Anthropology, Socialist Prediction and William Morris’s Commonweal

In the late nineteenth century, a number of writers turned to anthropology to predict a socialist future. They included prominent revolutionary socialists: Friedrich Engels, William Morris and members of the Socialist League. Contextualising the appropriation of the anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan by such readers, this article also pays particular attention to socialist popularisations of anthropology, particularly those by Morris and his fellow writers in his penny weekly, the Commonweal. Focusing on Morris’s articles on ancient society helps to illuminate his own understanding of history, art and socialism. It also sheds new light on his predictive fiction News from Nowhere, which was originally read alongside Commonweal non-fiction. Both, I will argue, encouraged readers to see the future in the struggles of the ancient past.

Lawyers in a Divided Society: Legal Culture and Legal Services in Northern Ireland",

Also published as Ch. 9 in Tomorrow's Lawyers (ed. P. Thomas) Oxford: Blackwell 1992. (With M. Fox.)

Sound Art in Urban Architecture and Planning: An Introduction

This article will introduce a specially-commissioned edition of the JSS centering on articles developed from the International Symposium May 2014 by the Recomposing the City project.

Northern Ireland: Religion, Religiosity and Politics in a Changing Society

The Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society maps the transformations, as well as the continuities, of the largest of the major religions - engaging with the critical global issues which relate to the faith in a fast changing world. International experts in the area offer contributions focusing on global movements; regional trends and developments; Christianity, the state, politics and polity; and Christianity and social diversity. Collectively the contributors provide a comprehensive treatment of health of the religion as Christianity enters its third millennium in existence and details the challenges and dilemmas facing its various expressions, both old and new. The volume is a companion to the Handbook of Contemporary Global Christianity: Movements, Institutions, and Allegiance.

Northern Ireland, America and the Emerging Church Movement: Exploring the Significance of Peter Rollins andthe Ikon Collective

The Emerging Church Movement (ECM) is a primarily Western religious phenomenon, identifiable by its critical ‘deconstruction’ of ‘modern’ religion. While most prominent in North America, especially the United States, some of the most significant contributors to the ECM ‘conversation’ have been the Belfast-based Ikon Collective and one of its founders, philosopher Peter Rollins. Their rootedness in the unique religious, political and social landscape of Northern Ireland in part explains their position on the ‘margins’ of the ECM, and provides many of the resources for their contributions. Ikon’s development of ‘transformance art’ and its ‘leaderless’ structure raise questions about the institutional viability of the wider ECM. Rollins’ ‘Pyrotheology’ project, grounded in his reading of post-modern philosophy, introduces more radical ideas to the ECM conversation. Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ and ‘marginal’ location provides the ground from which Rollins and Ikon have been able to expose the boundaries of the ECM and raise questions about just how far the ECM may go in its efforts to transform Western Christianity.

Digital Debris of Internet Art: An Allegorical and Entropic Resistance to the Epistemology of Search

This Ph.D., by thesis, proposes a speculative lens to read Internet Art via the concept of digital debris. In order to do so, the research explores the idea of digital debris in Internet Art from 1993 to 2011 in a series of nine case studies. Here, digital debris are understood as words typed in search engines and which then disappear; bits of obsolete codes which are lingering on the Internet, abandoned website, broken links or pieces of ephemeral information circulating on the Internet and which are used as a material by practitioners. In this context, the thesis asks what are digital debris? The thesis argues that the digital debris of Internet Art represent an allegorical and entropic resistance to the what Art Historian David Joselit calls the Epistemology of Search. The ambition of the research is to develop a language in-between the agency of the artist and the autonomy of the algorithm, as a way of introducing Internet Art to a pluridisciplinary audience, hence the presence of the comparative studies unfolding throughout the thesis, between Internet Art and pionners in the recycling of waste in art, the use of instructions as a medium and the programming of poetry. While many anthropological and ethnographical studies are concerned with the material object of the computer as debris once it becomes obsolete, very few studies have analysed waste as discarded data. The research shifts the focus from an industrial production of digital debris (such as pieces of hardware) to obsolete pieces of information in art practice. The research demonstrates that illustrations of such considerations can be found, for instance, in Cory Arcangel’s work Data Diaries (2001) where QuickTime files are stolen, disassembled, and then re-used in new displays. The thesis also looks at Jodi’s approach in Jodi.org (1993) and Asdfg (1998), where websites and hyperlinks are detourned, deconstructed, and presented in abstract collages that reveals the architecture of the Internet. The research starts in a typological manner and classifies the pieces of Internet Art according to the structure at play in the work. Indeed if some online works dealing with discarded documents offer a self-contained and closed system, others nurture the idea of openness and unpredictability. The thesis foregrounds the ideas generated through the artworks and interprets how those latter are visually constructed and displayed. Not only does the research questions the status of digital debris once they are incorporated into art practice but it also examine the method according to which they are retrieved, manipulated and displayed to submit that digital debris of Internet Art are the result of both semantic and automated processes, rendering them both an object of discourse and a technical reality. Finally, in order to frame the serendipity and process-based nature of the digital debris, the Ph.D. concludes that digital debris are entropic . In other words that they are items of language to-be, paradoxically locked in a constant state of realisation.

