Papers by William Pawlett
View related articles View Crossmark data power that a renewed ethical element could exercise in ... more View related articles View Crossmark data power that a renewed ethical element could exercise in the present, it is hard not to think, for example, of the interrogations which Patočka was subjected to by the Czechoslovak secret police a few days before he died. During one of them, when asked why he decided to write articles about Charter 77, Patočka answered that he did it because he wanted to give this newborn form of dissidence a precise ethical and philosophical character that, according to him, it really needed. 10 This is probably the best representation of a living philosophical practice, open to risk and sacrifice, and also a hint towards a new understanding of evil and power, aimed at interpreting their most recent modifications. The greatest merit of Forti's book consists in having identified the importance of the work and of the action of Eastern European dissident philosophers, and especially Patočka, in light of European ethical and political reflection. Nonetheless, the complex maze of ideas which stands between East and West, between dissident action and moral insight, inevitably remains largely uncharted. In this sense this work might be also considered as a fundamental reference point, in view of further investigations.
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 2007
Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture
Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture
Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture
Economy and Society, 1997
Page 1. Utility and excess: the radical sociology of Bataille and Baudrillard William Pawlett Abs... more Page 1. Utility and excess: the radical sociology of Bataille and Baudrillard William Pawlett Abstract This paper consists of three sections. ... The second section will introduce another, radical sociological lineage extending from Nietzsche through Bataille and on to Baudrillard. ...
Journal for Cultural Research, 2017
This paper reexamines the long-established notion of 'media events' by contrasting and critically... more This paper reexamines the long-established notion of 'media events' by contrasting and critically appraising three distinct approaches to the question of media events. These are: ritual theory associated with Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, secondly, Jean Baudrillard's approach rooted in his notions of simulation and 'non-events' and, finally, the more recent performative approaches to media and mediation. I take Sarah Kember and Joanna Zylinska's reading of media events presented in Life After New Media (2012) as exemplary of the performative approach. An argument is made that the accounts of media events offered by performative approaches add very little, and, indeed, lack the critical insightfulness of the earlier approaches. Both ritual theory and Baudrillard's thought are briefly reappraised and, against Nick Couldry, I try to show that these accounts are not characterised by binary and reductive thinking. The major misunderstandings concern the nature of the sacred and profane dualism and the further dualisms developed in Baudrillard's thought, particularly the figures of implosion and reversibility. Finally, Baudrillard's position on technology is addressed and the paper concludes with the suggestion that his account is not solely negative, since 2 technological developments are not only at the mercy of ironic reversals they may also enable new rituals of disappearance.
This article examines the notions of left and right poles of Georges Bataille’s sacredness and al... more This article examines the notions of left and right poles of Georges Bataille’s sacredness and also analyses their complexity and ambiguous meaning of duality and binary’s contexts through a prism they are usually viewed. Particularly, key factors that influence Bataille’s thought of sacredness are being analysed, the criticism of wrong notion of sacredness interpretation by modern philosophers is being formed. Based on challenging positions of sacred and profane’s binary opposition and also revealing volatile and random movements between pure and impure sacredness and between sacred and profane, Bataille’s philosophy actuality is being proved. Despite wide researches held in this field Bataille’s philosophy potential is still not fully revealed in relation to modern cultural and social researches of religion and philosophical anthropology.
This thesis explores the 'theories of Bataille and Baudrillard' in relation to the proble... more This thesis explores the 'theories of Bataille and Baudrillard' in relation to the problem of extreme violence. The particular events of concern are the death of James Bulger, the Dunblane massacre and the 'serial killers' Frederick and Rosemary West. The thesis argues that dominant traditions in the social sciences are unable to engage with the horror of such events with anything approaching adequate terminology and that alternatives are urgently required. The study is theoretical not empirical and these cases act as crucial reference points throughout the theoretical discussions. Such events seem to disable reason and are frequently referred to as 'inexplicable' or 'evil'. They appear to be 'in excess' of the established explanatory paradigms. The thesis investigates the possibility of 'thinking excess' in new and alternative ways, more commensurate with the intensity of such events. The importance of Bataille notions of the sacred, ...
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Papers by William Pawlett
July 23rd 2020