This thesis explores the application of corporeally bereft urban landscapes in the medium of photography. In my case study, I examine Mauricio Lima's photographs as he retraces Eugéne Atget's steps...Show moreThis thesis explores the application of corporeally bereft urban landscapes in the medium of photography. In my case study, I examine Mauricio Lima's photographs as he retraces Eugéne Atget's steps in Paris during the height of the COVID pandemic of 2020. I aim to provide insights into the multiple roles and meanings that “empty places” can take on and connote. To elucidate, I engage with concepts such as the decontextualized place, Benjamin's notion of the Optical Unconscious, rephotography, and appropriation. Additionally, I question the use, shifts, and possible expanded meaning gained through the combination of images with text.Show less
Anorexia Nervosa is a debilitating illness characterized by the limitation of food intake and a fear of weight gain. While we might at face value take the illness to be irrational, within this...Show moreAnorexia Nervosa is a debilitating illness characterized by the limitation of food intake and a fear of weight gain. While we might at face value take the illness to be irrational, within this project we find that the dangerous condition is fueled by a foundation of justifications based on shared cultural ideas and the values derived from them. I will argue that anorexia occurs when an individual manages to embody attitudes of mind, body, and desire found in the Western philosophical tradition. For the anorexic, rather than being a project of vanity, losing weight can be understood as a spiritual project of transcending the human body and dissolving craving, thus, a quest for liberation. The illness functions in a way in which the anorexic individual sees the world through a filter that seeks out motivation to continue starving, as the self-denial is so extreme that it goes against the individual’s basic human instinct of survival and thus requires constant fuel to persist. What I call the anorexic worldview is a system of values and beliefs that promises the individual who adopts it liberation through transcending one’s ordinary humanity and becoming invulnerable, but at the end of the day, this worldview serves merely the contrary purpose of powering the mental and physical deterioration of the individual. Interestingly, themes inherent to anorexia such as a negative view of the body and the strict denial of craving are also prevalent in early Buddhist philosophy.Show less
In this paper we construe a renovative dialogue by placing the conception of morality that follows from Imam Abu Hamid al- Ghazali’s metaphysics in conversation with equivalent ideas from Friedrich...Show moreIn this paper we construe a renovative dialogue by placing the conception of morality that follows from Imam Abu Hamid al- Ghazali’s metaphysics in conversation with equivalent ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, who are both defining thinkers of the Postmodern current. The dialogue primarily serves to clarify how exactly ideas from the traditional religio- philosophical system of the reviver of the Islamic faith may contribute to the expansion of the Postmodern horizon, whilst keeping an eye on its invaluable insights which promise to advance and enrich traditional thought. The central proposition of this paper is that Imam al- Ghazali’s epistemology is expansive to Postmodern thought in providing the philosophical ground for positive and fruitful deliberations on moral truth by synthesizing the faculty of reason with immediate experience (dhawq) with reference to the spiritual heart (qalb) of humans, which is an epistemic faculty of immediate insight into the nature of reality. We argue that traditional Islamic thought is relevant in the context of Secularism, because it answers to the Western surrender of Metaphysics, offering an experientiably verifiable method by means of which to engage in valid metaphysical and moral inquiry. To achieve this end we give a detailed exposition of Imam al- Ghazali’s multi- faceted, life- oriented ethics, critically examine some of the central propositions of Postmodern thought in relation to morality and place them into a dynamic dialogue with the Imam’s religio- philosophical system. Furthermore we present personal considerations supported by and harmonious with the Imam’s writings which question the validity of the nihilistic claims of its interlocutor. It is the purpose of the present endeavor to capture and deliberate about sensitive ideas which shape contemporary secular ideology in a rigorous manner, whilst opening pathways to the consideration that there might be more to reality than matter and ideology.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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The colossal statue of Fridtjov the Bold, donated to the Norwegian people by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, can be described as excessive in many ways - from an art historical perspective, because of...Show moreThe colossal statue of Fridtjov the Bold, donated to the Norwegian people by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, can be described as excessive in many ways - from an art historical perspective, because of its melodramatic stance, and from the perspective of anthropology because of its transgression of gifting norms. The statue also raises the question of the power of the German discourse of the North, which, I claim, had similarities with the Foucaultian discourse described by Said in Orientalism. In this thesis all these forms of excess are explored and an answer is attempted at the question why the Kaiser created the statue.Show less
This thesis presents an analysis of the way language is used as a form of power in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four represents a society which uses the...Show moreThis thesis presents an analysis of the way language is used as a form of power in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four represents a society which uses the manipulation of meaning in order to restrict individual thought. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 likewise presents a government whose goal it is to diminish individual thought. However, Fahrenheit 451 focuses more on the violent destruction of written language.Show less
This thesis entails a dialogue between Foucauldian- and Confucian philosophy. Although at first sight rather different, these two thinkers both share a concern for human conduct and its origins. By...Show moreThis thesis entails a dialogue between Foucauldian- and Confucian philosophy. Although at first sight rather different, these two thinkers both share a concern for human conduct and its origins. By means of discipline and etiquette, human behavior is sculpted and influenced; this thesis argues for a world in which we pay attention to Confucian etiquette and Foucauldian discipline to better understand our own social behavior, and that of others. This thesis aims at providing a place for both these phenomena and its advocates to interlock.Show less
