Théorie politique

H04(c) - Political Theory and Popular Culture

Date: Jun 12 | Heure: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Salle: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 1041

Poetic-Political Encounters: The Aesthetics of Dissensus in Letters from the Streets: Eric Adamo (McMaster University), James Ingram (McMaster University)
Abstract: In the history of political thought, we find reflections on politeia announced under the general expression, ‘art of government,’ from which we get the sense that the experience of politics is (or at least was for the ancient Greeks) deeply and intricately associated with the work of human craft. Sometimes referred to as the ‘aesthetic turn,’ an emergent critical arts-based disposition in international relations and the political sciences decisively reframes questions of representation and alterity, democratic futures and, more conceptually, ‘the political’ through analytical encounters with the performative arts, photography, film and cinema, and other textual practices in literature and poetry. The central thread of my research looks at how Jacques Ranciere’s concept of dissensus features in scenes where homeless people use textual, visual, oral and enactive registers to make critical claims, acknowledge injustices, and stage themselves as ‘activist citizens’ (Isin, 2009) in the world. Because it would be impossible to map the various ‘aesthetic surfaces’ of homeless people here, I want to evaluate one, more accessible example where we can articulate dissensus in effect: in cardboard signs that comprise a series of art installations curated by Willie Baronet and titled “We Are All Homeless.” This essay argues for an aesthetic approach that (i) identifies dissensus inherent in written accounts that defy proper comprehension in 'official' archives; (ii) traces ‘cynical’ and ‘poetic’ criteria in the content of their statements; and (3) centers ‘letters from the street’ in an effort to rethink politics of homeless people from a ‘radical cosmopolitical’ perspective.

Gesturing Artificial Life through Eminem’s "Rap God:" Artificial Immortality, Programming Phobiæ and Supersonic Politics: Micheal Ziegler (University of Victoria)
Abstract: Much of contemporary AI debates revolve around the fears and hopes of, as Eminem says in his hit song “Rap God:” “something is happening.” Optimists and AI researchers gesture towards a bright future wherein AI will solve many of humanity’s comings—AI can help with climate change, healthcare, homelessness, etcetera. Simultaneously, pessimists and the same hope-filled AI researchers paradoxically signal inevitable failure—minerals needed to build AI infrastructure are mined with renewed vigour, we are on the cusp of an AI arms race, and science fiction dystopian surveillance states appear increasingly non-fiction. Built within Eminem’s dichotomy of Rap Bot/Rap God, I seek to understand the dichotomy of optimism and pessimism in artificial intelligence research and development. I will argue that overcoming artificial life failures requires neither optimism nor pessimism and that we must be complicated about how we orient ourselves toward the development of AI in society. In short, and to liberally paraphrase Eminem, we must refuse the mainstream by standing between hope and pessimism. The paper will unfold in three parts. First, I will develop Rap Bot/Rap God as a methodological tool to understand the desire for Western control and domination underlying social, environmental and political failure. That AI robots appear God-like, and this orientation underlies much of artificial intelligence hopes and fears. Next, I will explore how the Rap-Bot/Rap-God orientation gestures our failures by exploring Eminem’s use of homophobic language whilst denying homophobia. The gesture of denying homophobia whilst using harmful language underlies artificial life in that much of AI development has incidental and purposeful bias and phobias programmed into their foundations. Finally, after exploring the underlying foundations of hopes and fears through God-like orientations and programmed phobiæ, I will engage in Eminem’s pessimistic language that ironically calls for hope—standing in-between. Refusing mainstream ideals (much of which incidentally uphold many social phobiæ) allows us to move towards a different, post-harm future.

Cinema as History of Political Thought: On Westerns, Hobbes, and the Ambiguities of Political Foundation: Christopher Holman (Nanyang Technological University)
Abstract: Recent years have seen an increasingly number of political theorists turn to the study of cinema as a repository of political insight. Typically, cinematic texts are interpreted as representing in narrative form some theoretical paradigm from within classical or contemporary political thought. In this paper I suggest that the potential of film to intervene in our reading of political thought far exceeds this articulation: it is not just that the history of political thought may aid us in comprehending what is presented within film, but film may aid us in comprehending what is presented within the history of political thought, through the revelation of a dimension of meaning occulted by the dominant political imaginary. In order to demonstrate this potentiality, I take as a case Kelly Reichardt’s 2010 revisionist Western Meek’s Cutoff, demonstrating the extent to which its depiction of the limits of sovereign legitimacy, the conditions of democratic foundation, and the implausibility of the nature-politics binary, opens up a dimension of meaning within classic contractarian thought that has not yet been fully appreciated.

Comedy as a Vocation: The Epistemic Virtues of Reckless Jokes: Abraham Singer (Loyola University Chicago), Toby Rollo (Lakehead University)
Abstract: Debates over comedy tend to mirror the debate over free speech/expression: some contend that comedians should be afforded full latitude; others, citing how comedy can reinforce ideas that normalize violence against vulnerable groups, contend that comedians should constrain their jokes to those that target the powerful and help the powerless -- to “speak truth to power” and “punch up.” We contend that this is the wrong sort of argument. Comedy occupies a social position that precedes this debate; consequently, the freedom from ordinary social norms afforded to comedy is not rooted in a right to free political expression, nor should it be curtailed to mitigate power dynamics. Instead, we argue, comedy serves a vital first order function in revealing the shape of politics and power relations, and that this capacity is grounded in its reckless and morally unimpeded nature. We begin with the now-dominant “punch up” paradigm. The “punch up” ethic rightly tries to articulate comedic ethics in terms of the specific role of the comedian. However, it assumes a fairly conventional understanding of power: one where there is a straightforward hierarchy from which to gauge whether one is punching up or down. However, in a postmaterialist society, this is not the case: modern power is reproduced at the level of social practice not monarchical decree, and issues of identity, race, gender, and ability have alloyed in unstable ways with class structures. Consequently, it is not always clear who occupies a space of privilege relative to another. To say comedians ought to punch up is to assume both that we know which way up is, and what constitutes a punch. Given this, we offer a different view of comedy grounded in its revelatory and epistemic function. Power is an affective force in that it does not cohere to a logical or propositional structure.. Comedic/satirical storytelling is so important because it has a unique capacity to reveal the affective landscape of power. Given this, we contend that the “punch up” paradigm mistakes the comedian for a politician or activist (who acts according to prior normative and epistemic commitments) or an academic (who inquires into the nature of these normative and epistemic commitments through rational discourse), and thereby puts the critical cart ahead of the epistemological horse. While some relations of power are somewhat stable, most are unstable; while rational inquiry can help shine light on these fluid power relations, it can only do so much. Consequently we can’t expect politics or science to tell the comedian which way to punch ex ante: we do not know what direction a joke is punching until the joke itself reveals such realities. The purpose of comedy is not to speak truth to power, we argue, but to unmask the truth of power. Comedy’s core competency is not in its ability to support the underdog, but rather to illuminate the changing identity of the underdog. To serve this function, comedians must have the license to speak recklessly and irreverently.