Unfinished Project Research Articles

Post-Postmodernism: Mapping Out the Zeitgeist of the New Millennium

At the turn of the millennium, many theorists questioned the survival of postmodernism and, although it is true that their statements were not supported by a general consensus, the new century brought with it an intense debate on the subject. With this in mind, the aim of this article is to map out the taxonomy of the alternatives to postmodernism proposed by several theorists during the first decade of the twenty-first century in order to understand their nature. This article analyses an extensive corpus of theories, to arrive at the conclusion that this period was an interstitial moment of change whose direction seemed to be heading towards the recovery of a much-nuanced unfinished project of modernity, as advocated by Jürgen Habermas. This attempt at debunking postmodern relativism was thwarted by the social dissatisfaction generated by the bank bailout of 2008 and the ulterior intensification of neoliberalism. However, the subsequent attempts to define the zeitgeist of this cultural phase that followed postmodernism started to dwindle. The desired recovery of this unfinished project responds to a need for univocity that, during the 2010s, leads to a hyper-neoliberalism sponsored by populism and constructed on a kind of reactionary post-truth.

Constructing Qinghai Province: Chinese state-making in a Tibetan-Mongol frontier region 1907-1957

ABSTRACT Dilemmas of territoriality beset the modern Chinese state at the rupture with empire in 1912, critically in the northwestern borderlands where Mongol and Tibetan declarations of independence threatened disaggregation of the imperial territory. In response the new Republican government took up the late Qing’s practice of “consolidating the borders” (shibian) by establishing provinces in the empire’s Inner Asian dependencies (fanshu) to integrate them by direct administration into the Chinese state. This paper examines one such project of Chinese state-making at the frontiers: the construction of Qinghai Province in the region of the Qing dependency situated between Gansu Province and Central Tibet. It adopts a historical-geographic approach to the state’s instrumentalization of administrative categorization and construction in Qinghai’s Tibetan and Mongol territories, a protracted undertaking carried out with heavy reliance on military coercion. Making the province evolved through interplay of national state and regional sub-state interests, driven by the Sino-Muslim Ma regime who acted as key agents on the ground, but located within the Republican political-administrative structure. In 1949, the CCP eliminated the Republic and the Ma regime but retained the province, dynamically restructuring its interior administration under regional nationality autonomy in recognition of the region’s Tibetan, Mongol and other non-Han populations. Qinghai’s significance for Chinese states in the first half of the 20th century lay in centrist calculations of national security and territoriality. As the first Chinese province on the Tibetan Plateau, its construction was, in essence, concerned with sovereignty, providing a political-administrative means to alter wider regional geopolitics in the interests of the Chinese state. Ongoing re-categorization of territorial administrative units inside the province suggests an unfinished project of state territorialization, as anxieties over instability in the northwestern regions of the PRC intensify.

Totalitarianism is an unfinished project: the diversity of modern interpretations

The article considers modern interpretations of neo-totalitarianism, the authors of which qualify current anti-democratic tendencies as signs of the formation of the XXI century totalitarian systems, which are significantly different from their industrial versions. The analyzed interpretations are classified as technological, economic and ideological conceptions. Their key theses are explicated, after the analysis of which a conclusion is made about the multilevel inconsistency of the modern interpretations of neo-totalitarianism. At the end of the article, a theoretical vector for overcoming the identified contradictions is indicated.

La royauté franque et les origines du culte de saint Germain de Paris (vie-viiie siècles)

The article examines the role played by the first Merovingian kings in the development of the cult of Saint Germain, bishop of Paris. Chilpéric I sought to make the saint the patron saint of his family and his city, on the model initiated by his father Clotaire I at Saint-Médard in Soissons. He was responsible for the burial, considered temporary, of Germain at Saint-Vincent, as well as an unfinished project for a personal funerary basilica. The veneration continued at the court of his descendants Clotaire II and Dagobert, with Bertrand of Le Mans and Saint Éloi, sketching out a cult with a very Parisian anchorage. The arrival of the Carolingians confirms the dynastic nature of that devotion. The translation of the relics of the saint in 755 is the final endorsement: the presence of Pépin le Bref at that ceremony reflects the new dynasty’s policy of legitimisation through veneration of the main Merovingian saints.