Institutions of Activism: Museums and Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2015-12

Critical autopoiesis and the materiality of law

Autopoietic theory is increasingly seen as a candidate for a radical theory of law, both in relation to its theoretical credentials and its relevance in terms of new and emerging forms of law. An aspect of the theory that has remained less developed, however, is its material side, and more concretely the theory’s accommodation of bodies, space, objects and their claim to legal agency. The present article reads Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems in a radical and material manner, linking it on the one hand to current post-structural theorisations of law and society, and on the other hand extending its ambit to accommodate the influx of material considerations that have been working their way through various other disciplines. The latter comprises both a materialisation of the theory itself and ways of conceptualising the legal system as material through and through. This I do by further developing what I have called Critical Autopoiesis, namely an acentric, topological, post-ecological and posthuman understanding of Luhmann’s theory, that draws on Deleuzian thought, feminist theory, geography, non-representational theory, and new material and object-oriented ontologies. These are combined with some well-rehearsed autopoietic concepts, such as distinction, environment and boundaries; Luhmann’s earlier work on materiality continuum; more recent work on bodies and space; as well as his work on form and medium in relation to art. The article concludes with five suggestions for an understanding of what critical autopoietic materiality might mean for law.

The Big Society and the conjunction of crises: Justifying welfare reform and undermining social housing

This article considers the idea of the ‘Big Society’ as part of a long-standing debate about the regulation of housing. Situating the concept within governance theory, the article considers how the idea of the Big Society was used by the UK coalition government to justify a radical restructuring of welfare provision. The fundamental rationale for this transformation was that the UK was forced to respond to a conjunction of crises in morality, the state, ideology and economics. Representing a fundamental departure from earlier attempts at welfare reform, the government has undertaken a reform programme which has had a severe effect on the social housing sector. The article argues that the result has been a combination of libertarianism and authoritarianism, alongside an intentionally more destructive combination of stigmatization and fatalism. The consequence is to undermine the principle of social housing which will not only prove detrimental for residents but raises significant dilemmas for those working in the housing sector.

The state and the development of an information society: Greek policy and experience

The paper looks into the dynamics of information society policy and its implementation in the Greek context. It argues that information society development is a contested process, influenced by pre-existing state, economy and society relations. Based on this, it looks into the different aspects of the idiosyncratic path which the evolution of the Greek information society has followed, particularly after 2000. Using Bob Jessop's strategic-relational approach (SRA) to the state as an analytical framework and drawing on a number of in-depth interviews with relevant political actors, it provides insights into policy implementation by examining: the public management of information technology projects, how such projects were received in bureaucratic structures and practices, as well as the relationship between the state and the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in public procurement processes. The emphasis is on the period 2000–2008, during which a major operational programme on the information society in Greece was put into effect. The paper also touches upon the post-2008 experience, suggesting that information society developments might include dynamics operating independently and even in contradiction to the state agenda.

Représenter et construire la psychiatrie en France, 1801-1863 : l'art des premiers aliénistes

Depuis les quatre dernières décennies, des publications célèbres analysent l’histoire, l’art et l’architecture de la psychiatrie de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle afin de dénoncer les aspects négatifs de la science psychiatrique : voyeurisme sur la personne du fou, déshumanisation de l’asile, autoglorification du psychiatre, abus de pouvoir. C’est ce regard à sens unique que j’ai voulu déjouer dans cette thèse en consacrant ma recherche aux œuvres produites en amont de cette période. Leur analyse a permis de prendre conscience de l’autre versant de la science psychiatrique, celui qui est philanthropique, bienveillant et animé d’un réel espoir de guérison. Mon objectif a été de construire, par l’analyse de ce domaine iconographique inédit ou négligé, une nouvelle histoire de la naissance de la psychiatrie, celle de sa culture visuelle. Une histoire qui révèle ses idéaux du début du siècle et les écarts à ses propres aspirations par son besoin de légitimation et de professionnalisation. Ma thèse propose une enquête épistémologique de l’histoire de l’aliénisme français, par le biais du discours porté par les œuvres d’art commandées par ses fondateurs. Le premier chapitre est consacré aux premiers asiles conçus comme le prolongement du corps du psychiatre et ils sont analysés selon les valeurs de la nouvelle science. Je me suis appliquée à y démontrer que le concept même d’asile, agissant sur nos sensations et sur notre cognition, relève autant des théories architecturales des Lumières que des besoins spécifiques de l’aliénisme. Le deuxième chapitre identifie, pour la première fois, un ensemble de portraits de la première génération d’aliénistes et de leurs disciples. J’argumente que ce corpus voulait imposer l’image de l’aliéniste comme modèle de raison et établir sa profession. Pour ce faire, il s’éloigne des premières représentations des aliénistes, paternalistes, et philanthropiques. Le troisième chapitre analyse les représentations des aliénés produites pour les traités fondateurs de la psychiatrie publiés en France. Le vecteur de mon analyse et le grand défi pour l’art et la science viennent de l’éthique des premiers psychiatres : comment représenter la maladie mentale sans réduire le malade à un être essentiellement autre ? Une première phase de production accorde à l’aliéné autonomie et subjectivité. Mais la nécessité d’objectiver le malade pour répondre aux besoins scientifiques de l’aliénisme a, à nouveau, relégué l’aliéné à l’altérité. Le sujet du quatrième et dernier chapitre est le cycle décoratif de la chapelle de l’hospice de Charenton (1844-1846), principal asile parisien de l’époque. J’y interroge comment l’art religieux a pu avoir un rôle face à la psychiatrie, en empruntant à l’iconographie religieuse sa force et sa puissance pour manifester l’autorité de l’aliéniste jusque dans la chapelle de l’asile. Le dix-neuvième siècle a été porteur d’espoirs en la reconnaissance de la liberté des êtres et de l’égalité des droits entre les personnes. Ces espoirs ont pourtant été déçus et les œuvres de l’aliénisme montrent un nouvel aspect de ces promesses non tenues envers les groupes fragilisés de la société, promesses de reconnaissance de leur subjectivité, de leur autonomie et de leur dignité.

