This text presents some reflections on certain aspects of literature teaching at the present time, contesting the reductive orthodoxies of politically-charged reading procedures and the leading assumptions of identity politics. By reference to a number of literary works of culturally diverse origins, accompanied by a commentary on their complex engagement with a range of related questions, an attempt is made to claim for literature a more ample field, of greater psychological and social resonance, than such analyses as those favoured by the 'cultural studies' movement generally allow. The text was written originally to be delivered as a talk leading to debate, and remains inscribed with many of the markers of oral discourse.
This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).
The impact of COVID-19 in Venezuela has merely compounded an already existing health crisis within the country. Like the rest of the Venezuelan economy and society, the breakdown of the healthcare system is largely due to the legacy of class conflict and the contradictions of Bolivarian oil-dependent development policy, which finally came to breaking point with the end of the commodity super-cycle. And yet, despite the domestic sources of the crisis, the current unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic in Venezuela is inherently geopolitical in nature. Central to this story is the manner in which Venezuela's domestic and electoral dynamics have become inextricably embedded within the 'imperialist chain' centred on Washington. The conflict between chavista and opposition forces, the constitutional crisis of 2017, the unilateral declaration of Juan Guaidó as 'interim president' in 2019, and an intensified sanctions regime are all differentially conditioned by US imperial strategy. This paper will unpack the interconnections between the domestic and international dynamics of Venezuela's socio-political crisis, explore the ways in which COVID-19 has been weaponised by the Trump administration, and attempt to understand the prospects for radical political renewal under conditions of increasing geopolitical conflict.
International audience It is often suggested that Britain has lost its great power status since the fall of Empire. Yet, whilst its military and economic power has undoubtedly been weakened, it continues to exert power and influence and to promote national interests via the exercise of both hard and soft power. Far from representing a novel strategy, this simultaneous deployment of both forms of power may be considered as a continuation of the dual imperial strategy of gunboat diplomacy and winning hearts and minds at home and abroad. Yet, the postcolonial era does represent some novelty: as was clear under the Conservative-led coalition and is now evident under a Conservative majority government, soft power is no longer exercised principally via cultural diplomacy, through, for example, the British Council, but increasingly via large companies which promote British economic and political interests through corporate imperialism.
This is a Marxist-feminist theoretical study of 'democracy training' projects delivered among Iraqi women as part of 'post-war reconstruction' efforts of the US. This frame of analysis can assist us in dialectically understanding the ideological practice of these training projects and conceptualizing consciousness/praxis in order to explain adult education, gender, and imperialism.
Historical events are not beforehand cast in stone, and this is also the case with the Afrikaners' eventual choice for apartheid and an authoritarian system. In this paper the authors show that an Afrikaner protoliberalism existed during the nineteenth century, and that things could have gone either way, had external factors in the form of British imperialism not intervened. This protoliberalism came under pressure during the last years of the century due to the advance of British imperialism, which reached its zenith during the Anglo~Boer War. The war and ils aftermath, including the impoverishment it caused (which culminated during the Depression in the thirties). subjectively caused Afrikaners to fear for the survival of their people. In these circumstances, the proto-liberalism of the nineteenth century was effectively extinguished. A zero-sum game grew in the relations between Afrikaners and blacks, and in the end aparlheid was devised as an instrnment for survival. In this process, the only liberal paradigm surviving in South Africa was the Biitish variant, which was subjectively seen as a tool of British imperialism, thereby closing ojfthe liberal avenue in the political culture of the Afrikaners.
Over the past century, Marxism has been radically transformed in line with circumstances and fashion. Theses that once looked solid have depreciated and fallen by the sideline; concepts that once were deemed crucial have been abandoned; slogans that once sounded clear and meaningful have become fuzzy and ineffectual. But two key words seem to have survived the attrition and withstood the test of time: imperialism and financialism. Talk of imperialism and financialism – and particularly of the nexus between them – remains as catchy as ever. Marxists of different colours – from classical, to neo to post – find the two terms expedient, if not indispensable. Radical anarchists, conservative Stalinists and distinguished academics of various denominations all continue to use and debate them. The views of course differ greatly, but there is a common thread: for most Marxists, imperialism and financialism are prime causes of our worldly ills. Their nexus is said to explain capitalist development and underdevelopment; it underlies capitalist power and contradictions; and it drives capitalist globalization, its regional realignment and local dynamics. It is a fit-all logo for street demonstrators and a generic battle cry for armchair analysts. The secret behind this staying power is flexibility. Over the years, the concepts of imperialism and financialism have changed more or less beyond recognition, as a result of which the link between them nowadays connotes something totally different from what it meant a century ago. The purpose of this article is to outline this chameleon-like transformation, to assess what is left of the nexus and to ask whether this nexus is still worth keeping.
