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Monthly Archives: December 2005

Political Theology (Lefort II)

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Some notes from Claude Lefort’s complex essay, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political?” from his Democracy and Political Theory. I make no attempt at an interpretation; instead, I only an attempt to understand.

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More Awesome/Some Lame

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Awesome Although she smells like a circus, Minnie was pretty awesome. ** Finally getting around to listening to the new Silver Jews album, “Tanglewood Numbers”, I’m likely the only person in the world with this opinion, but the first Silver Jews album I bought, “American Water”, remains my favourite, but I cannot deny that “Tanglewood [...]

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Idiot

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Proving once again that success in post-secondary education is not a sign of intelligence or, at the very least, indicative of a lack of idiocy, I just managed to lock myself out of the house, in the freezing cold, without shoes, jacket, mitts, toque, or phone while getting firewood from the garage.  I never claimed [...]

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Woodcutter

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

I called a woodcutter today.  I am out of wood.  My source, from the cottage, is tapped out until more trees fall and I get around to cutting them.  I had about half a cord left at the cottage, but it appears someone took it.  That wasn’t very nice of them. I asked the woodcutter, [...]

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Carl Schmitt at Nuremberg

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

[Cross posted to Long Sunday.] With the revelation of secret and illegal domestic spying in the United States, along with Bush’s justification of such actions, people have started talking about Carl Schmitt again. Afterall, didn’t Bush justify his actions in explicitly Schmittian terms? Recall, it was Schmitt who, in Political Theology, defined the sovereign ‘as [...]

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Awesome

Sunday, December 18, 2005

In no particular order of importance, of course.  Just proving I do other things than write in this ‘blog’.  Reviews not written by myself (because I am lazy) given when and where possible and links given to potentially obscure references.  I make no claims to the best, just to the awesome. Albums The Cars "Complete [...]

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By Lot (Manin I)

Saturday, December 17, 2005

With great anticipation, Bernard Manin’s The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge UP, 1997) arrived at my door the other day.  The book is one I am utterly unfamiliar with; it was suggested to me by my supervisor, Brian.  I’ve only made it about thirty pages into the book so far (the introduction and the first [...]

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Election

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Like most moderately reasonable people with enough free time to waste on following the twists and turns of a federal election, I quickly got bored of it.  (There was nothing on TV last night except "Close to Home" and the leadership debate — which would you choose?)  Allow me to be cynical: there really is [...]

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Political Sociology

Thursday, December 15, 2005

No serious investigation into the political can escape the question of the social.  These words belong to Claude Lefort (‘Rereading The Communist Manifesto’, 150).  The opposite also holds true: no serious investigation into the social can escape the question of the political.  These formulations, however, raise serious problems for theory and analysis alike.  They refuse [...]

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Imposter

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Pursuant to previous discussion, the "Imposter Syndrome" has been the subject of a recent "press release" at my refined institution of higher education. Excerpts: "Many accomplished academics have secret fears of being inadequate and incompetent according…" "The “imposter phenomenon” – defined as an internal experience of intellectual phoniness common among high-achieving people – is surprisingly [...]

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