D Panagia
Biographic Data
| ID | 11174 |
|---|---|
| NAME | D Panagia |
| GIVEN NAMES | D |
| FAMILY NAME | Panagia |
| SIGNATURE | PANAGIA D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Trent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4481-7405 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 124 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Automaticity and the Sentimental Empiricism of William E. Connolly
Sentimental Empiricism: Politics, Philosophy, and Criticism in Postwar France
ChatGPT and the Technical Ontologies of Critical Political Science
The following paper asks what forms of critical political science are possible given the advent of Machine Learning algorithms like ChatGPT? The technical conditions that provoke this question stem from the fact that such automated systems do not generate identities and representations (as do traditional media with which critical political science conventionally contends) but produce instead rendered outputs based on Bayesian probability calculat…
Modern Times: Temporality in Art and Politics
From Schein to Skein: Feminist Criticism After Shell-Shocked
Letter from the Coeditors
On the Possibilities of a Political Theory of Algorithms
This essay asks how we might articulate a political theory of algorithms. To do so, I propose a political ontology of the algorithm dispositif that elaborates how algorithms arrange the movement of energies in space and time, and how they do so automatically. This force of arrangement is what I refer to as the dispositional power of algorithms that I identify as a political physics of vital processes. The essay is divided into three sections. The…
Attending to Film: The World Viewed and Cinematic Political Thinking
Davide Panagia, Attending to Film: The World Viewed and Cinematic Political Thinking, Discourse, Vol. 42, No. 1-2, Cinema, Modernism, and the Perplexing Methods of Stanley Cavell (Winter/Spring 2020), pp. 81-111
On the Political Ontology of theDispositif
The Data Sensorium
Intermedial Relations: A Critique of Reification Theory
Intermedial Relations: A Critique of Reification Theory1 Davide Panagia (bio) The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his situation. —Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiment (I.i.1.3) I begin with an epigraph from Adam Smith in order to make apparent the structuring conceit of this essay, which is…
Cinéma vérité and the Ontology of Cinema: A Response to Roy Germano
In this response I discuss the cinema ontology of Roy Germano’s project of analytic filmmaking. I argue that though the project is at once compelling and ambitious, there are challenges posed by the medium of cinema itself that ultimately undermine Germano’s commitments to indexicality, referentiality, and continuity in political science research
A Theory of Aspects: Media Participation and Political Theory
aim in this essay is to elaborate a mode of political theorizing that is not beholden to the "how do you know?" question of epistemic validation. Rather than focusing on epistemological arguments, I propose that people interested in studying political theory address the partiality of aspects that emerge when engaging works, and the participation of media in the creation of political concepts. Central to my elaborations is the aesthetic notion tha…
Why film matters to political theory
Jacques Rancière: Key Concepts
Although relatively unknown a decade ago, the work of Jacques Rancière is fast becoming a central reference in the humanities and social sciences. His thinking brings a fresh, innovative approach to many fields, notably the study of work, education, politics, literature, film, art, as well as philosophy. This is the first, full-length introduction to Rancière s work and covers the full range of his contribution to contemporary thought, presenting…
The Political Life of Sensation
A work of political theory, this text argues that sensation - the taste of chocolate, the noise of a crowd, the visual impressions of film images - plays a crucial role in political life
Food as Fuel and an Ethics of Appearances
Food as Fuel and an Ethics of Appearancesi Davide Panagia (bio) In An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) Thomas Malthus provides what have become some of the more enduring and defining trajectories that inform political economic reflections on food and politics. Beyond the familiar alarm that the size of the population tends towards a geometric increase whereas food can merely increase arithmetically, Malthus also argues that a society’s…
The improper event: On Jacques Rancière's mannerism
In this essay I examine certain conceptual resources available in the work of Jacques Rancière for those interested in attending to the aesthetic and political complexities of democratic citizenship. I argue that the best way to broach these resources is to consider Rancière's manner of impropriety regarding the forces of unity and disunity that comprise democracy's insurgence, as well as his account of the phenomenality of democratic life and th…
“You’re Eating Too Fast!” On Disequality and an Ethos of Convivium