Shackling Pregnant Women: US Prisons, Anti-Blackness, and the Unfinished Project of American Abolition

This article analyzes the pervasive practice in US carceral institutions of shackling incarcerated pregnant women during childbirth and postpartum. After a review of bioethical, civil, and human rights norms, which widely condemn the practice, I advance an interpretation of the social meaning of shackling imprisoned pregnant women and its persistence despite widespread normative consensus in favor of its abolition. Two arguments regarding the persistence of the practice are considered: (1) that it stems from the unthinking exportation of prison rules to a hospital setting and (2) that it is the product of an androcentric approach to punishment and carceral health care ill-adapted to women’s needs. I argue that these explanatory frameworks are inattentive to the intersecting genealogies of race and gender that are constitutive of the practice. As a result, the prescriptive horizons that these frameworks delineate are inadequate to the race- and gender-specific task of redress. Drawing from Black feminist theory and Nietzsche, I argue that the practice of shackling imprisoned pregnant women, like many ostensibly race-neutral facets of American mass incarceration, is a sedimentation of slavery that impacts all incarcerated women. The practice is symptomatic of the persistent anti-Blackness of the criminal legal system and the unfinished project of American abolition.

«А здесь я никому не нужен»: Послевоенные годы Николая Зарецкого в Праге [“And Here, No One Needs Me”: Nikolai Zaretsky’s Post-War Years in Prague

In his article, Prof. Fedor Poljakov of the University of Vienna focuses on the last years a Russian émigré painter, graphic artist and art collector Nikolai Zaretsky spent in the Socialist Czechoslovakia before escaping to Paris in 1950. It also contains an overview of Zaretsky’s pre-war exhibitions in Prague and tells the story of his major unfinished project — an illustrated book Risunki Russkikh Pisatelei (Russian Writers’ Drawings). KEYWORDS: 20th-Century Russian and East-European History, Nikolai Zaretsky (1876—1959), Russian Writers’ Drawings (unpublished), Life Story, Russian Emigration, Microhistory.

A cultural approach to preserving squatter settlements: the case of Treasure Hill Village in Taipei

ABSTRACT Based on historical research and on-site fieldwork, this paper probes the historic preservation of Treasure Hill Village, which takes place along with the reproduction of the space of Taipei city and the process of society-making in Taiwan. We argue that culture has been implemented as a contested approach through squatter settlements, which can be successfully preserved as a heritage site. On the one hand, the heritage politics of squatter settlements coincide with Taiwan’s turn to polarised politics, which adopts the preservation of a counterhegemonic community to validate the legitimacy of a transitional governance authority from below. On the other hand, Treasure Hill Village, as an artist village in the urban sphere, reveals that neoliberal capitalism has dominated the narrative of urban development for the sake of economic initiatives. Even if art and activism have together attempted to preserve the history of ignored people and reshape the ‘lived’ cultures under the threat of house dismantlement, we should be alert to the paradoxical rhetoric of culture, as it might damage the declining and marginalised residents’ access to heritage. The cultural struggle for the right to Taipei city indicates that the question of ‘whose heritage?’ remains an unfinished project.

