Eli Thorkelson
Biographic Data
| ID | 109510 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eli Thorkelson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eli |
| FAMILY NAME | Thorkelson |
| SIGNATURE | THORKELSON E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stellenbosch University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4409-3301 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Sonic patriarchy in a left‐wing French philosophy department
It is a contradiction that patriarchal power and masculine violence continue to endure in academic spaces that are nominally dedicated to liberation and radical critique. How does a left‐wing patriarchy reproduce itself? I propose an exploratory ethnography of a patriarchal drama in France, focusing on administrative meetings in a university philosophy department. Drawing on Rebecca Lentjes’ concept of sonic patriarchy, I propose that an establis…
A Campus Fractured
Through an ethnographic case study of campus politics at a Parisian university, this paper shows that neoliberal university reforms in France failed to create neoliberal subjectivities. Instead, the reforms provoked conflicts between direct and representative democracy, traditions which had organized post-1960s French university culture. These conflicts suggest that we can decenter neoliberalism and instead examine the confluence of multiple mode…
On politics and precarity in academia
The terror of the neoliberal markets and the terror of politics both threaten academic freedom - sometimes subtly, sometimes more openly. In this Forum, we ask our contributors to reflect on the entanglements between economy and politics and how they contribute to the ongoing precaritisation in academia, how they shape individual researchers' biographies and how they influence academic research. But more importantly, beyond analysis, this Forum a…
Two Failures of Left Internationalism
After the unsuccessful end of the spring 2009 French university movement, faculty and student activists searched for new political strategies. One promising option was an internationalist project that sought to unite anti-Bologna Project movements across Europe. Yet an ethnographic study of two international counter-summits in Brussels (March 2010) and Dijon (May 2011) shows that this strategy was unsuccessful. This article explores the causes of…
The Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn
When social actors find themselves at an impasse, perceiving their futures as threatened, how can they respond? If their futures can get broken or interrupted, can they subsequently be reconnected or repaired? If yes, how? Here, I consider an ethnographic case of reconnected futurity drawn from French protest politics: the 2009-2010 Ronde Infinie des Obstinés, or "Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn." Opposing Sarkozy-era neoliberal university reform…
Precarity outside
The concept ofprecarityhas lately become prominent in anthropology as a way of theorizing neoliberal labor, affect, and subjectivity. But just what are the politics of this concept? In the context of French higher education and research,précaritéis not only a designator for affect or labor relations. It is also a semiautonomous political concept with a political unconscious. Even as it mobilizes academic unions and makes claims on the French stat…
The Intimate University
Nancy Abelmann (2009) The Intimate University: Korean American Students and the Problems of Segregation Review by Eli Thorkelson
Navigating doctoral socialisation in Anthropology
Ethnographers have constructed contradicting assertions, and indeed assumptions, about the nature of learning, how it is best accomplished, and how students internalise this learning in order to form both individualised and collective identities. Are the rites of passage, so often described in analyses of postgraduate socialisation – the oral examinations, the viva voce, the departmental seminar, or graduation ceremony – the only routes available…
Anthropology as Trauma and as Transformation
Precarity outside
The concept ofprecarityhas lately become prominent in anthropology as a way of theorizing neoliberal labor, affect, and subjectivity. But just what are the politics of this concept? In the context of French higher education and research,précaritéis not only a designator for affect or labor relations. It is also a semiautonomous political concept with a political unconscious. Even as it mobilizes academic unions and makes claims on the French stat…
On politics and precarity in academia
The terror of the neoliberal markets and the terror of politics both threaten academic freedom - sometimes subtly, sometimes more openly. In this Forum, we ask our contributors to reflect on the entanglements between economy and politics and how they contribute to the ongoing precaritisation in academia, how they shape individual researchers' biographies and how they influence academic research. But more importantly, beyond analysis, this Forum a…
The Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn
When social actors find themselves at an impasse, perceiving their futures as threatened, how can they respond? If their futures can get broken or interrupted, can they subsequently be reconnected or repaired? If yes, how? Here, I consider an ethnographic case of reconnected futurity drawn from French protest politics: the 2009-2010 Ronde Infinie des Obstinés, or "Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn." Opposing Sarkozy-era neoliberal university reform…
A Campus Fractured
Through an ethnographic case study of campus politics at a Parisian university, this paper shows that neoliberal university reforms in France failed to create neoliberal subjectivities. Instead, the reforms provoked conflicts between direct and representative democracy, traditions which had organized post-1960s French university culture. These conflicts suggest that we can decenter neoliberalism and instead examine the confluence of multiple mode…
Anthropology as Trauma and as Transformation
The Intimate University
Nancy Abelmann (2009) The Intimate University: Korean American Students and the Problems of Segregation Review by Eli Thorkelson
Navigating doctoral socialisation in Anthropology
Ethnographers have constructed contradicting assertions, and indeed assumptions, about the nature of learning, how it is best accomplished, and how students internalise this learning in order to form both individualised and collective identities. Are the rites of passage, so often described in analyses of postgraduate socialisation – the oral examinations, the viva voce, the departmental seminar, or graduation ceremony – the only routes available…
The Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn
When social actors find themselves at an impasse, perceiving their futures as threatened, how can they respond? If their futures can get broken or interrupted, can they subsequently be reconnected or repaired? If yes, how? Here, I consider an ethnographic case of reconnected futurity drawn from French protest politics: the 2009-2010 Ronde Infinie des Obstinés, or "Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn." Opposing Sarkozy-era neoliberal university reform…
Precarity outside
The concept ofprecarityhas lately become prominent in anthropology as a way of theorizing neoliberal labor, affect, and subjectivity. But just what are the politics of this concept? In the context of French higher education and research,précaritéis not only a designator for affect or labor relations. It is also a semiautonomous political concept with a political unconscious. Even as it mobilizes academic unions and makes claims on the French stat…
Two Failures of Left Internationalism
After the unsuccessful end of the spring 2009 French university movement, faculty and student activists searched for new political strategies. One promising option was an internationalist project that sought to unite anti-Bologna Project movements across Europe. Yet an ethnographic study of two international counter-summits in Brussels (March 2010) and Dijon (May 2011) shows that this strategy was unsuccessful. This article explores the causes of…
A Campus Fractured
Through an ethnographic case study of campus politics at a Parisian university, this paper shows that neoliberal university reforms in France failed to create neoliberal subjectivities. Instead, the reforms provoked conflicts between direct and representative democracy, traditions which had organized post-1960s French university culture. These conflicts suggest that we can decenter neoliberalism and instead examine the confluence of multiple mode…
On politics and precarity in academia
The terror of the neoliberal markets and the terror of politics both threaten academic freedom - sometimes subtly, sometimes more openly. In this Forum, we ask our contributors to reflect on the entanglements between economy and politics and how they contribute to the ongoing precaritisation in academia, how they shape individual researchers' biographies and how they influence academic research. But more importantly, beyond analysis, this Forum a…
Sonic patriarchy in a left‐wing French philosophy department
It is a contradiction that patriarchal power and masculine violence continue to endure in academic spaces that are nominally dedicated to liberation and radical critique. How does a left‐wing patriarchy reproduce itself? I propose an exploratory ethnography of a patriarchal drama in France, focusing on administrative meetings in a university philosophy department. Drawing on Rebecca Lentjes’ concept of sonic patriarchy, I propose that an establis…
Sociology (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Politics (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Anthropology (3 works) · Education, sociology, and vocational training (3 works) · Gender Studies (3 works) · Computer Science (2 works) · Cultural Identity and Heritage (2 works)