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Updating Roman Jakobson’s ‘Poetic Function’ with Vector Semantics
Read more: Updating Roman Jakobson’s ‘Poetic Function’ with Vector SemanticsKurzynski discusses how poetry extends beyond sound and rhythm and taps into a deeper network of meanings.
Cultural Cooperation and Intellectual Freedom in “These Anxious and Baffling Times”
By Marek Sroka Seventy-five years ago, Winston Churchill, in what was to become one of the most famous orations of the Cold War, declared that “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has…
Democracy, Workers’ Councils, and Political Thought: What Can We Learn from Events?
When I first grappled with the questions that would in time turn into my Edinburgh University Press book Visions of Council Democracy: Castoriadis, Lefort, Arendt...
Young people and activism
By Niall Nance-Carroll Young people are a coveted demographic in politics, and they are increasingly shaping both the message and the movement of progressives. Far from being the “youth wing” of a larger adult-led activist movement (indeed, one of the…
Spinoza and democracy in peril
By Dan Taylor In October 2020, in the days leading up to the US Presidential Election, over 130 leading historians of fascism signed an open letter. They warned that democracy today is deeply imperilled. It is either ‘withering or in…
Remembering the history of Scottish land reform
By Ewen Cameron I was delighted to publish Freshness, Freedom, and Peace?: Land Settlement in Scotland after the Great War in Northern Scotland, 2nd series, 11.2 (2020), 161–75. This was a special issue arising from a stimulating conference held at…
The world of Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise
By Dan Taylor Baruch Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise, published anonymously in 1670, quickly turned Europe upside-down. Dismissed by one contemporary as a book ‘forged in hell by the Devil himself’, it argued that for societies to endure conflict and flourish, they…
What is Progressive Realism? The ‘other’ Kelsen
by Robert Schuett, Ph.D. When I began working on what would eventually become Hans Kelsen’s Political Realism I wasn’t sure what to expect of this Austrian–American jurist. The only thing I knew for sure was that there’s far more to…
The ACEs Movement in Scotland: policy entrepreneurship and critical activism
By Gary Walsh The purpose of this blog post is to introduce my article about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) ‘movement’ and its influence in Scottish public policy. The paper is included in a special issue, Adverse Childhood Experiences in…
Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the Twenty-First Century
by Ahmet Erdi Öztürk Religion and belief are two of humanity’s oldest identity codes. Identity is intertwined with religion and, with or without it, is an indicator of humanity’s ego, strengths and weaknesses. If we examine it through this lens,…