964. In her rich, nuanced reading of Arthur Schnitzler's prose works Der Weg ins Freie (1908), Flucht in die Finsternis, (completed 1913, published 1931), Traumnovelle (1925–1926), and the novellas of Dämmerseelen (1907), Marie Kolkenbrock focuses on the interrelation between stereotypes and destiny as a reflection of the difficult relationship between individual and society in the modernist era. Her clearly articulated framework for her analysis is presented in the introduction. Drawing on theories on identity, subjectivity, and power by Judith Butler, Pierre Bourdieu, and Eric Santner, she argues that destiny and stereotype provide a coping mechanism for Schnitzler's protagonists against a threatening loss of legitimacy in a social order that has begun to disintegrate. While stereotypes function as an ordering tool that stabilizes the position of the self within the norm by marking the different "other," destiny provides the reassurance of individualized existence. Kolkenbrock differentiates between "social destiny" enforced by stereotypes, which "enclose the typecast person within the limits of the social position defined and legitimized by them" (16) and individual metaphysical destiny as a force of individualization. She points out that for Schnitzler's protagonists, metaphysical destiny gains importance when their social destiny and, thus, the legitimacy of the social order is threatened. These moments, which expose the constructedness of the cultural narratives that form social reality provoke a recurring sensation of "Grauen" in the protagonists. For Kolkenbrock, this links Schnitzler's works to the Schauerroman of German Romanticism and its aim to unsettle "naturalized" boundaries. However, as Kolkenbrock is quick to point out, Schnitzler's works do not promote any kind of mysticism. The protagonists' invocation of individual destiny fails to provide a lasting alternative to the normative order and often proves fatal. [End Page 379] In the following chapters of her book, Kolkenbrock analyzes the various interplays of stereotypes and destiny in Schnitzler's texts. Chapter 1, "Stereotypes and Physiognomy in Der Weg ins Freie," explores the link between stereotype and physiognomy with regard to both racial and gender stereotyping. However, as Kolkenbrock shows, the text presents a number of examples where the stereotype does not fit the individual revealing both its constructedness and its relativity. Moreover, the text also reveals that even those individuals within the norm are not exempt from being determined by cultural narratives. Identification with the "other" represented by the Jews seems to offer an alternative destiny from the one within the social norm. This voluntary identification, however, contains the idea of individuality and singularity of an individual destiny that is absent from the social destiny of the Jews for whom Jewishness is no longer a choice but unchangeable fate. In the second chapter, "Madness and Investiture in Flucht in die Finsternis," Kolkenbrock reads the mental crisis of the protagonist as a reaction to the perceived loss of his social status. As mental illness marks the diagnosed subject as "other" excluded from the social norm, it can be seen as a way to escape from the bourgeois order. While the protagonist's half-conscious enactment of stereotypes of madness suggests a yearning for a meaningful destiny, his flirt with the social position of the "other" ultimately proves overwhelming. The protagonist's madness is not a cure for but a symptom of the instable post-Enlightenment bourgeois order, which, for Kolkenbrock, links it to Romantic madness. The next chapter, "Race and Destiny in Die Weissagung and Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief," analyzes the connection between both novella protagonists' social destiny and their use of racial stereotypes about Jewishness in the case of the former and blackness in the latter. The protagonists employ racial stereotypes to defend their legitimate position within the norm; the failure to do so leads to their death reiterating the inescapability of social destiny. As in her first chapter, Kolkenbrock shows how Schnitzler's texts undermine the stereotypes of otherness by revealing their constructedness. Kolkenbrock's fourth chapter focuses on the cliché of love...

Benny Goodman and Bartók’s Contrasts: An Extraordinary Collaboration

In 2011, Yale University Library purchased a set of previously unknown manuscripts of Contrasts, Béla Bartók’s trio for violin, clarinet, and piano. Contrasts was written for and dedicated to the world-famous jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman and the equally well-known violinist Joseph Szigeti, two polar representatives of the musical scene. In light of these newly discovered documents, it seems timely to revisit the work’s genesis, and the rare constellation of relationships between the composer and dedicatees that brought forth the singular idea of Contrasts. Furthermore, since the manuscripts came from Goodman’s papers, and may potentially reveal further insights into the evolution of the work’s final form, a closer look at them is in order. I will also explore the common features in Bartók’s and Goodman’s artistry, which underpinned their collaboration and resulted in the instant success of their recording of Contrasts with Szigeti, still regarded as an exemplary account of the work.

Noise and Silence in Analytic Talk

Noise and silence are seldom remarked upon as the necessary dynamic elements in psychoanalytic talk. Classics of linguistic and communication theory serve to demonstrate this dynamic with reference to primary, secondary, and tertiary transferences and countertransferences. The general problem of analytic work of all kinds is discussed with particular reference to Stephen Hawking's idea of singularity and astrophysical time. What is unusual for psychoanalysis among other analytic sciences is that it must, in session, deal with the tensions between interior and exterior noises for which the concept of imaginary time is important. Freud's concepts of traumatic neurosis and infantile morbid anxiety are considered in respect to the uncanny as the singularity in which noise and silence operate and are, from time to time, resolved in the unconscious culture of the dynamic relations between patients and analysts.