One of the most powerful of all political gestures is an aesthetic one: the divisions of the senses that determine what counts as a legitimate political claim. Accompanying such gestures are assumptions about the correspondences between a sense organ, acts of perception and the making of sense. This essay explores these aesthetico‐political concerns by asking the following question: is there a taste for politics? I begin by examining the mouth as…
The Poetics of Political Thinking
In The Poetics of Political Thinking Davide Panagia focuses on the role that aesthetic sensibilities play in theorists’ evaluations of political arguments. Examining works by thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Jacques Rancière, Panagia shows how each one invokes aesthetic concepts and devices, such as metaphor, mimesis, imagination, beauty, and the sublime. He argues that it is important to recognize and acknowledge these poetic forms of representati…
The Shape of the Signifier or, The Ontology of Argument
The Shape of the Signifier or, The Ontology of Argument Davide Panagia (bio) Agamben, Butler, Deleuze, de Man, Derrida, Fukuyama, Hardt, Negri, Rorty, and Zizek. If you’ve ever considered endorsing any of these thinkers’ views, you might want to read Walter Benn Michaels’ latest challenge to contemporary theory and criticism, The Shape of the Signifier (Princeton, 2004). For those unfamiliar with Michaels’ writings, he is the one who (with Steven…
The Force of Political Argument
In this essay, the author examines the tensions that emerge between the practice of essay writing and a commitment to philosophical justification as themodel for political argument in contemporary political thought. He focuses on Jürgen Habermas’s adoption of the performative contradiction as an ideal for communicative exchange and shows the unacknowledged role that sincerity plays in Habermas’s argument. He then links this account to his explora…
Thinking with and against 'Ten Theses
Thinking with and against ‘Ten Theses’ Davide Panagia (bio) The “Symposium on Jacques Rancière’s ‘Ten Theses on Politics’” was held on October 19th, 2001 at UCLA’s Center for Modern and Contemporary Studies.[1] As the reader will notice, the events of the previous months were on the minds of all those present and they played an important role in the conversation that took place on that day. In the “Ten Theses on Politics”[2] Rancière attempts a r…
Delicate Discriminations: Thomas Hobbes's Science of Politics
In the following, I argue that the Cold War image of Hobbes that presents him as a proponent of a state-centered conception of political power is misguided: it overlooks the aesthetic dimensions of 'representation' (a term that Hobbes infamously introduces in Leviathan, Chapter XVI) that, for someone writing in the seventeenth century, could not be distinguished from an account of 'political representation.' By focusing on Hobbes's scientific exp…
Words Cloth'd in Reason's Garb: Stanley Fish's Aesthetics and Politics
Dissenting Words: A Conversation with Jacques Rancière
In your writings you highlight the political efficacy of words. In The Names of History, for instance, this emphasis is discussed most vividly in terms of what you refer to as an "excess of words" that marks the rise of democratic movements in the seventeenth century. Similarly, in On The Shores of Politics, you begin your discussion with an excursus on the end of politics as the end of the promise. Finally, in Dis-agreement you speak of "the par…
On the Possibilities of a Political Theory of Algorithms
This essay asks how we might articulate a political theory of algorithms. To do so, I propose a political ontology of the algorithm dispositif that elaborates how algorithms arrange the movement of energies in space and time, and how they do so automatically. This force of arrangement is what I refer to as the dispositional power of algorithms that I identify as a political physics of vital processes. The essay is divided into three sections. The…
The improper event: On Jacques Rancière's mannerism
In this essay I examine certain conceptual resources available in the work of Jacques Rancière for those interested in attending to the aesthetic and political complexities of democratic citizenship. I argue that the best way to broach these resources is to consider Rancière's manner of impropriety regarding the forces of unity and disunity that comprise democracy's insurgence, as well as his account of the phenomenality of democratic life and th…
On the Political Ontology of theDispositif
Why film matters to political theory
The predicative function in ideology: On the political uses of analogical reasoning in contemporary political thought
The role of ideology as a mode of political thinking continues to be treated with great scepticism by many contemporary political theorists. I begin with the assumption that ideologies play a productive role in political life and suggest that, along with possessing an unstable morphological arrangement, ideologies also possess a predicative function that allows them to operate. As an example of this, I turn to the function of analogical reasoning…
The Force of Political Argument
In this essay, the author examines the tensions that emerge between the practice of essay writing and a commitment to philosophical justification as themodel for political argument in contemporary political thought. He focuses on Jürgen Habermas’s adoption of the performative contradiction as an ideal for communicative exchange and shows the unacknowledged role that sincerity plays in Habermas’s argument. He then links this account to his explora…
