Critical Arts articles from November 2008

Critical Arts archives from November 2008

Cultural pragmatism and The Life of the Sign.
November 1, 2008... Abstract Wanting to catalyse new approaches to interdisciplinary inquiry and practice within the field of journalism, media, and cultural studies (JMC), Shepperson reconceived interdisciplinary relationships in the light of the highly...

Unfinished business: pragmatics and the paradox of Arnold Shepperson.(Obituary)
November 1, 2008... Abstract The unpublished work of Peirceian philosopher and cultural studies theorist Arnold Shepperson is the subject of this article. A background to the life and work of Shepperson is offered to provide a template against which the...

Safety-culture and the logic of hazard.
November 1, 2008... Abstract South Africans tend to take a neglectful attitude toward hazard in general. This article identifies and qualifies the forms of practical reasoning that make such negligence possible. The research draws on the methods of logical...

Changing society by changing the thinking culture about mining hazard: a review essay on 'safety-culture and the logic of hazard'.(Commentary)
November 1, 2008... Abstract This review essay discusses Shepperson's article in terms of Peirce's pragmaticism, a logical theory that interprets thought in terms of operation and control. Peirce's central proposition is that there is an inseparable...

Realism, logic and social communication: C.S. Peirce's classification of science in communication studies and journalism.
November 1, 2008... Abstract The nature of communication study discourse tends to focus on how to teach it, and often hides its pragmatic origins in the field of inquiry. The article uses C.S. Peirce's philosophical realism to address the needs of...

Development communication and the paradox of choice: imposition and dictatorship in comparing Sami and San Bushmen experiences of cultural autonomy.
November 1, 2008... Abstract This research examines the relevance of Kenneth Arrow's (1951) Impossibility Theorem as a criterion for assessing postmodern critical approaches to development media theories. Comparing two distinct indigenous minorities'...

An economy of impossibility: a preliminary study for an ordinal approach to research methods in cultural studies.
November 1, 2008... Preface This 'Economy of impossibility' article is testament to Arnold Shepperson because it says something about what we have lost. The fact that it is a draft and unfinished precisely helps to pose questions to think about (see also...

The frustration of an unfinished conversation: a review of 'an economy of impossibility'.(Commentary)
November 1, 2008... The task of reviewing another's work is never easy, but it is made more difficult in this instance by three factors. First among these is that the author died before completing this piece and so it cannot be read as a final statement on the...

After the ball is over: commentary on the SAHRC inquiry.
November 1, 2008... At some stage in this I must confront two things. Firstly, Arendt's distinction between 'race thinking' and 'racism'; and secondly, the shift from creationist to evolutionary thinking in the understanding of the marker 'race'. In the latter it...

Realism and racism: a review essay on 'after the ball is over'.(Commentary)
November 1, 2008... This is a challenging and timely article in which Shepperson takes issue with the idealism that is so pervasive in scholarly thinking about race and racism. The discourse about race that emerged from the SAHRC investigation into racism in the...