Some Comments on the Alleged Innateness of Religion

AbstractThis response assesses the claim that Barrett views religious beliefs as non-cultural entities that stem from “innate” cognitive systems “meant for” a “singular idea of God.” By briefly reviewing the literature and Barrett’s actual position—that people are especially sensitive to learning religious beliefs by virtue of cognitive systems that function in domains more mundane than religion—I conclude that the target article misrepresents Barrett’s views about the naturalness of religion.

Ways to Possess a Singer in 1830s London

AbstractItalian singer Giulia Grisi was imagined and ‘possessed’ in various ways by members of diverse social groups in London during the 1830s. Audience members could bring different versions of the diva home: through reports (or experiences with her) as a guest or entertainer at parties, through gossip about her personal life reported in newspapers and through pieces arranged ‘as sung by’ her. The fluid and constantly negotiated relationship between the diva and her audience offered a locus for expressing social relations in London during a period of changing class and national definitions. It is neither possible nor desirable to recover a singular idea of Grisi as a celebrity or as a woman; instead, the multiple images of Grisi must be read as negotiations of identity on the part of the consumers as they participated in the nascent celebrity culture of the 1830s.

Singularidade e identidade nas manifestações de 2013

Este texto busca refletir sobre as noções de singularidade e identidade nas manifestações de 2013. Partindo do pressuposto de que esses protestos não podem ser compreendidos como movimentos sociais, o artigo examina se, e como, ativistas percebem significados articulados a perpassar suas ações. Teoricamente, o artigo rediscute concepções de identidade a atravessar a literatura sobre ação coletiva e aborda o fortalecimento paradoxal de processos individualizantes derivados de transformações sociais. Interessa ao artigo compreender a força da ideia de singularidade na tessitura contemporânea de vínculos que alicerçam confrontos políticos. Empiricamente, o texto se ancora em 20 entrevistas realizadas com manifestantes de Belo Horizonte que participaram dos protestos de junho de 2013. A ideia é observar a forma como, ao renarrar o processo, eles compreendem e mobilizam sua inserção e seus vínculos nesse processo político. •

“What Is the Point of Parliamentary Debate?” Deliberation, Oratory, Opposition and Spectacle in the British House of Commons

This article seeks to open up debate about Parliamentary debate by exploring the history of ideas about Parliamentary debate and rhetoric through the lens of four core concepts: deliberation, oratory, opposition and spectacle. These are not the names of singular ideas let alone schools of thought; they are conceptual fields each of which gives a particular shape to ways of conceiving, criticizing and defending Commons debate. In mapping this topos – identifying historical debates and practices alongside contemporary arguments found in political theory, political science and Rhetoric – I show that our thinking and arguing about the Commons is part of a contested and ongoing history more complex than we acknowledge. I argue that Parliamentary Debate has a number of purposes and that our thinking about it, and evaluation of it, should not be contained within the frame of “deliberation” but should also take account of the political value and importance of oratory, opposition and spectacle.

The mismeasure of monkeys: education policy research and the evolution of social capital

This conceptual history traces the rise of ‘social capital’ from the theories of James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu to its eventual adoption in fields such as primatology and evolutionary psychology. It argues that the earliest theories of social capital were formulated in response to a growing perception that education was an economic investment. It argues, moreover, that peculiarities in the earliest theories of social capital, as well as a confluence of historical factors, led to an explosion of social capital research during the 1990s and 2000s. Though researchers have attributed social capital’s meteoric rise to the expansion of neoliberal discourse, my account suggests that the factors behind the concept’s growth were more complex and manifold. Social capital has never been a singular idea with clear ties to a single theory or ideology. It is all the more troubling, then, that many researchers have discussed this nebulous concept as if it were a self-explanatory and universal empirical principle that can be used to generate ‘further knowledge.’ Recommendations for mitigating this problem are made by discussing how researchers should (and should not) use terms such as social capital, neoliberalism, and analytic concepts in general.

Planning iconic Coney Island: an encounter in planning rationalities

ABSTRACTPlanning theorists have commonly explained planning conflict in terms of the imposition of an ostensibly universal set of values that ignores, obscures, or erases local contingencies. Most recently, this discussion has concerned the hegemony of market rationality in planning theory and practice. Within this framework, planning entails the application of a singular idea of what is rational and the marginalization of its alternatives. Treating encounters among divergent rationalities in terms of conflict and domination, however, obscures their indeterminacy in planning practice. Through a case study of the redevelopment of Coney Island, I propose a less rigid framing that treats encounters among rationalities not as inherently adversarial, but as negotiations throughout which a multiplicity of values may be suppressed, created, or transformed.