The SW&D Intellectual Masturbation Station

this is the thread for all of us unemployed humanities majors to talk about gender construction in menswear and which volume of proust's 'remembrance of things past' is the best.

fitting for the tread title - i've always wanted to write an analysis of Appreciation video titles. something along the lines of 'an increasing number of Appreciation titles suggest a direct communication with the actors and actresses, suggesting an increased agency within the medium.'

“All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development - in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent god became the omnipotent lawgiver - but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology. Only by being aware of this analogy can we appreciate the manner in which the philosophical ideas of the state developed in the last centuries.”

I like that a lot—who is it?

Also, it took me ******* forever to get my head around this graph (it's been a while since I've looked at it, so it's making me scratch my head again).

I love this thread already.

Here's a thing- lately I've been thinking about body image as an inherently objectifying concept / practice. Constructing a body image of myself is necessarily reflexive, and requires a stepping-out of my own being, so to speak. Me, outside of myself, seeing myself as object/other. I feel like this mode of engagement is only exacerbated by the way we tend to focus on appearance, to the point of disregarding anything else. Can we have a fashunz phenomenology? *** The Official Lived Experience of What I'm Wearing Today Thread ***

also I am sleep deprived.

we off to a great start

So I sort of intuitively grasp the post-structuralist kind of discourse, and while i've read foucault, most of my intellectual development has been sort of focused towards international economics and politics and that kind of stuff, with a smattering of more modernist social theory. + Rawls

is there any easily-digestible stuff like that? I don't need to read the original sources. Just something to kindle while I'm on the subway that will expand my mind.

Whoever was asking for philosophy to read for kicks earlier should look at Dennett. He does some fun thought experiment stuff that doesn't require much background knowledge.

Dennett's great. Gives terrific lectures, and he has an incredible beard to boot. I wouldn't exactly place him in the same sort of discussion as the archetypical post-structuralists like Derrida, Foucault, Butler, Johnson, Zizek, etc.—but you're right to point out that he is a nice introduction to that sort of thinking.

Edit: To be honest, I myself don't really know how to recommend a good "beginner" text that comes from the loose assemblage of works that one might hesitantly, ironically, call a post-structuralist canon. If you do want a great introduction to lit crit—and by extension, lit crit history—then check out Terry Eagleton's Introduction to Literary Theory. It won't make you grapple with the discursive writing style of any of the thinkers he discusses, but he gives a terrific treating of the **** dating all the way back to the Russian formalists to contemporary literary theory.

GraphicNovelty said:

So I sort of intuitively grasp the post-structuralist kind of discourse, and while i've read foucault, most of my intellectual development has been sort of focused towards international economics and politics and that kind of stuff, with a smattering of more modernist social theory. + Rawls
is there any easily-digestible stuff like that? I don't need to read the original sources. Just something to kindle while I'm on the subway that will expand my mind.

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I suggest you read up on the "Sokal Hoax" before bothering to read what is called post-structuralist theory.

I heard about that. I guess more phenomeonology? I've always been interested in Heidegger but i have like 0 desire to actually read Heidegger.



A Fellow Linguist said:

I love this thread already.
Here's a thing- lately I've been thinking about body image as an inherently objectifying concept / practice. Constructing a body image of myself is necessarily reflexive, and requires a stepping-out of my own being, so to speak. Me, outside of myself, seeing myself as object/other. I feel like this mode of engagement is only exacerbated by the way we tend to focus on appearance, to the point of disregarding anything else. Can we have a fashunz phenomenology? *** The Official Lived Experience of What I'm Wearing Today Thread ***
also I am sleep deprived.

Click to expand...

see I dunno about this, i think construction of self is internalized, although, to some extent, your self/internalized construction is shaped by your environment (society, etc), so i see the 'stepping out' as second hand. also i think that, inherently, you can't other yourself, as (for me at least) the key to viewing something as an 'other' is in viewing it as something distinct from how you define yourself, and you can't view things in that way without a sense of self.

thewho13 said:

I like that a lot—who is it?
Also, it took me ******* forever to get my head around this graph (it's been a while since I've looked at it, so it's making me scratch my head again).

Click to expand...

it's carl schmitt. very underrated IMO (because of the whole nazi thing)

other good quotes i like:

Freud:

Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.

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One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be “happy” is not included in the plan of “Creation.”

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the talk about Tom Ford and the love Hemingway's getting got me thinking about the debate over Hemingway's potential misogyny. I haven't read enough (I think) to see any consistency to this, but it would stray me I think, especially after a semester of Woolf.