Free dissertation topics: the first in an occasional series

Zombies have become a regular fixture in popular culture, with well-known properties and behavior patterns that remain more or less constant across a wide range of cultural artifacts. How can we explain the fact that this fictional creature is so well-understood? It is possible that this basic uniformity is solely the result of dynamics within the postwar pop culture tradition, but the widespread fascination with the zombie seems to point toward deeper roots. In this dissertation, I propose to demonstrate the connections between the contemporary figure of the zombie and medieval conceptions of the leper.

Book Discussion: The Recognitions

Pages pp. 824-956

Given that Gaddis seemingly could not bring himself to finish writing the The Recognitions, punctuating it in the end with a fifty-page epilogue that culminates with Stanley’s dream-church crashing down on him while he finally plays his epic Mass on their ancient pipe organ. It is an easy parallel to identify, that between Stanley and Gaddis, alike overwhelmed by their interminable works of art. Indeed, for Adam, this parallel might be one of the only ways, and even then, probably not adequately enough, to justify the tedious amount of time Gaddis pours into telling Stanley’s story. Surely, or at least I should hope, there is more to him than a token jab at religious piety; not least because of his place amongst the men in Esme’s life, each of whom she comes to despise, albeit one [Wyatt] in that deep sort of way that only speaks of a certain kind of love. A masculine Triumvirate that leads to her “marriage” to Christ, as a nun. (Incidentally … Gaddis is pretty vicious to his female characters, isn’t he?)

Declension Narratives and the Ecological Crisis

It is interesting that both theological and philosophical ethics concerned with the environment trade in declension narratives. The end result of that narrative is typically a kind of thick moralizing, one where the reader is shown how pathetically unimpressive the thinker is who is uninterested or even critical of “tradition”. But the narrative can really go both ways: “Traditionalists hold that everything new is devoid of meaning and that there is no value to be found in the new. The myth of tradition has led to the deaths of millions who, if tradition had not stood in the way, could have been saved by the progress and advance of Enlightenment scientific reason.”

Open Letter to the Dean and VCs of Middlesex University

Vice-Chancellor Michael Driscoll, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Waqar Ahmad, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Margaret House,

Early today I sent an email to Professor Esche concerning the recent shameful and misguided decision to shut down the department of philosophy and CREMP. I’ve included that text below, but wanted to write to you as well to express my concern. It is worrying that you appear to have entrusted the administration of your university to someone who would push for the dissolution of your most successful department in terms of research, while claiming that Middlesex is a place of research excellence. You are shutting down one of the foremost centres for contemporary philosophy, which is the only reason I had ever heard of it when I studied in the US, and by closing it down Middlesex, as an institution, will only be presenting itself as a place for mediocrity, unworthy of the title “university”. I urge you to reconsider your decision and support your most successful researchers.

Professor Esche,

I’m writing concerning the recent decision to shut down the Department of Philosophy and the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy. The decision is very troubling, as it seems clear the department and CREMP is the most successful research aspect of Middlesex. What possible rationale can you possibly have, as a university of higher learning, for shutting down your most successful department? It seems clear any crude appeal to the financial crisis is simply a cover, as the department is on target for being one of the largest MA programmes in the UK, which is a testament to the tiny staff.

This will very negatively affect the rest of philosophy in the UK as CREMP, both through the research of its staff and the events it hosts, is one of the few places in the Anglophone world where research in European philosophy is valued and, more importantly, extended. I emigrated to the UK four years to begin studies in philosophy and religion at the University of Nottingham and have participated in at least one seminar or conference event at Middlesex per year, and there was a good relationship between the department here, ranked one of the highest in the UK in Theology and Religious Studies, and CREMP. It is, quite simply, the most vibrant research community for European philosophy in the UK.