Despite its obvious political significance, political theory has not played a prominent role in the debates around the spread of 'global English'. Given the explosion of literature within political science and political theory on so-called 'globalization' and its effect on the nation-state together with the highly influential argument of Benedict Anderson on the historical role of language and print in the modern 'imagining' of nationhood, one would have thought political theorists would have a lot to contribute. However, even the recent growing literature on language and language rights within liberal political theory add little to the issues raised by the advent of 'global English'. This article aims at beginning to redress this situation by using several examples, especially the work of Phillipe van Parijs and Abram De Swaan, to show how separating the communicative aspect of language from issues of culture, identity and power creates an abstract and rarified conception of language that avoids any adequate approach to the politics of global English. By turning to the work of Antonio Gramsci and his argument for how a truly common Italian national language should be formed, we can find a more suitable framework and set concepts including his well known, hegemony.
Magnitude of the mass media, one of which lies in its ability to create a discourse about reality or rather a general truth. In critical studies, the ability of mass media in creating public discourse of reality or truth is in fact often exploited certain parties to make a new form of colonialism and relatively hidden. A media imperialism, which no longer associated with physical control but on "the mental framed" construction, where the strategy of imperialism carried out parallel with education instead of going to the spirit of liberation and equality in the box with the image of the Modern. This article attempts to unpack how the ad or TV ad in particular, as the product of the mass media which according to Chapman regarded as "one of Richest sources available for surveying the state of modern mythology" doing the process of media imperialism. Election issues "Locality" in TV ads were taken by two main considerations: first, that the issue is relatively crucial issues and enduring in the East and West relations or wealthy industrialist with the state Poor State or target industrialist. Second, while many parties attempt to show or demonstrate empathy towards the local community by providing motivation and facilities on facilities on the value-belief-behavior local to a go-publish, it coincided with efforts ethnicist it being popularized through the mediation of the mass media industry, participating as well industrial interests of the charged political economy and of course biased. Go-publish locality which was originally filled with the spirit of equality in the process it was defeated by the interests of industrialists created solely for the sake of the industrialists. In such a context, the localism in television viewing in general or in particular television ad is only present and mediate the 'needs' differentiation only and does not motivate concrete actions to realize the essence of equality which aspired at first. Image of 'differentiation' is what the media is packaged in a speech language (verbal &visual) that is also called as the process of formation of Mythology. This article attempts to unpack the process of media imperialism at the level of advertising creative production process, which often occurs even without the knowledge or awareness of the 'author' creativity of the ad itself.
In his work, "Nation, State, and Economy" (1919), Ludwig von Mises claims that the idea of liberalism starts with the freedom of the individual and it rejects all rules of some persons over others. This paper aims to illustrate an opposite direction, deprecating the 18th century colonial practices which have gradually tainted the pacifistic principle of liberalism with the oppressive, imperialistic goals, of the most powerful states. We focus on the British East India Company, which dominated the East Indies. We find that, under the cover of free trading, the British Superpower has often used military intrusion to acquire territories, to rule resources and, through this, to exercise power over the native population.
The evident inadequacy of orthodox models and tools of analysis has, in recent decades, led many social scientists to turn to Marxism for more helpful explanations and solutions for the problems of poverty and oppression in Africa. This is not to say there is complete agreement among these as to the nature and causes of the widespread changes which, over the last quarter of a century, have altered the major features of imperialism in Africa: the ways by which transnational corporations continue to obtain low-cost raw materials, markets for the surplus manufactures, and extract high rates of surplus value from the labors of the more than 300 million people who live there.
