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Aggressive Positivity and the Head Shop

Anna de Logardiere

23:02 / 05.09.08

I've done a quick once over of the fora and the frequency of thread updates today and it's come to my attention that the last post in Head Shop prior to today was written in mid-August. It's obvious that we can't bluster in and start posting because the forum is set aside for deep theory: philosophy, cultural studies and it's always had a strong focus on theoretical identity politics. I would really appreciate it if we could use this thread to come up with some suggestions for possible HS topics, the type of ground they might cover but also a discussion of potential ways that we might broaden the remit without dumbing down. At the moment I'm regarding it as distinctly possible that we need to leave HS out of this plan altogether, mostly because it requires research and the dumbest topic I can call up is 'where do you get your philosophy news now. Radical Philosophy or Philosophy Now?' Clearly there's scope for some discussion like that if anyone actually keeps up to date with that kind of work so erm... is there anyone? Additionally can we steer away from ethics and identity into other areas of philosophy and cultural studies? I read some work a long time ago that focused on experiences of aliens and how they emerge from US political and isolation myths that might be a starting point or perhaps a bit of cyborg literature would be a good thing to focus on because it's easier to approach then the more traditional topics we cover here.

Anyway let me know if you've got something to say and we'll talk about it. Thanks!

Closed for Business Time

10:10 / 06.09.08

Actually, I've been wanting to have people talk about the concept of the "home". I'm curious as to what people mean when they call a dwelling "home", and what connotations it has. Also wanna talk some dorky psychology, design theory and architecture, human geography and cultural studies relating to all of this. Anyone find that kinda thing interesting? I've got access to all kinds of journals and I'm more than happy to mail papers and stuff around if needs be.

Anna de Logardiere

11:10 / 06.09.08

Why don't you kick off with a basic grounding in the HS and then we'll see if anyone has a response. That does sound quite interesting and there are a lot of different perspectives that it can be approached from. At the very least we could pull apart House and Garden magazine.

museum in time, tiger in space

03:17 / 08.09.08

Yeah, I'd like to see a thread along those lines. I'm reading Bachelard's Poetics of Space at the moment, so it would be nice to discuss homes and houses and so on.

09:14 / 08.09.08

I'd quite like to discuss the basic philosophy of language, spun out of the lingua franca thread in Temple. A linguistics 101, maybe as a start of several introductory threads to show you don't have to have a degree in something to discuss it in the HS.

Closed for Business Time

09:40 / 08.09.08

Thanks for the interest, Anna and museum. If I have some spare time today I'll try and piece together a thread-opener. I'm also looking at ways to distribute non-open access materials to interested parties, beyond me emailing out stuff.

Anna de Logardiere

15:50 / 08.09.08

Make the material into a PDF and put it onto a site for specific people to download... yousendit or something else?

Anna de Logardiere

15:53 / 08.09.08

Quantum, I dedicated about four modules of my undergraduate degree to that area though I failed my logic module (Quine you bastard) something chronic. I probably remember a bit of the continental side though so I can contribute basic brain patternation to a thread on the subject.

trouble at bill

16:52 / 08.09.08

I have been meaning to start a thread discussing a friend's proposition that "your politics are [a direct product of] your personality". Adorno on the authoritarian personality, deconstruction of 'personality' as a concept, possible reconstruction of personality as a concept, and general discussing of the links between the emotional and the political basically was what i'd be interested in exploring.

Closed for Business Time

16:59 / 08.09.08

Heh. I'd like some of that bill.