If you prize mediocrity, then please by all means cut the program, but if you value excellence then I urge you to reconsider your decision. As it stands, you have made Middlesex University look like it does not respect its own current students and, further, that it does not want a highly successful and important research centre.
Anthony Paul Smith
Adjunct Lecturer and PhD Student
Theology & Religious Studies
University of Nottingham

Research Fellow
Institute for Nature and Culture
DePaul University

Middlesex University Drops Philosophy Department

[Update: The campaign has now set up a blog and a twitter account (@saveMDXphil). Please don't forget to send the dean an email to register your anger at their decision to both destroy an excellent department and turn Middlesex into a university that prizes mediocrity. -APS]

[Update: I've added the other addresses of the university management and the petition that is circulating. - Alex]

As I am sure many of you are already aware, in their infinite neoliberal wisdom through a vomiting forth of corporate speak, the management of Middlesex University have decided to cut their entire philosophy department. The Department of Philosophy at Middlesex is an absolutely exceptional place, whose work on continental/European philosophy has been exemplary, with 65% of its research assesment scores that judge the department to be producing ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ work, indeed, it is the highest RAE rated department in the University, as Brian Leiter notes. On this very blog we have discussed the work of Peter Hallward, whose work on Badiou, post-colonialism and Deleuze is among the best in the world, and whose work on Haiti has proved vitally important in understanding recent tragedies there. Only last week we noted their From Structure to Rhizome conference and cataloguing of the influential French journal Cahiers pour l’analyse. Not only will this be a huge loss to philosophy research in the UK, but the entire situation bodes extremely badly for the fate of all research into continental thought, regardless of department.

An attack on one is an attack on all and as far as I am concerned we will not allow this to pass. I ask that those interested in continental philosophy, be they philosophers, theologians, political theorists or sociologists, or, indeed, anyone concerned with the fate of education in the United Kingdom or real education generally under the neoliberal regime, take immediate action.

You can sign up to the Facebook group and can also sign the petition. The campaign also ask that you e-mail the Dean of Arts and Education at e.esche@mdx.ac.uk alongside other members of the university management team: Vice-Chancellor of the University, Michael Driscoll, m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise, Waqar Ahmad, w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk and Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic, Margaret House, m.house@mdx.ac.uk.

Treme thus far

Having watched the first three episodes of Treme, it seems to me that its relationship to The Wire is similar to that between “normal” neoliberalism and what Naomi Klein has called “disaster capitalism” — the excruciating yet cold violence of managerialism has been replaced with outright looting and brutality. It’s suitable, then, that the framing device is no longer the police, who must hold out some hope for maintaining order, but the city’s musicians. In a moment when New Orleans has become essentially an object of pity, looting, or both (as in the “Katrina tour” with which the third episode ends), the musicians and particularly the “Indians” are all concerned to maintain the continuity of New Orleans as a unique place — even as they struggle against the touristic way of doing that, which in its own way reduces New Orleans to no place at all.

An undeveloped final thought: For the first time, I’m starting to feel like I understand Mallarmé’s enigmatic line, “Rien n’aura eu lieu que le lieu” (nothing will have taken place but the place) — and I wonder if here we might contrast the idea of “place” with that of “space.” The musicians are trying to maintain New Orleans as a place where other people see it as a space: a space to clear to make way for developers, for example. (Think also of the weird HGTV jargon that designates every house as a “space.”)

A response to Ross Douthat

In this week’s column, Ross Douthat suggests that the recent decision by Comedy Central to censor an episode of South Park that prominently featured Muhammed is yet another symptom of the fact that our cultural institutions are buckling in the face of the fringe element of Islamic extremism — and would surely fall altogether if faced with a more serious threat.

As kind of an exercise, maybe we could collaboratively outline all the ways in which this column is stupid.

Actual New Debates After the Postsecular and the Postmodern

The connection between politics and religion seems for the immediate future to be inextricable and so philosophy of religion and political philosophy will be also be so connected. This connection is perhaps given the most attention in Continental philosophy and so it is unsurprising that our edited volume, After the Postsecular and the Postmodern: New Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion, includes so many essays that explicitly deal with politics.

Weekend Linkend

Phil Walden alerted me to some recordings of conferences held in the UK hosted by the very impressive Backdoor Broadcasting Company. The first, from back in September of 09, is the Sacred Modernities: Rethinking Modernity in a Post-Secular Age. The second is the recent Middlesex Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy conference, From Structure to Rhizome. Included here are some of the giants of the French intellectual scene. Looking around the site I noticed that blogging superstar Mark K-Punk Fisher’s recent talk is online too with a response from Alberto Toscano.

Relatedly, CRMEP has been working on research project investigating the importance of the French philosophical journal Cahiers pour l’analyse. Part of that project is an online archive of the original French with English translations to come and summaries mostly already completed. If you’re interested in French thought, the connection of theory to political action, or in Lacan, Badiou, or Althusser, you should check it out.

The Death of God, only two easy payments of $19.99!

 This commercial gets me every time I see it, so I thought I would share it.