Political theorists Essays

  • Monster Hunters

    1417 Words  | 3 Pages

    hunter whose tale it is to begin with. Beowulf cannot stay hidden forever, or he would not be Beowulf. Monstrosity relies, in this sense, on its exposition for its production, and it is in this superficial sense of vitality by revelation that two theorists of monstrosity concoct a fantastic world of ‘society’ to keep themselves at bay. Michael Uebel’s “Unthinking the Monster” and Mark Dorrian’s “On the Monstrous and Grotesque” represent similar though distinct theorizations of monstrosity in terms

  • Author-function

    1045 Words  | 3 Pages

    interpretation of a text is shaped by his understanding of its author. Without any concept of who the author of a text is, it is easy to develop many different interpretations of that text. However, in light of an author’s gender, ethnicity, time period, political leanings, or other applicable known information, the text often leans toward one plausible interpretation. For example, a reader’s interpretation of Invisible Man is greatly colored by her knowledge of its author Ralph Ellison as a black man fighting

  • The Reality of Political Realism

    1919 Words  | 4 Pages

    and war exist. The three different diplomatic stances are that of pacifism, just war theory, and political realism. Political realism, or realpolitik as it is often referred to, is the belief war should only occur when it is in the national interest of the particular nation-state. Henry Kissinger, a political realist, in his book Diplomacy argues that realism is the only logical answer. Just war theorists, along with pacifists, on the other hand oppose these arguments and therefore critique of this

  • Labeling Theory

    3342 Words  | 7 Pages

    the original version of labelling theory. This paper, not a summary, provides a brief history of labelling theory, as well as, its role in the sociology of deviance. It attempts to explore the contributions made by labelling theorists, the criticism towards labelling theorists, and the discussion surrounding its reality as an actual theory. In essence, the main focus of this paper besides proving an understanding of Howard Becker, is to describe and evaluate `labelling theory` to the study of crime

  • The Myths of Vietnam

    5545 Words  | 12 Pages

    Contending versions of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement began to develop even before the war ended. The hawks' version, then and now, holds that the war was winnable, but the press, micromanaging civilian game theorists in the Pentagon, and antiwar hippies lost it. . . . The doves' version, contrarily, remains that the war was unwise and unwinnable no matter what strategy was employed or how much firepower was used. . . Both of these versions of the war and the antiwar movement as they have

  • Icarus and the Myth of Deconstruction

    5634 Words  | 12 Pages

    word (as in political and historical criticisms). However, deconstruction holds a particularly tenuous position among literary theories as a school that apparently commits both sins; while formalistically focusing on the words on the page, deconstruction subjects those words to unnatural abuse. Thus, deconstruction seems locked in the ivory tower, in the company of resentful New-Critical neighbors. Such charges have received insufficient response from deconstruction's top theorists who, though

  • Just War and Pacifism

    1886 Words  | 4 Pages

    The question "Can war be justified?" plagued mankind since the first war. The Just War Theory holds that war can be just. The theory has evolved for thousands of years and modern theorists, such as Michael Walzer, author of Just and Unjust Wars, puts forth criteria for a just war, such as jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Jus ad bellum includes reasons for going to war, and jus in bello deals with the people who wage war. The criteria in jus ad bellum include; just cause, declaration by a proper authority

  • Doctor Zhivago

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    Conversations in the story illustrate the feelings and ideals of the characters in Zhivago. One such conversation is between Nikolai Nikolaievich and Ivan Ivanovich. The two discuss philosophy, relating to their ideals and not those of the state or past theorists such as Solovi_v and Marx. The ideals expressed in this discussion are not just the characters', but an idea held by the author. Nikolaievich states "that man does not live in a state of nature but in history...It is the...exploration of death with

  • Sociology

    1491 Words  | 3 Pages

    being. Conflict theorists view that definitions of norms and values are also a source of conflict over who has the right to create laws and justice. As a consequence, not only behavior but also power relationships become important topics to study. Unlike the structural-functionalist view of society, which views harmony as the basis of order, conflict theorists see conflict as the natural state of social existence. Despite their critical examination of power relations, conflict theorists tend to accept

  • John Dewey's Critique of Socioeconomic Individualism

    4133 Words  | 9 Pages

    In the final chapter of his work The Public and its Problems (PAIP) John Dewey suggests that, despite the insistence of most social theorists, if we regard the so-called individual/social distinction as a gap to be bridged or as an antithesis to be synthesized then our nose for public & democratic reform has been tricked by a central red herring of political modernity: The preliminary to fruitful discussion of social matters is that certain obstacles shall be overcome, obstacles residing in

