Cultural Materiality and Spiritual Alienation

Abstract

This article takes its point of departure in Phillip Blond’s Christian criticism of secular materialisms and the failure of modern thought to appreciate the true materiality of creation. He challenges secular thought and returns to a combination of Greek and Christian Trinitarian thought, in order to reach for a new ground for political theology. Blond’s Christian ontological claims are contested, but an aspect of them is brought into the context of cultural creation and related to questions of the spiritual dimension of cultural arte-facts in a secular setting. Against the background of Friedrich Nietzsche’s struggle with the difficulty of singling out a pure secular culture from the old and (in his view) stifling religious heritage in society and culture, this article suggests that a radical notion of human intentional (but finite) creation, analogous to Blond’s idea of God’s infinite creative intention, may be helpful for a construction of a materialistic critical theory about contingent spiritual obstacles to political change.     

Alienation, authenticity and the self

While many commentators have held that the concept "alienation" is of crucial importance when attempting to understand human existence, others have held that it is an inherently empty concept that we should abandon. In this article, I refute the latters' charge by showing that each conception of "alienation" is underpinned by a normative ontological conception of the preferable, or authentic, self and show that the concept "alienation" has ethical, existential and socio-political uses. From this I conclude that, when properly understood, the concept "alienation" can provide us with vital insights into human existence.     

Seductive Alienation: The American Way of Life Rearticulated in Occupied Japan

This article explores how the notion of American domesticity promoted by US occupation forces in postwar Japan was decoded and rearticulated by non-elite Japanese women, a social group that has been largely overlooked in studies of the global promotion of the American way of life during the early Cold War years. Specifically examined here is the case of Takehisa Chieko, an actress and the wife of an American officer, who enjoyed high visibility in popular women’s magazines as the embodiment of the idealised postwar American lifestyle. A reading of Takehisa’s magazine writings, interviews, and photographs suggests, however, that she was far from a passive recipient and transmitter of this cultural message. As such, a close unpacking of her rearticulation of the idea of American domesticity toward the particular socio-cultural fabric of postwar Japan reveals the particular nature of this supposedly universal American model. In demonstrating the various dilemmas that stemmed from confronting both the seductive and alienating features of the American way as promoted in occupied Japan, this study illuminates a point of rupture in the larger US global promotion of American domesticity as a means toward cultural hegemony and political containment in the early Cold War period.     

Antidote to Alienation: The Voluntary Association in the Work of Robert Nisbet

Abstract

The American sociologist Robert Nisbet argued that alienation was endemic in the modern world. He blamed processes of individualization and politicization where political power was utilized to separate individuals from intermediate associations. While Nisbet was accused of nostalgia for a lost past of medieval communalism, he pointed to the voluntary association as a source of community in the modern world. Using Nisbet's historical and sociological analysis, this article explains the phenomena of alienation in Nisbet's thought and argues that the voluntary association is capable of integrating individuals into meaningful communities.     

Subcontracting Academia: Alienation,Exploitation and Disillusionment in the UK Overseas Syrian Refugee Research Industry

As the political economy of social science research has shifted, subcontracted research assistants have taken over an ever growing part of the research process. In this article, we report on a case study of the experiences of local research assistants employed on UK‐directed research projects on Syrian refugees in Lebanon. While refugee research is framed in the UK as a noble project of helping the world's most vulnerable, these assistants speak critically of their sense of alienation, exploitation and disillusionment with the research they work on. Such problems arise, we argue, not just from subcontracted labour relations in the workplace itself, but also the broader political economy of how overseas social science research is currently produced. Addressing these problems requires giving better recognition to the work, interests and concerns of research assistants, but also rethinking and restructuring the global production of social science research more generally.     

异质思维的历史误区——对延安时期政治与文艺冲突现象的几点看法

艺与政治二间思维的异质,是使延安时期“启蒙”与“救亡”相互误读,以至步入艺发展误区的主要历史动因。本通过政治家与艺家对“艺”、“政治”以及自身责任与使命的认识差异,来揭示这一时期艺与政治相冲突的表现特征,并对中国现当代学历史上的独特现象——由于艺主张的分歧而进行的政治批判运动。进行了一定程度的探讨。