Delight and revolution: literary studies, aesthetics and ideology

 A commissioned article for the special edition on the future of English as a discipline.

A just judgement? Considerations on Ronald Srigley’s Camus’ Critique of Modernity

This paper responds critically to Ronald Srigley’s groundbreaking 2011 study Albert Camus’ Critique of Modernity. Srigley’s book reasserts Camus’ credentials as a deeply serious thinker, whose literary and philosophical oeuvre was dedicated to rethinking modernity on the basis of critical reassessments of theWest’s entire premodern heritage. Yet we challenge whether Camus was ever, even in his final writings, so uncompromisingly anti-modern as Srigley contends. Srigley’s attempt to present Camus as committed to a return to the Greeks, on the basis of a total critique of modernity as deleteriously post-Christian, forces him to occlude important distinctions in Camus’ thought: those between unity and totality, rebellion and revolution. By contrast, we compare Camus’ defence of modern rebellion with Blumenberg’s argument in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age: finding justification for this rebellion in the deep problem faced by Christian theology of resolving the ‘problem of evil’. Finally, we suggest that Srigley overplays the extent of Camus’ ‘Hellenic’ critique of the Christian heritage (notably its ethical commitment to protecting the weak), in contrast to Christian theodicy and eschatology, which serve to rationalize avoidable suffering.

Counter-revolution, order and international politics

Every social revolution has elicited some form of counter-revolutionary response from the international system. The impulse to reverse revolutionary transformation has much to tell us about the dynamics of social revolution as well as the nature of international order. The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between counter-revolution and international order. First it establishes a basic conceptual framework of international counter-revolution and argues that counter-revolution should be understood as more than just an active opposition to revolution and also examines the motives of counter-revolutionaries. Second, using two interpretations of the international system – those of Henry Kissinger and Raymond Aron – the article draws several conclusions about the international tendency to attempt to overturn revolution and concludes that there exist international systemic pressures, of a non-neorealist kind, which provide the basis for international order. These pressures not only produce order but, at certain times, impel states to counter radical transformations in parts of the world which seem, at first glance, to have little consequence for the functioning of international order.

Refuge in the land of liberty : France and its refugees, from the revolution to the end of asylum, 1787-1939

France has a long tradition of asylum for refugees. Since the Revolution, this has made it the land of liberty (pays de la liberte) and the land of asylum (la terre d'asile)." "In practice, responses have been shaped less by principle than by political and social conditions. Various refugee movements - from the late eighteenth-century Lowlands, to Spanish and Italian liberals in the 1820s, Polish nationalists in the 1830s. German social revolutionaries of 1848-9, anti-Bolsheviks from the Russian Revolution, Christians from the former Ottoman Empire, and Jews from Nazi Germany - have met with mixed responses, which shifted uneasily between sympathy, principle, pragmatism, and open hostility." "This book examines the tensions between refugee rights and political responses to refugees, and between humanitarian concern for their plight and hostility to their imposition on the state. Increasingly punitive measures against refugees saw, in 1939, the end of asylum in the internment of republican exiles from the Spanish Civil War.

Perpetual revolution : people and state in socialist Cuba

This thesis examines the definition of “Revolution” in Cuba, exploring the political and social system that is associated with what people in Cuba call “the Revolution”, and placing special emphasis on people’s daily experiences of such systems. Through an analysis of organic movements of urban agriculture, alternative therapies emerging within the framework of a state-centred biomedical health system, and emigration this thesis aims to understand the lived experience of the Cuban Revolution

Genetics and public health - evolution, or revolution?

During the 19th and early 20th century, public health and genetics shared common ground through similar approaches to health promotion in the population. By the mid-20th century there was a division between public health and genetics, with eugenicists estranged and clinical genetics focused on single gene disorders, usually only relevant to small numbers of people. Now through a common interest in the aetiology of complex diseases such as heart disease and cancer, there is a need for people working in public health and genetics to collaborate. This is not a comfortable convergence for many, particularly those in public health. Nine main concerns are reviewed: fear of eugenics; genetic reductionism; predictive power of genes; non-modifiable risk factors; rights of individuals compared with populations; resource allocation; commercial imperative; discrimination; and understanding and education. This paper aims to contribute to the thinking and discussion about an evolutionary, multidisciplinary approach to understanding, preventing, and treating complex diseases.