Delicate Discriminations: Thomas Hobbes's Science of Politics
In the following, I argue that the Cold War image of Hobbes that presents him as a proponent of a state-centered conception of political power is misguided: it overlooks the aesthetic dimensions of 'representation' (a term that Hobbes infamously introduces in Leviathan, Chapter XVI) that, for someone writing in the seventeenth century, could not be distinguished from an account of 'political representation.' By focusing on Hobbes's scientific exp…
Intermedial Relations: A Critique of Reification Theory
Intermedial Relations: A Critique of Reification Theory1 Davide Panagia (bio) The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his situation. —Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiment (I.i.1.3) I begin with an epigraph from Adam Smith in order to make apparent the structuring conceit of this essay, which is…
A Theory of Aspects: Media Participation and Political Theory
aim in this essay is to elaborate a mode of political theorizing that is not beholden to the "how do you know?" question of epistemic validation. Rather than focusing on epistemological arguments, I propose that people interested in studying political theory address the partiality of aspects that emerge when engaging works, and the participation of media in the creation of political concepts. Central to my elaborations is the aesthetic notion tha…
Words Cloth'd in Reason's Garb: Stanley Fish's Aesthetics and Politics
Dissenting Words: A Conversation with Jacques Rancière
In your writings you highlight the political efficacy of words. In The Names of History, for instance, this emphasis is discussed most vividly in terms of what you refer to as an "excess of words" that marks the rise of democratic movements in the seventeenth century. Similarly, in On The Shores of Politics, you begin your discussion with an excursus on the end of politics as the end of the promise. Finally, in Dis-agreement you speak of "the par…
Ceci n'est pas un argument: An Introduction to the Ten Theses
Ceci n’est pas un argument: An Introduction to the Ten Theses Davide Panagia (bio) The Ten Theses on Politics[1] is not an argument about politics if, by argument, one intends a philosophical justification of the nature of the political. It is, rather, a series of considerations on political thinking that parallel Rancière’s inquiry, in Dis-agreement, into “the set of reflective operations whereby ‘political philosophy’ tries to rid itself of pol…
Ten Theses on Politics
Theory & Event - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2001
The predicative function in ideology: On the political uses of analogical reasoning in contemporary political thought
The role of ideology as a mode of political thinking continues to be treated with great scepticism by many contemporary political theorists. I begin with the assumption that ideologies play a productive role in political life and suggest that, along with possessing an unstable morphological arrangement, ideologies also possess a predicative function that allows them to operate. As an example of this, I turn to the function of analogical reasoning…
Thinking with and against 'Ten Theses
Thinking with and against ‘Ten Theses’ Davide Panagia (bio) The “Symposium on Jacques Rancière’s ‘Ten Theses on Politics’” was held on October 19th, 2001 at UCLA’s Center for Modern and Contemporary Studies.[1] As the reader will notice, the events of the previous months were on the minds of all those present and they played an important role in the conversation that took place on that day. In the “Ten Theses on Politics”[2] Rancière attempts a r…
Delicate Discriminations: Thomas Hobbes's Science of Politics
In the following, I argue that the Cold War image of Hobbes that presents him as a proponent of a state-centered conception of political power is misguided: it overlooks the aesthetic dimensions of 'representation' (a term that Hobbes infamously introduces in Leviathan, Chapter XVI) that, for someone writing in the seventeenth century, could not be distinguished from an account of 'political representation.' By focusing on Hobbes's scientific exp…
Words Cloth'd in Reason's Garb: Stanley Fish's Aesthetics and Politics
The Force of Political Argument
In this essay, the author examines the tensions that emerge between the practice of essay writing and a commitment to philosophical justification as themodel for political argument in contemporary political thought. He focuses on Jürgen Habermas’s adoption of the performative contradiction as an ideal for communicative exchange and shows the unacknowledged role that sincerity plays in Habermas’s argument. He then links this account to his explora…
The Shape of the Signifier or, The Ontology of Argument
The Shape of the Signifier or, The Ontology of Argument Davide Panagia (bio) Agamben, Butler, Deleuze, de Man, Derrida, Fukuyama, Hardt, Negri, Rorty, and Zizek. If you’ve ever considered endorsing any of these thinkers’ views, you might want to read Walter Benn Michaels’ latest challenge to contemporary theory and criticism, The Shape of the Signifier (Princeton, 2004). For those unfamiliar with Michaels’ writings, he is the one who (with Steven…