THE WINCHESTER CENTRE FOR GLOBAL FUTURES IN ART DESIGN & MEDIA

The Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design and Media highlights historical, contemporary and future roles for art, design and media within globalization. Its members build sustained collaborations with international partners in public service, the creative industries and civil society. Critically concerned with art and design practices of making, thinking and representation, the Winchester Centre actively engages in education and enterprise, exploring the contribution of media, materials and technologies to the improvement of human societies globally. Led by professors Jonathan Harris, Sean Cubitt, and Ryan Bishop, the Winchester Centre will make a decisive contribution to the work of the School and the University in future years. The Centre's inaugural professors would like to invite you now to suggest future research themes and activities. In the coming weeks details regarding the programme and prospective membership of the Winchester Centre will be made available.

Ensuring operational compliance and ethical responsibility in the regulation of ART: the HFEA, past, present, and future

Under the Public Bodies Bill 2010, the HFEA, cornerstone in the regulation of assisted reproduction technologies (ART) for the last twenty years, is due to be abolished. This implies that there is no longer a need for a dedicated regulator for ART and that the existing roles of the Authority as both operational compliance monitor, and instance of ethical evaluation, may be absorbed by existing healthcare regulators. This article presents a timely analysis of these disparate functions of the HFEA, charting reforms adopted in 2008 and assessing the impact of the current proposals. Taking assisted conception treatment as the focus activity, it will be shown that the last few years have seen a concentration on the HFEA as a technical regulator based upon the principles of Better Regulation, with little analysis of how the ethical responsibility of the Authority fits into this framework. The current proposal to abolish the HFEA continues to fail to address this crucial question. Notwithstanding the fact that the scope of the Authority's ethical role may be questioned, its abolition requires that the Government consider what alternatives exists - or need to be put in place - to provide both responsive operational regulation and a forum for ethical reflection and decision-making in an area which continues to pose regulatory challenges

Women in art: the last taboo

The intention of this paper is to explore traditions and current trends in art with particular reference to the depiction of female experiences such as pregnancy, abortion, birth and motherhood. The inclusion and exclusion of such images in art history over time and across societies reflects prevailing attitudes, whilst affirming various stereotypical and gendered constructions developed and sustained within those societies. These constructions in turn relate to criteria defined by class, access to education and notions of femininity. Work by artists which feature aspects of these experiences (particularly childbirth), is considered taboo by many in a Western society which continues to render the essentially female experience as private, invisible and stigmitised and confuses the natural with the sexual. The work of undergraduate art students, inspired by the artwork of women artists who make explicit or are influenced by essentially female experiences, is discussed and attempts made to connect their work to the issues outlined.

An Examination of the factors that shape the subjectivities of female art students in Initial Teacher Training

The school subject of Art and the profession of the primary school teacher are gendered female and both are considered low status within the field of Education and other professional areas of society. A number of sociological studies have examined the impact of gendered socialisation and habitus on females’ career choices and various educational initiatives have been put in place over the years to encourage females to select subjects and/or pursue career paths normally associated with males. Yet Art and primary school teaching continue to be a popular choice with middle class girls. Based on a critical ethnographic study of female BAED Art students, who are training to be primary school teachers, this study is an examination of the many factors, historically and contemporaneously that have shaped and continue to shape the subjectivities of females and frame their aspirations and ambitions. Within this discourse significant aspects of the history of Art and Art Education that have contributed to and influenced the construction of the female artist, and their consequent impact on artistically talented females’ personal identity as artists, are also examined.