Another unfinished project of modernity from a Latin American perspective

Another unfinished project of modernity from a Latin American perspective

Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815–1848

Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815–1848

Significance and Analysis of Time and Cost Overrun in the Construction Industry of Mumbai

Abstract: The occurrence of time and cost overrun has become quite significant in a majority of construction projects in India, which is negatively affecting the GDP and potential development of nation. As per the statistics of project cost and duration in March 2012, 179 projects out of 555 projects of worth 150 Crore INR have been facing cost and time overrun and others are at the very high risk, with the total construction cost overrun of 1.23 Lakh Crore INR. (Times, 2013) The time and cost overrun of the construction projects results in overextension of the time and finance of the client which may lead to entire failure of the project, unfinished project, abandoned project or reduction in the performance standards of the project. This condition depicts the requirement of the study and analysis of the causes or risk factors for time and cost overrun, and solutions and strategies for mitigation of cost and time overrun. The present research involves the study and analysis of the various risk factors related to time and cost overrun; assessment of the overruns in the construction projects of Mumbai, India and other parts of the world; identification and analysis of the leading causes for time and cost overrun in the construction projects of Mumbai; identification of potential solutions; and preparation of an effective mitigation model for overruns in construction projects of Mumbai

Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815–1848. Clare Pettitt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xv+348.

<i>Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815–1848</i>. Clare Pettitt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xv+348.

‘Provincialising’ the Belt and Road Initiative: Theorising with Chinese narratives of the ‘Digital Silk Road’ (数字丝绸之路)

This paper reflects on how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can contribute to more cosmopolitan forms of theory‐making and the diversification of knowledges. It focuses on emerging Chinese narratives of the Digital Silk Road (DSR) that cast the initiative as emblematic of an improved BRI 2.0 in the (post‐)pandemic era. With subterranean fibre‐optic cables and satellite systems constituting important components of the DSR, I argue that these Chinese discourses fundamentally expose the ‘horizontal’ bias in infrastructure debates, thereby forcing an analytical re‐orientation towards the notion's volumetric possibilities. Reconceptualising infrastructures in volumetric terms opens up opportunities for interrogating issues of representational politics, power and sovereignty that matter for the DSR and beyond. Using Chinese perspectives of the DSR for the purpose of theory‐building, however, does not equate to endorsing Sinocentrism or privileging the BRI as a totalising framework for interpreting the world. Rather, it signifies an effort to ‘provincialise’ the BRI – ensuring that different voices and subjectivities can co‐exist in the ongoing and unfinished project of rethinking/reconstructing the BRI.

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Crazy Funny: Popular Black Satire and The Methods of MadnessLaughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

The future is ours to build: Asian American abolitionist counterstories for Black liberation

ABSTRACT Since Claire Jean Kim’s theory of racial triangulation was first published two decades ago, we have witnessed a new generation of Asian American activist formations emerge. Despite this timelapse, applications of racial triangulation have focused on intergroup conflict and on the specificities of racial positioning without imagination of alternatives. This paper examines the potential of racial resistance to triangulation, an overlooked dimension of Kim’s theory, and charts an emergent area of research that centers Asian American abolitionist counterstories for Black liberation: How have Asian Americans divested from the structures that uphold anti-Blackness – and what does divestment look like in practice? We remain at a crossroads and in need of scholarship that makes legible the political possibilities of cross-racial solidarities and refusals to triangulation. I draw inspiration from the organizing of Freedom Inc., a Black and Southeast Asian grassroots collective working with low-to-no-income communities of color in Madison, Wisconsin. Their transformative work to remove police from schools helps us to conceive of a politics that is not only reactive to existing systems of power but also as fugitive, abundant, and visionary in the sense that they are forging alternate relationalities in the unfinished project of worldmaking post-triangulation.

Steps towards a European Fiscal Union: Has the revised Stability and Growth Pact delivered so far?

Since 2008-09, the European Union (EU) experienced two major economic crises revealing all the flaws of the existing model of economic governance. By leaving the majority of the countries with high levels of deficit and public debt, the two crises have shown that the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is indeed an unfinished project where the monetary union alone is not sufficient to safeguard the entire EU economy. To strengthen the EMU and to mitigate future risks that could possibly lead to the collapse of the euro-area, many called for a deeper fiscal integration by creating a central fiscal capacity for the EMU or, in other words, a fiscal union. Due to the present political unfeasibility of such an endeavour, however, concrete steps towards a European Fiscal Union (EFU) have been modest and the revised Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) remains its core building block. As the Pact defines supranational and shapes the creation of national fiscal rules, maintaining its credibility continues to be vital. This article analyses the effects of the fiscal rules on the public finances of the member states. It is assumed that by adhering to the supranational and adopting quality domestic fiscal rules, the member states are better equipped in remaining fiscally prudent, thus also affirming the revamped SGP as a solid base for the furthering of the EFU. The two-track evaluation approach defines dynamic panels for the EFU as a whole and for the selected country groups. It finds certain benevolent effects on budgetary performance at the EFU level, as well as for the countries with higher quality of the fiscal rules.