The Poetics of Political Thinking
In The Poetics of Political Thinking Davide Panagia focuses on the role that aesthetic sensibilities play in theorists’ evaluations of political arguments. Examining works by thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Jacques Rancière, Panagia shows how each one invokes aesthetic concepts and devices, such as metaphor, mimesis, imagination, beauty, and the sublime. He argues that it is important to recognize and acknowledge these poetic forms of representati…
“You’re Eating Too Fast!” On Disequality and an Ethos of Convivium
One of the most powerful of all political gestures is an aesthetic one: the divisions of the senses that determine what counts as a legitimate political claim. Accompanying such gestures are assumptions about the correspondences between a sense organ, acts of perception and the making of sense. This essay explores these aesthetico‐political concerns by asking the following question: is there a taste for politics? I begin by examining the mouth as…
The Political Life of Sensation
A work of political theory, this text argues that sensation - the taste of chocolate, the noise of a crowd, the visual impressions of film images - plays a crucial role in political life
Food as Fuel and an Ethics of Appearances
Food as Fuel and an Ethics of Appearancesi Davide Panagia (bio) In An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) Thomas Malthus provides what have become some of the more enduring and defining trajectories that inform political economic reflections on food and politics. Beyond the familiar alarm that the size of the population tends towards a geometric increase whereas food can merely increase arithmetically, Malthus also argues that a society’s…
The improper event: On Jacques Rancière's mannerism
In this essay I examine certain conceptual resources available in the work of Jacques Rancière for those interested in attending to the aesthetic and political complexities of democratic citizenship. I argue that the best way to broach these resources is to consider Rancière's manner of impropriety regarding the forces of unity and disunity that comprise democracy's insurgence, as well as his account of the phenomenality of democratic life and th…
Jacques Rancière: Key Concepts
Although relatively unknown a decade ago, the work of Jacques Rancière is fast becoming a central reference in the humanities and social sciences. His thinking brings a fresh, innovative approach to many fields, notably the study of work, education, politics, literature, film, art, as well as philosophy. This is the first, full-length introduction to Rancière s work and covers the full range of his contribution to contemporary thought, presenting…
Why film matters to political theory
Cinéma vérité and the Ontology of Cinema: A Response to Roy Germano
In this response I discuss the cinema ontology of Roy Germano’s project of analytic filmmaking. I argue that though the project is at once compelling and ambitious, there are challenges posed by the medium of cinema itself that ultimately undermine Germano’s commitments to indexicality, referentiality, and continuity in political science research
A Theory of Aspects: Media Participation and Political Theory
aim in this essay is to elaborate a mode of political theorizing that is not beholden to the "how do you know?" question of epistemic validation. Rather than focusing on epistemological arguments, I propose that people interested in studying political theory address the partiality of aspects that emerge when engaging works, and the participation of media in the creation of political concepts. Central to my elaborations is the aesthetic notion tha…
Intermedial Relations: A Critique of Reification Theory
Intermedial Relations: A Critique of Reification Theory1 Davide Panagia (bio) The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his situation. —Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiment (I.i.1.3) I begin with an epigraph from Adam Smith in order to make apparent the structuring conceit of this essay, which is…
The Data Sensorium
On the Political Ontology of theDispositif
Attending to Film: The World Viewed and Cinematic Political Thinking
Davide Panagia, Attending to Film: The World Viewed and Cinematic Political Thinking, Discourse, Vol. 42, No. 1-2, Cinema, Modernism, and the Perplexing Methods of Stanley Cavell (Winter/Spring 2020), pp. 81-111
On the Possibilities of a Political Theory of Algorithms
This essay asks how we might articulate a political theory of algorithms. To do so, I propose a political ontology of the algorithm dispositif that elaborates how algorithms arrange the movement of energies in space and time, and how they do so automatically. This force of arrangement is what I refer to as the dispositional power of algorithms that I identify as a political physics of vital processes. The essay is divided into three sections. The…
From Schein to Skein: Feminist Criticism After Shell-Shocked
Letter from the Coeditors
Philosophy (25 works) · Epistemology (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Politics (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Law (12 works) · Critical Theory and Political Philosophy (10 works) · Art (9 works)