Lenin foi o primeiro marxista a avaliar que tinha se aberto com oimperialismo – que não era só uma política, mas uma nova eraeconômica do metabolismo do Capital - uma época histórica de apogeu e,ao mesmo tempo, hegelianamente, de decadência do sistema: umaépoca de transição, portanto, de guerras e revoluções. As criseseconômicas do capitalismo diminuiriam - ou até impediriam – as margensde negociação de concessões aos trabalhadores. A época das reformasteria ficado no passado. A história sancionou ounão esta perspectiva? ; Lenin was the firstMarxist that concluded that imperialism– conceived not only as apolicy but rather as a neweconomic period of the development of capital – hadopened a new historicalage of supremacy and, at the same time, inspired in Hegel'slessons on History, ofdecadence of the system: an age of transition, hence, of warsand revolutions.Capitalism economical crises would be an obstacle for negotiationsand concessions with thelabour movement. The age of reforms had ended. Didhistory confirm this perspective?
Over the past century, the nexus of imperialism and financialism has become a major axis of Marxist theory and praxis. Many Marxists consider this nexus to be a prime cause of our worldly ills, but the historical role they ascribe to it has changed dramatically over time. The key change concerns the nature and direction of surplus and liquidity flows. The first incarnation of the nexus, articulated at the turn of the twentieth century, explained the imperialist scramble for colonies to which finance capital could export its excessive surplus. The next version posited a neo-imperial world of monopoly capitalism where the core's surplus is absorbed domestically, sucked into a black hole of military spending and financial intermediation. The third script postulated a World System where surplus is imported from the dependent periphery into the financial core. And the most recent edition explains the hollowing out of the U.S. core, a red giant that has already burned much of its own productive fuel and is now trying to financialize the rest of the world in order to use the system's external liquidity. The paper outlines this chameleon-like transformation, assesses what is left of the nexus and asks whether it is worth keeping.
Rather than existing in a parallel, disconnected manner from the licit transnational circuits of the global capitalist economy, the transnational drug trade is in fact a core component of this system and one that has to a considerable extent dictated the terms of Mexico's into this system, as well as the shape of contemporary Mexican society. This has given rise to a sizeable body of narco-narrativas ('narco-narratives') which serve as means of textually exploring Mexico's immediate 'street-level' experiences of the transnational flows of capital and goods comprising globalization and the social consequences of the shift towards neoliberal political economy. This essay argues that in doing so these narratives variously confront the shifting social dynamics of neoliberal globalizing Mexico, a U.S. imperialism that takes new forms for a new era, and the culture of machismo that animates Mexican drug cartels. Martin Solares's Don't Send Flowers poses this period of rising cartel violence as a second major crisis transforming Mexican society, after the economic collapse and subsequent IMF-mandated structural reforms of 1982, one that runs the risk of simply producing more uneven and socially marginalizing capitalist development. Elmer Mendoza's The Acid Test, on the other hand, sees a sad inevitability in continuing drug violence and an exiled but not effaced possibility of moral action and leftist populist social reform, while Yuri Herrerra's Kingdom Cons uses the figure of the drug trafficking kingpin to allegorizes the relationship of art to worldly power and stress the need of art to distance itself from capitalist criminality and propagandistic social functioning.
The rapid spread of digital information and communication technologies since the turn of the century has led to renewed debates about globalisation and the power of new media to connect users across national, political and cultural borders. Environmental campaigns like WWF's Earth Hour, which touts itself as "the world's largest grassroots movement for the environment," often adopt a utopian view of globalisation that celebrates what Marshall McLuhan termed the 'global village'. While this global ethos might be useful in engaging the publics in collective action, this article argues that the way Earth Hour and similar campaigns actively construct representations of a single global village overlooks the lived inequalities between and among peoples within this imagined community. This article explores this tension using a quantitative and qualitative mixed-methods approach that combines a semiotic analysis of the Earth Hour 2019 promotional video, social media analysis of the use of #Connect2Earth hashtag among South African Twitter users, and in-depth interviews with current and former WWF-South Africa employees. This strategic approach is designed to juxtapose socially constructed representations of Earth Hour with on-the-ground user engagement in South Africa, and then triangulating these findings with qualitative interviews. The dissertation aims to explore the research question: In what ways does WWF's Earth Hour embody Marshall McLuhan's ideal 'global village' and in what ways might it engender a form of eco-imperialism? This research question is operationalised through three subquestions: What kind of environmentalism do global environmental campaigns like Earth Hour promote? How do audiences in South Africa engage with Earth Hour on social media? How do local WWF of ices adapt global environmental campaigns to suit local audiences? This research contributes to emerging scholarship, rooted in environmental justice and decolonial studies, that is critical of mainstream environmental movements not to discourage environmental consciousness but to ultimately reformulate it.
