Jon Simons
Biographic Data
| ID | 3721179 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jon Simons |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jon |
| FAMILY NAME | Simons |
| SIGNATURE | SIMONS J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4624-4989 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Divine Violence, Profane Peace
This essay contributes to the Judaic conceptualization of peace by bringing Walter Benjamin's essay "Critique of Violence" into conversation with the nonviolent practice of the Israeli NGO, Rabbis for Human Rights. It analyzes critically Benjamin's critique of liberal peace and legal instrumentality by questioning his distinction between pure, divine violence and instrumental violence by focusing on the story of Korah's rebellion. Moving to Benja…
Divine Violence, Profane Peace
Introduction: Disaffection with Peace In this article I make a case for a Judaic conception of peace, derived from the work of Walter Benjamin, that might play a modest role in building Israeli–Palestinian peace. There is a need for Judaic notions of peace to counter significant disaffection with “peace” among Jewish Israelis.1 “Peace” is most often associated with a binding negotiated agreement, or the “peace process.” When the Camp David negoti…
Normalization of war
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Fields and Facebook
Israeli peace activism has increasingly taken place on new media, as in the case of the grassroots anti-Occupation group, Ta’ayush . What is the significance of Ta’ayush ’s work on the ground and online for peace? This article considers the former in the light of social movement scholarship on peacebuilding, and the latter in light of new media scholarship on social movements. Each of those approaches suggest that Ta’ayush has very limited succes…
Foucault and power
Benjamin’s communist idea
Recent interest in communism as an idea prompts reconsideration of Walter Benjamin’s conception of a “communist” aesthetic politics. In spite of Benjamin’s categorical condemnation of aestheticized politics, his “artwork essay” is better read as both explicit condemnation of a particular (regressive fascist) type of aestheticized politics and implicit commendation of another (progressive communist) type. Under the modern conditions of the technol…
Laclau, Ernesto (1935)
Ernesto Laclau is an Argentinian-born political theorist whose main contributions are in the fields of discourse theory, radical democracy, and populism. His key insight is that social order is a discourse, meaning a symbolic system structured analogously to language, as understood in poststructuralist terms. Discourse refers to the practices and meanings that constitute social order as an effect of the differences between social elements (classe…
Power, Resistance, and Freedom
This chapter first outlines some of Foucault' s conceptualizations of forms of power, focusing on discipline and biopower. The first section explores the extent to which Foucault understood modern power relations to be constraining limits, inhospitable to freedom. The second section focuses on some of Foucault's general conceptualizations rather than specific historical analyses of power and resistance. The third section follows Foucault's concep…
Unstable Universalities
This work examines the theme of universality and its place in radical political theory. Newman argues that both Marxist politics of class struggle and the postmodern politics of difference have reached their historical and political limits, and that what is needed is a new approach to universality.
Unstable Universalities
From Agamben to Zizek
Aestheticisation of Politics
The “aestheticisation of politics”, a term coined by Walter Benjamin, refers to a critique of various modes of politics considered to be irrational in leftist, critical theory. The critique ties aestheticised politics to fascism and capitalism, thereby precluding the conceptual possibility of a radical democratic aesthetic politics. This paper challenges that position first by working through Wolfgang Welsch’s semantic clarification of the term “…
Contemporary Critical Theorists
This authoritative guide introduces the key figures in contemporary critical theory for the beginning student. The critical theory covered in the volume includes: semiotics and discourse analysis; structuralism and post-structuralism; ideology critique; deconstruction; feminism; queer theory; psychoanalysis; postcolonialism; postmodernism; and the descendents of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. There are individual chapters on: Lacan; Althusser;…
Democracy is a Failure Worthy of Infinite Repetition
This paper argues that democracy is universalisable as a theory and practice that fails to be identical with itself. Firstly, the paradox that democracy's universality can be put into practice only in particular terms and contexts is discussed. Then four models of democratic universality are presented and assessed: (i) empirical or actual universality; (ii) hybrid universality; (iii) cosmopolitan universality; (iv) impossible universality. The fi…
Knowing and Doing, Skepticism and Coherence