  • Eco-feminism

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    primary ideas and criticisms. Though in theory, ecological feminism has been around for a number of years, it emerged as a political movement in the 1970s. Francoise d’Eaubonne, a French feminist philosopher, coined the term “Ecofeminism” in 1974. Ecofeminism is a feminist approach to environmental ethics. Karen Warren, in her book Ecofeminist Philosophy, claims that feminist theorists question the source of the oppression of women, and seek to eliminate this oppression. Ecofeminists consider the oppression

  • Media Influence Upon Modern Society

    2715 Words  | 6 Pages

    and its cultural framework has often been debated upon from leading theorists to anyone with any form of media connections, but to contemplate that a character in Coronation Street or Eastenders can have an influence on an audience members attitude, beliefs or interpretations of society is a very simplistic and debatable version of the truth. The media does influence, but using more diverse and subtle roles of impact. Some theorists suggest that it is even a case of society influencing the media and

  • Ancient Greek Health Theories: Understanding the Melancholic Mean in Aristotelian Problema XXX.1

    5206 Words  | 11 Pages

    Why indeed! The atrabilious temperament or melancholia is, according to Aristotle, a natural disposition in which there is a preponderance of black bile over the other humours. The healthy somatic ideal, however, was conceived by Greek medical theorists as the equality of the humours, either with respect to their quantity or their relative strengths (quality); disease was by definition an excess of one of the humours or elements. If the ideal state with respect to the humours was equality or isonomic

  • Hakim Bey, Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism

    2862 Words  | 6 Pages

    and leftist anarchist essays primarily for zine publication and distribution or for lectures and performance. He draws explicitly on a Moorish and sufiist intellectual heritage with occasional references to contemporary philosophers and cultural theorists. He situates himself as a post situationist anarchist informed by critical theory, and has written in both ctheory and Trip. Bey’s writing is ultimately so fascinating precisely because it does not fit neatly into a schools of thought, academic

  • Southern Pro-Slavery Rhetoric

    1613 Words  | 4 Pages

    1860, almost all southerners thought slavery should continue. The Southern philosophers were, in some measure, great theorists. Their ability to defend the institution of slavery as a good for society can be considered through three justifications: socio-political, economic/socio-economic, and religious. Of all the areas with which the southerners contended, the socio-political arena was probably their strongest. It is in this area that they had history and law to support their assertions. With

  • A Personal View of Punishment

    1669 Words  | 4 Pages

    past." (Braswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy, 2002) Punishment gives a person or society as sense of security. The security is that if someone commits an offense against someone that they will be punished. There have been many famous philosophers and theorist that have studied the term punishment. They have studied the different types of punishment and it effects. The goals of punishment and the rule that it plays in today's society have changed throughout the times. The concept of punishment its definition

  • marxism

    3151 Words  | 7 Pages

    How convincing was the Marxist critique of the capitalist state? This next unit of theory is entitled "Ideology and Discourse." The theorists we're examining--Althusser, Bakhtin, and Foucault--are discussing how ideology works, and how ideologies construct subjects. All of these theorists are coming from a Marxist perspective, using ideas and terms developed in Marxist theory, though only Althusser actually claims to be a Marxist. So to start off, I want to talk a bit about some basic ideas of Marxist

  • Akira Kurosawa and Robert Zemeckis

    2128 Words  | 5 Pages

    and impact are most important in the creation of a text. With literary texts, discerning authorship is usually no problem. But with collaborative art forms, such as film, deciding on authorship is much more complicated. Generally speaking, film theorists have concluded that it is the director of a film who is the auteur, the most important creative figure. But auteur theory is concerned with more that one film; it is concerned with the work of a director – with his or her whole corpus of films,

  • Chang Yu-i’s Struggle With Identity

    1370 Words  | 3 Pages

    do not know who you are, or who you want to be? Do not worry, this is not uncommon. In fact, according to psychoanalyst Erik Erickson (1902-1994), most young people ages fifteen to twenty years of age feel the same way. Erickson, a psychoanalytic theorist, took the human life cycle and categorized it into eight stages. One such stage would be identity versus role-confusion. During this stage, adolescents begin to truly form who they are in life. They form their present off of the good and bad experiences

  • Hernan Cortes

    4231 Words  | 9 Pages

    extraordinarily brave and intelligent individual who accomplished an almost miraculous feat. It will do so by making use of the twin concepts of virtu and fortuna. These two terms are basic to Niccolo Machiavelli's thought. For this (in)famous political theorist, the "wheel of fortune" is an ever-present phenomenon in human affairs--- even though its effects can be controlled via the application of what he calls virtu. It is difficult to specify the meaning of this word, as it encompasses a wide range