Multiple government Social Credit Systems (SCSs) are being piloted in China in response to the growing calls from the population that there is a breakdown of trust within society. Previous research...Show moreMultiple government Social Credit Systems (SCSs) are being piloted in China in response to the growing calls from the population that there is a breakdown of trust within society. Previous research finds that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are employing a surveillant construction to unite the heterogenous elements of the country using Big Data (BD), including; Chinese individuals, companies, social organizations and government agencies. This thesis focuses on how Foucault’s, Deleuze & Guatarri’s and Jäger’s interpretation of the ‘dispositive’ is being updated onto the digital platform of the SCS. Conducting Siegfried Jäger’s ‘Dispositive Analysis’ over a 3 × 3 analysis framework which includes the three perspectives of Apparatus, Articulation and Assemblage over the three modalities of Law, Ethical and Utilitarian, the thesis presents how the CCP are reconstructing cyberspace for the application of the SCS. More importantly, this research finds that the CCP are drawing upon traditional Confucian & Daoist morals and ethics as the basis for the SCS’s functionality, shaping the actions and behavioural patterns of the population.Show less
This thesis investigates the presence of biopolitical discourse, based on Foucault's concept of biopolitics, in the Dutch debate surrounding the new intelligence services law (Wiv 2017). This...Show moreThis thesis investigates the presence of biopolitical discourse, based on Foucault's concept of biopolitics, in the Dutch debate surrounding the new intelligence services law (Wiv 2017). This thesis argues that governmental political parties justify the implementation of the Wiv by referring to international threats and the necessity to tackle these threats by measures that invade the privacy of individual citizens.Show less
In deze scriptie wordt ingegaan op de vraag hoe seksualiteit als gedisciplineerd, als gecontroleerd, rijmt met seksualiteit als weergave van een oorspronkelijke intentionaliteit, dat wil zeggen als...Show moreIn deze scriptie wordt ingegaan op de vraag hoe seksualiteit als gedisciplineerd, als gecontroleerd, rijmt met seksualiteit als weergave van een oorspronkelijke intentionaliteit, dat wil zeggen als uitdrukking van belichaamdheid. Na een verheldering van de invalshoek en begrippen in deze scriptie aan de hand van Merleau-Ponty en Foucault wordt er beargumenteerd dat, indien wij seksualiteit begrijpen als een atmosfeer van betekenis waarnaar onze intentionele boog onderspannen kan zijn alvorens enige reflectie of bewustwording, seksualiteit als mogelijkheid, als oorspronkelijke intentionaliteit, zich pas kan voordoen te midden van een nexus van machtsrelaties. Seksualiteit komt ná macht en kan zich pas presenteren binnen een regime van waarheid dat onze werkelijkheid, ons ‘zijn’, constitueert.Show less
In this thesis I will give a reading of the films Big Eyes (Tim Burton, 2014) and Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009), in which authorship is addressed or at stake. Burton’s film is about the female...Show moreIn this thesis I will give a reading of the films Big Eyes (Tim Burton, 2014) and Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009), in which authorship is addressed or at stake. Burton’s film is about the female painter Margaret Keane and Campion’s film is about the last three years of the life of the poet John Keats (1795-1821) For my analyses I will use Foucault and Barthes’ theories of the author as starting point because their theories are, especially in certain circumstances, such as in the case of female authorship, still relevant today. The overall research question of my thesis is: ‘when or in what circumstances are the theories of Foucault and Barthes relevant, and when are they not relevant?’Show less
The displaced looks back at the place he/she left when entering in a new place. In this thesis, I will invite you to move into a space-time without the need to take a plane, not even the bus. I...Show moreThe displaced looks back at the place he/she left when entering in a new place. In this thesis, I will invite you to move into a space-time without the need to take a plane, not even the bus. I will take you for a walk into the ‘androgynous’ that questions the collective representations of gender based on sexuality. In anthropological terms, gender points out the presence of a culturally constructed difference between male and female. More than this, the differences point out a dichotomy between two symbols shaped by the meanings of feminine and masculine principles. The concept of androgynous is the absence of this construction not so much in bodily attributes but more into the psychological domain. Hence, androgyny can offer a third space, proposed for the intersection of multiple spaces instead of binary categories. The implications of such understanding can reshape the relationships between the political, the economic and the historical away from the presupposed hierarchy of genders, and thus empower subjects of marginalization.Show less
This thesis is about the relation between knowledge and literature in The Order of Things written by Michel Foucault. Literature plays an important role in this book, because it owes its existence...Show moreThis thesis is about the relation between knowledge and literature in The Order of Things written by Michel Foucault. Literature plays an important role in this book, because it owes its existence to a passage of Borges, and because Cervantes and Sade are discussed in relation to the discontinuities in the episteme of Western Culture. Why does Foucault ascribe such an important role to literature in a philosophical book that addresses itself to the general space of knowledge? Foucault seems to imply that there is something that literature can do in relation to positive knowledge. This thesis is about the strange, epistemological status of literature in Foucault's earlier work. What is the role and function of literature with regard to the discontinuities Foucault establishes in the Western episteme? And what could the role of Borges be in The Order of Things?Show less
This thesis explores the theory of recognition by Axel Honneth and whether or not a struggle in his theory is necessarily a power struggle. I distinguished three different forms of struggles in...Show moreThis thesis explores the theory of recognition by Axel Honneth and whether or not a struggle in his theory is necessarily a power struggle. I distinguished three different forms of struggles in Honneth's work: a conflict of interests, a conflict for recognition, and a collision. Only the last two are within the scope of the theory of recognition. A struggle for recognition is a situation in one is not recognized as an equal - this is a power struggle. In a collision there is mutual recognition, but a difference in how this should be expressed - this is not a power struggle. This means that a struggle in the theory of recognition is not necessarily a power struggle. In the last chapter I point out the importance of trust in order to cultivate relationships based on mutual recognition.Show less