A Moment of Self-Reflection: From Trauma to Self-Healing

This article aimed to investigate how &amp;ldquo;selves&amp;rdquo; were created from the process of creating subjectivity. The research methodology is a qualitative research using autoethnography and life story telling. The self-reflection could bring back to the specific moments in the past, and analyze actions and thoughts. From the self-reflection, there are two conflicted selves; &amp;lsquo;liberated or independent&amp;rsquo; self (from gender norms), and &amp;lsquo;self-in-cage&amp;rsquo; or &amp;lsquo;self-in-society&amp;rsquo; (which suppressed under &amp;ldquo;unseen cages&amp;rdquo; or social norms and religious belief unconsciously). This subjectivity can be considered as &amp;ldquo;an unfinished project&amp;rdquo; because the processes of creating liberated self and a self-in-cage are happening all the time. They were pushed and pulled again and again by society and even by own self. It cannot be seen as totally liberated or trapped in the unseen cages. They win and lose at the same time.

Trump’s authoritarian neoliberal governance and the US-Mexican border

ABSTRACT This article considers how US border policy and the rhetorical use of the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico expands our understanding of the authoritarian neoliberal reorganization of the state and processes of capitalist accumulation during the Trump Presidency. Our argument makes an important contribution to the literature by examining how Trump's Border Wall project is an advanced mode of authoritarian neoliberalism. To do so, the article focuses on how the border wall, as an unfinished project that has resulted in the Trump administration invoking eminent domain to take property for dubious “public good” uses related to border wall construction, expands, deepens and reinforces notions of political and economic disciplining of border populations including migrants and refugees in particular ways such as through the use of child separation and “Remain in Mexico” policies. The article situates the border wall project within a continuum of using border imaginary not just as a frontier but as a key node within the global economy. This article argues that the construction of the border wall, as a key issue in the political agenda combined with an aggressive anti-immigration policy, has been an effective populist mechanism to further insulate the deepening of a neoliberal agenda.

Romantic-objectivism: developing a diagrammatic poetics of science

ABSTRACT This essay discusses how diagrammatic modes of representation are a distinct subset of images that coevolved with the scientific project to visually embody key ideals from the philosophy of science. In making diagrammatic art, artists have found various means to appropriate, exaggerate and subvert this set of characteristics unique to the diagram as part of their processes of creation and production. This is in an approach that I refer to as Romantic Objectivism. As a practicing artist with a background in biomedicine, my drawing and sculptural praxes are presented as an ongoing project to develop a visual poetics of science beyond its purely factual and functional modes, in the spirit of the Romantic-period German scientist, philosopher and poet Novalis, and his recently rediscovered, unfinished project, the Romantic Encyclopedia.

Articulate the missing: The role of religion in political modernity

In this article, I argue that Habermas’s genealogical approach to modern reason and methodological agnosticism can lead us to a better understanding of the role of religion in our societies. I underline the relevance of Habermas’s awareness that ‘something is missing’ when we take faith out of modernity and consider the truths of philosophical reason to be infallible. Habermas succeeds in highlighting the complexity of the modern relationship between the religious and the secular domains, a relationship that is not merely epistemic, but also embodied in various practical relationships between religious and secular citizens. On this basis, and in the light of Habermas’s idea of modernity as an unfinished project, I argue that religion can be interpreted as a dimension allied to political modernity and democracy as well.