Theorizing a child–dog encounter in the slums of La Paz using post-humanistic approaches in order to disrupt universalisms in current ‘child in nature’ debates

This paper theorizes children's interspecies relation with dogs in La Paz Bolivia utilizing post-humanism and new materialism as its approach. This approach allows for the deconstructing of human–nature binaries found in discourses central to the children in nature movement. Questioning the universalizing of children's experience in nature the paper considers three propositions. Firstly, what if children were viewed as nature rather than outside of it. Secondly, can the objects or ‘things’ of nature be viewed as animated. And finally, how sensitive is the contemporary imperative to reconnect children to a romanticized more natured life, to children's diverse worldly experiences. I explore these propositions drawing on a study where I have adopted a materialist ontology and theorized using the work of [Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press] and her concept of intra-action as adopted by Rautio [2013a. “Children Who Carry Stones in Their Pockets: On Autotelic Material Practices in Everyday Life.” Children's Geographies 11 (4): 394–408]. Based on my child–dog interspecies exploration, I will conclude by re-addressing the three propositions.     

Children's imaginaries in the city: on things and materials

The article is an exploration of urban imaginaries emerging through a play with materials. Starting from a complex activist exercise for reimagining the space of a park in decay, whose protagonists are children, we propose a reflection on the productivity and resilience of matter. We argue that a new materialist sociology is one that takes disappearances seriously. Capitalism renders space abstract not only through flow and circulation, but also through stillness. We follow the curious disappearances and reappearances of the park in question, tracing the mutations of urban planning, of the juridical domain and of the everyday use of space. Finally, we analyse the making of a maquette of the park by a group of children and their alliances with activists. The maquette is a political ‘thing': it leads us away from an urban imaginary populated by discrete objects to an urban imaginary of depth and it reconcretises space.     

Lucy Hutchinson,Lucretius and Soteriological Materialism

Abstract

This article examines Lucy Hutchinson's pervasive materialism, arguing that her use of corporeal imagery – in part shaped by her early translation of Lucretius – contributes to the soteriological purposes of her later works in multiple ways. Criticism on Hutchinson has tended to divorce the materialist imagery of her translation from the Calvinistic themes of her other writings. I argue, however, for the lasting presence of a materialism constructed from the vocabularies of Lucretian Epicureanism, Neoplatonism and John Owen. Focusing especially on the poem Order and Disorder and Hutchinson's theological tract to her daughter, I show how she uses materialism as a “means” to achieving assurance and grace. I suggest that these various responses to physical experience are part of Hutchinson's enduring investigation into the ontology of “Order” and “Disorder”, and her quest for stable spiritual being.     

Simone Weil's Political Theology

This article suggests that Simone Weil's political theology is characterized by the idea of labor and the event of laboring. I begin by arguing that her thinking is shaped by a materialist reading of Christianity that employs Marx's concepts — labor, capital and alienation — to examine the political implications of three theological ideas, fall, slavery and sin. Next, I suggest that although laboring should be understood as a creative endeavor, Weil argues that it is always conditioned and constrained by a force she terms social matter. This constraint produces what Marx called alienation and Weil will refer to as enslavement (and even sin). Finally, I contend that Weil's idea of labor — and its call for a minimization of constraint — provides a counter-force to social matter. I conclude by suggesting that Weil's labor provides a different way of conceptualizing not just the political subject, but political theology itself.     

20世纪30年代冯友兰学术思想的唯物史观取向

20世纪30年代唯物史观在中国学术界的奔腾而人,直接影响和规定着冯友兰学术思想的基本状貌。《中国哲学史》、《秦汉历史哲学》和《新事论》等文本共同凸显出冯友兰在哲学史观、史学观和文化观上的唯物史观取向。冯友兰在30年代取法唯物史观这一事实,对我们审视以往的学术史及反思当下的学术语境有着深刻的启示。     

国史学理论问题研究述评

中华人民共和国史(以下简称国史)是指1949年中华人民共和国成立后的历史。国史是改革开放后逐渐形成的一门新兴学科,也是整个史学领域中最年轻、最有活力和最有发展前途的学科之一。国史研究随着我国历史本身的发展而不断发展,国史研究的重要性也被越来越多的史学工作者所关注。     

新历史观基础上的市民社会批判——重读《德意志意识形态》

马克思恩格斯对市民社会本质的理解和认识经历了一个复杂的发展过程。在《德意志意识形态》著作中,马克思恩格斯已经站在广义的历史唯物主义基础之上对市民社会本质进行了全面的分析,具体内容包括：市民社会的历史本质在于分工基础之上的工业和竞争造成的个人利益与社会利益的分离以及积累劳动与现实劳动的对立;由于货币和分工造成的市民社会的物役性和个人生活的偶然性,市民社会工业的发展必然导致奴役性分工的消灭以及生产力的全面占有,即实现共产主义。     

实事求是是唯物史观的基本原则——以“五种社会形态理论”为中心的探讨

是否遵循实事求是的方法论原则,是判定唯物史观还是唯心史观的根本标志,也是二者判然有别的分水岭。唯物史观不以任何先验的东西为前提,唯心史观则相反。凡是不遵循实事求是方法论原则乃至有意违反这一原则的历史观,毫无疑问一定是唯心史观,而绝非唯物史观。根据实事求是原则去考察历史,符合过去人们所理解的五种社会形态理论本来所规定的意义和内涵,因生产力不断发展而导致五种社会形态依次演进更替的例子,在人类历史上并不存在。     

Making and Mastering Violent Environments: Following the Infrastructures of Accumulation in Coastal Louisiana

Louisiana’s coastal wetlands have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the past several decades, with the greatest harm experienced by vulnerable populations (poor and racialised residents). It was not until 2005 that the state legislature responded with a much-lauded Master Plan tasked with integrating the construction of new flood control infrastructure with wetland restoration. Seeking to unsettle this initiative, we develop a historical-geographical materialist approach to follow the entanglements between infrastructural production and capital accumulation in Louisiana over the past several hundred years. In so doing, we present a two-fold argument: that the making and mastering infrastructural violence has always been part of the historical unfolding of the socio-spatial dynamics of capitalism; and that infrastructural development has played an integral role in this duality at every historical turn. The capitalist state, at both the federal and state levels, has played a vital role in producing and controlling this violence.