Critique de l'argument epistemologique developpe par L. Zerilli dans son article sur la politique feministe (1998), selon lequel le debat contemporain sur le genre reste prisonnier du scepticisme epistemique traditionnel. Rejetant le fondationnalisme de Zerilli, l'A. denonce la disjonction entre action et connaissance qui determine sa theorie feministe. En reponse, L. Zerilli oppose a la theorie de la correspondance de J. Simons sa propre concept…
Ideology, imagology, and critical thought
The shift from ideological politics to politics dominated by the media is characterized by Kundera as the rise of imagology. In Habermas's terms, imagology contributes to the systematic distortion of communication and impoverishes politics by undermining critical public reasoning. His view is shared by much recent research on the media and political communication. Deliberative democracy is proposed by Habermas and others as an antidote to imagolo…
Postmodern paranoia? Pynchon and Jameson
The Dialectics of Diana as Empty Signifier
Theory & Event - Volume 1, Issue 4, 1997
Foucault & the political
The Exile of Political Theory
A sense of distance or exile is a recurrent theme of the literature in which the state of the political theory is either lamented or acclaimed. A review of these tales suggests that implicit definitions of the homeland of the sub-discipline as philosophical, practical or interpretive are inadequate, leading to mistaken diagnoses of the reasons for the ills or recovery of political philosophy. This paper argues that political theory has been exile…
Embodying Spirits of Resistance
There are revolutionary moments of politics that can be most appropriately described as spiritual moments. These are the moments when people are willing to risk their lives while resisting oppressive power. In this paper we address spirits of resistance in a general way, but also as manifested at particular moments in three contemporary resistance movements in England, India, and Palestine. Our intention is not to explain such moments, not to ana…
Rationalities of Government and Peace
From Resistance to Polaesthics
Embodying Spirits of Resistance
There are revolutionary moments of politics that can be most appropriately described as spiritual moments. These are the moments when people are willing to risk their lives while resisting oppressive power. In this paper we address spirits of resistance in a general way, but also as manifested at particular moments in three contemporary resistance movements in England, India, and Palestine. Our intention is not to explain such moments, not to ana…
Foucault and power
Ideology, imagology, and critical thought
The shift from ideological politics to politics dominated by the media is characterized by Kundera as the rise of imagology. In Habermas's terms, imagology contributes to the systematic distortion of communication and impoverishes politics by undermining critical public reasoning. His view is shared by much recent research on the media and political communication. Deliberative democracy is proposed by Habermas and others as an antidote to imagolo…
The Exile of Political Theory
A sense of distance or exile is a recurrent theme of the literature in which the state of the political theory is either lamented or acclaimed. A review of these tales suggests that implicit definitions of the homeland of the sub-discipline as philosophical, practical or interpretive are inadequate, leading to mistaken diagnoses of the reasons for the ills or recovery of political philosophy. This paper argues that political theory has been exile…
Normalization of war
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Rationalities of Government and Peace
Rationalities of Government and Peace
From Resistance to Polaesthics
Foucault & the political
The Exile of Political Theory
A sense of distance or exile is a recurrent theme of the literature in which the state of the political theory is either lamented or acclaimed. A review of these tales suggests that implicit definitions of the homeland of the sub-discipline as philosophical, practical or interpretive are inadequate, leading to mistaken diagnoses of the reasons for the ills or recovery of political philosophy. This paper argues that political theory has been exile…
Embodying Spirits of Resistance
There are revolutionary moments of politics that can be most appropriately described as spiritual moments. These are the moments when people are willing to risk their lives while resisting oppressive power. In this paper we address spirits of resistance in a general way, but also as manifested at particular moments in three contemporary resistance movements in England, India, and Palestine. Our intention is not to explain such moments, not to ana…
The Dialectics of Diana as Empty Signifier
Theory & Event - Volume 1, Issue 4, 1997
Knowing and Doing, Skepticism and Coherence
Critique de l'argument epistemologique developpe par L. Zerilli dans son article sur la politique feministe (1998), selon lequel le debat contemporain sur le genre reste prisonnier du scepticisme epistemique traditionnel. Rejetant le fondationnalisme de Zerilli, l'A. denonce la disjonction entre action et connaissance qui determine sa theorie feministe. En reponse, L. Zerilli oppose a la theorie de la correspondance de J. Simons sa propre concept…
Ideology, imagology, and critical thought
