Issue 137, December 2016

Unease with Civilization: Elias, Koselleck, Alexander Articles The unease with civilization Nicole Pepperell Abstract: Norbert Elias’s concept of the civilizing process is perhaps the most controversial aspect of his work, attracting frequent criticism for its perceived Eurocentrism, as well as impassioned defences that critics have misunderstood the concept. In this piece, I explore how The…

Issue 136, October 2016

South African Papers   Why read Ivan Vladislavic? The papers gathered together in this special section of Thesis Eleven offer some clues to the curious, or to those watching the detectives. Vladislavic is one of the premier writers in and of South Africa, which is to say something, as this is a rich and vibrant…

Issue 135, August 2016

Mapping Western Australia. The Perth experience, and that of Western Australia, has differences that need to be recognized for what they are, rather than airbrushed over in the cause of generating a unified historical narrative that privileges the south-east corner of the continent and the reinforcement of Australia as a unified nation-state.

Issue 134, June 2016

Democracy and Recognition   This issue aims to bridge some of the theoretical gaps by discussing the interconnections between recognition and democracy. This is done by, firstly, highlighting the fact that the relationship of these two concepts is not without its problems – there certainly is potential for pathological developments and deviations – and, secondly,…

Issue 133, April 2016

Politics of Critique and the Critique of Politics Articles: Habermas on the European crisis: Attempting the impossible Volker M. Heins Abstract: Based on a critical reading of Jürgen Habermas’s journalistic writings on the European Union, the article argues that Europe’s current crisis is also a crisis of its narratives, and hence a crisis of meaning. The…

Issue 132, February 2016

Cultural Trauma, Morality and Nihilism Articles: Culture trauma, morality and solidarity: The social construction of ‘Holocaust’ and other mass murders Jeffrey C Alexander Abstract: Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their…

Issue 131, December 2015

Critical Theory and Science Fiction We have attempted in this special edition to include voices that recognize the power of SF [science fiction] to threaten the established order of things and open up critical spaces for audiences to make new sense of everyday life and the ideological flows that operate there. But we also include…

Issue 130, October 2015

Noosphere Rising: Disordering Modernities   Articles: Noosphere rising: Internet-based collective intelligence, creative labour, and social production Michael A Peters and James Reveley Abstract: Our article relocates the debate about creative labour to the terrain of peer-to-peer interneting as the paradigmatic form of nonmarket – social – production. From Yann Moulier Boutang we take the point that…