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Category Archives: Dissertation

Aristocratic Political Theory

Saturday, September 2, 2006

Classically, the political is thought in the forms of regimes referring to the number who rule: simply, the one, the few or the many. That is, respectively, royal power, aristocratic power and popular power. None have argued that in each type of regime that the other two are not present in some way (the reduction [...]

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Race War in France: Partial Bibliography

Sunday, August 20, 2006

An ongoing (in the sense that I started it this afternoon and will add to it into the indefinite future as I uncover further sources) attempt at creating a bibliography of primary texts involved in the ‘race war’ in seventeenth and eighteenth century in France between the Germanists (the aristocracy) and the Romanists (the bourgeoisie). [...]

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The “-ian” Suffix

Thursday, August 17, 2006

As I’ve begun to write my dissertation proposal this past week, a question occurred to me on the basis of an unthought distinction I make in my paper: what separates “Foucault’s concept” from a “Foucauldian concept”? Say one finds his account of sovereignty in the eighteenth century as unsatisfactory – his account being “Foucault’s concept” [...]

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ABABD

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Having successfully defended my second comprehensive examination yesterday morning, I have arrived at that difficult stage in a graduate student’s career: determining the topic of the dissertation. Consequently, one might say that after yesterday’s anti-climactic event (you only go to defense if you’re going to pass it), I am now, to coin a new and [...]

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Montesquieu: Introduction

Thursday, August 3, 2006

In the non-Straussian secondary literature on Montesquieu (the Straussians are a story for another day), it is well agreed that Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws presented an ‘immense theoretical revolution’ (to borrow a phrase of Althusser’s in reference to Marx) – his discovery of ‘laws’ pertaining the human world, similar to, but different from [...]

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Montesquieu: Online

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Known dates: ~1717 – “A Discourse on Cicero” [pdf] 1721 – The Persian Letters [html] [pdf] 1724 – “A Dialogue Between Sylla and Eucrates” [html] [pdf] 1724 – Reflexions sur la monarchie universelle [Manuscript missing?] 1725 – “The Temple of Gnidus” [html] 1728 – “An Oration by President Montesquieu, When He Was Received into the [...]

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Notes

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

My too long and too critical review of Beaulieu and Gabbard (ed) Michel Foucault and Power Today in The International Journal of Baudrillard Studies is now available. While I’m not sure how widely read the journal is, I recommend it – especially for review essays that wouldn’t be accepted elsewhere on account of length, depth [...]

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