The shift from ideological politics to politics dominated by the media is characterized by Kundera as the rise of imagology. In Habermas's terms, imagology contributes to the systematic distortion of communication and impoverishes politics by undermining critical public reasoning. His view is shared by much recent research on the media and political communication. Deliberative democracy is proposed by Habermas and others as an antidote to imagolo…
Postmodern paranoia? Pynchon and Jameson
Democracy is a Failure Worthy of Infinite Repetition
This paper argues that democracy is universalisable as a theory and practice that fails to be identical with itself. Firstly, the paradox that democracy's universality can be put into practice only in particular terms and contexts is discussed. Then four models of democratic universality are presented and assessed: (i) empirical or actual universality; (ii) hybrid universality; (iii) cosmopolitan universality; (iv) impossible universality. The fi…
Contemporary Critical Theorists
This authoritative guide introduces the key figures in contemporary critical theory for the beginning student. The critical theory covered in the volume includes: semiotics and discourse analysis; structuralism and post-structuralism; ideology critique; deconstruction; feminism; queer theory; psychoanalysis; postcolonialism; postmodernism; and the descendents of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. There are individual chapters on: Lacan; Althusser;…
Aestheticisation of Politics
The “aestheticisation of politics”, a term coined by Walter Benjamin, refers to a critique of various modes of politics considered to be irrational in leftist, critical theory. The critique ties aestheticised politics to fascism and capitalism, thereby precluding the conceptual possibility of a radical democratic aesthetic politics. This paper challenges that position first by working through Wolfgang Welsch’s semantic clarification of the term “…
From Agamben to Zizek
Unstable Universalities
This work examines the theme of universality and its place in radical political theory. Newman argues that both Marxist politics of class struggle and the postmodern politics of difference have reached their historical and political limits, and that what is needed is a new approach to universality.
Unstable Universalities
Power, Resistance, and Freedom
This chapter first outlines some of Foucault' s conceptualizations of forms of power, focusing on discipline and biopower. The first section explores the extent to which Foucault understood modern power relations to be constraining limits, inhospitable to freedom. The second section focuses on some of Foucault's general conceptualizations rather than specific historical analyses of power and resistance. The third section follows Foucault's concep…
Benjamin’s communist idea
Recent interest in communism as an idea prompts reconsideration of Walter Benjamin’s conception of a “communist” aesthetic politics. In spite of Benjamin’s categorical condemnation of aestheticized politics, his “artwork essay” is better read as both explicit condemnation of a particular (regressive fascist) type of aestheticized politics and implicit commendation of another (progressive communist) type. Under the modern conditions of the technol…
Laclau, Ernesto (1935)
Ernesto Laclau is an Argentinian-born political theorist whose main contributions are in the fields of discourse theory, radical democracy, and populism. His key insight is that social order is a discourse, meaning a symbolic system structured analogously to language, as understood in poststructuralist terms. Discourse refers to the practices and meanings that constitute social order as an effect of the differences between social elements (classe…
Foucault and power
Fields and Facebook
Israeli peace activism has increasingly taken place on new media, as in the case of the grassroots anti-Occupation group, Ta’ayush . What is the significance of Ta’ayush ’s work on the ground and online for peace? This article considers the former in the light of social movement scholarship on peacebuilding, and the latter in light of new media scholarship on social movements. Each of those approaches suggest that Ta’ayush has very limited succes…
Normalization of war
Preview this article: Normalization of war: The photographer’s cut, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/eme/17/4/eme.17.4.479-1.gif
Divine Violence, Profane Peace
Introduction: Disaffection with Peace In this article I make a case for a Judaic conception of peace, derived from the work of Walter Benjamin, that might play a modest role in building Israeli–Palestinian peace. There is a need for Judaic notions of peace to counter significant disaffection with “peace” among Jewish Israelis.1 “Peace” is most often associated with a binding negotiated agreement, or the “peace process.” When the Camp David negoti…
Divine Violence, Profane Peace
This essay contributes to the Judaic conceptualization of peace by bringing Walter Benjamin's essay "Critique of Violence" into conversation with the nonviolent practice of the Israeli NGO, Rabbis for Human Rights. It analyzes critically Benjamin's critique of liberal peace and legal instrumentality by questioning his distinction between pure, divine violence and instrumental violence by focusing on the story of Korah's rebellion. Moving to Benja…
Philosophy (17 works) · Political science (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Law (9 works) · Democracy (5 works) · Foucault, Power, and Ethics (5 works)