Published Articles by Jonathan Morgan
Religious Theory, 2019
In this paper I argue that a reimagining of the notion of silence as more than a sonic phenomenon... more In this paper I argue that a reimagining of the notion of silence as more than a sonic phenomenon is needed to address the dominant structural apparati of Western discourse. Silence as an existential medium is where the Foucauldian apparatuses that power the status-quo of the world operate. They forge connections between things like ideology and social organization where one falls into the wake of the other and is shaped in a way that is nearly invisible to the passing glance. It is the indeterminacy within silence as explored by John Cage that that allows this to happen, but it also offers the potential to have an active role in the shaping of these apparatuses toward a more beneficial and culturally aware form of society. This new approach is crucial in helping one learn to embrace the indeterminacy of life and the hazy relational structures that drive our existence.
The New Polis, 2018
This paper challenges the notion that the only way to progress to a post-capitalist society is th... more This paper challenges the notion that the only way to progress to a post-capitalist society is through the wholesale destruction of the capitalist economic system. Instead, I argue that Craft —an existential state and praxis informed by the creation and maintenance of objects of utility—is uniquely situated to effectively reclaim these systems due to its its focus on materiality over abstraction and its unique position as a socially aware form of praxis. This argument focuses not on competition, but on hyper-abstraction as the key driver of capitalist exploitation and its most glaring ethical flaw. Karl Marx's work on commodity fetishism is key to understanding this misguided form of abstraction which displaces commodities so far from their functional form that they feed into what Martin Heidegger termed gestell , or enframing. Postmodern attempts to destabilize capitalist influence in the fine arts, like the de-objectification of the 1960s described by Ursula Meyer, often fell victim to the same fetishistic mindset and simply increased the hold of capitalism within the arts. The enframing worldview that Heidegger warns us about is fed by hyper-abstraction, and while he directly offers up art as the remedy to this situation via poiēsis , key moments in his writings on the related notion of geschick support this new notion of Craft , rather than the fine arts, as a more capable system for the rehabilitation of modern society.
Conference Presentations by Jonathan Morgan
In this paper I will argue that applying Slavoj Žižek’s insights on misrecognition as a cultural ... more In this paper I will argue that applying Slavoj Žižek’s insights on misrecognition as a cultural driver to the theories of Judith Butler and Donna Haraway illustrates the depth and importance of their work as studies in ideological discourse and the illusionistic quality of human nature as a concept. Both gender and human nature are revealed as a posteriori ideologies fueled by a Lacanian misrecognition that Žižek argues lies at the heart of modern human subjectivity. This is fueled by the comfort and simplicity of an essentialist worldview. From these connections a web of intertextuality is developed that reinforces Haraway’s notion of situated knowledge and its value in arriving at any sort of meaningful critique of human culture by analyzing tacitly repressed possibilities within any system of knowledge.
In this paper I will demonstrate how key Western thinkers have inadvertently perpetuated the Plat... more In this paper I will demonstrate how key Western thinkers have inadvertently perpetuated the Platonic promotion of Pure Form as the focal point of their philosophical contributions which appear to focus on the Other or Otherness in its various forms, but only superficially. This hinges on the use of Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection being extended from the realm of the body to that of the conceptual where the entirety of materiality becomes the target of said abjection via fear. Without a clear awareness of our own tendency towards abjection and our epistemic conditioning to fear Otherness and the hybridity of existence, genuinely new insights and meaningful connection with the world we live in remains an impossible dream.
This paper attempts to develop an ethico-aesthetic framework for enriching one's life and ethical... more This paper attempts to develop an ethico-aesthetic framework for enriching one's life and ethical outlook. Drawing primarily from Nietzsche, Foucault, and Heidegger, an argument is made that Heidegger's understanding of this issue was mistaken. The ontological crisis of modernity is not the overt influence of mathematics as a worldview over poetics and more traditionally aesthetic approaches. It is the rampant mis-and over-application of abstraction within one's view of the world while denying the material realities of life as we live it. This runaway abstractive worldview leads to the misapplication of mathematics and other sciences which in turn facilitate the dehumanization of life and those within it. When we try to solve the real problems of our material human lives through overly abstractive means, then we arrive at inauthentic arguments that fuel popular disdain for philosophy as irrelevant and nothing more than the purview of the elite. The goal is a recalibration of the argument toward addressing the denial of materiality within Modernism.
Most see having their individuality stifled as equivalent to the terrible forced conformity found... more Most see having their individuality stifled as equivalent to the terrible forced conformity found within speculative fiction like George Orwell's 1984. However, the oppression of others by those in power has often been justified through ideologies of individualism. If we look to animistic traditions, could we bridge the gap between these extremes? What effect would such a reevaluation of identity have on the modern understanding of selfhood? The term ' in dividual' suggests an irreducible unit of identity carried underneath all of our titles and experiences—the real self. By linking Marilyn Strathern's elaboration of dividualism and Nurit Bird-David's relational epistemology , a clear contrast forms between the animistic sense of self and that of the West. This system of selfhood more readily encourages a life lived in Henri Bergson's sense of duration and sets up a state of dialogical discourse , as seen in Mikhail Bakhtin's work. These concepts challenge the traditional praise for individuality and exposes how individualism can be used as a tool of marginalization as seen in Michel Foucault's critique of authorship. I argue that pursuing a sense of self rooted in these concepts instead of individualism mitigates this marginalization via a more socially aware cultural environment that the traditional Western sense of self fails to create.
Papers by Jonathan Morgan
Combining Process Philosophy and an ontological reading of Marxism, this work argues for a proces... more Combining Process Philosophy and an ontological reading of Marxism, this work argues for a process-based approach to craft theory focussing on practice as a source of genuine insight into the tacit and most crucial aspects of craft experience. Three strong lines of inquiry dominate craft theory: object-centric categorical definitions of craft, socio-economic labor theories of craft, and the nostalgic romanticization of craft as a forgotten source of harmony for the self and society. Many of these are predicated on fine art aesthetic theory where craft is a subservient mode of art. My research seeks a more dynamic and widely applicable conception of craft identified as craft-praxis. This model treats the craft experience as an ontological discourse where the self as a Whiteheadian event of Being is involved in an intimate polyphonic relationship with the material functions of reality. When inhabited directly, the act of genuinely practicing a craft opens up a distinct mode of Being with clear and demonstrable benefits for the craftsperson and their community. This stems from the Decentralized Entropic Ontology of craft-praxis. Due to the tacit nature of craft knowledge, a supplemental methodological structure drawing from Bogost’s Object-Oriented Ontology, Dennett’s Philosophy and Mind, and Analytic Phenomenology will be used to unpack the craft theories of Dormer, Sennett, Risatti, Adamson, and Langlands along with the lived experiences of working craftspeople. Though craft practice is naturally resistant to theoretical inquiry, this methodology will allow us ‘trace the edges’ and create a cartographic metaphor for the unique mode of Being it contains.
Initial annotated bibliography for my in-progress dissertation, "Craft-Praxis: The Cartography of... more Initial annotated bibliography for my in-progress dissertation, "Craft-Praxis: The Cartography of the Craft Experience."
In this paper I argue that Brian Massumi's interpretation of Process Philosophy introduces a fund... more In this paper I argue that Brian Massumi's interpretation of Process Philosophy introduces a fundamental shift away from traditional notions of unity toward a new understanding of lived continuity. As an ontology, Massumi's work is exceptional in how well it taps into real ethical and socio-political concerns. It offers a new methodology for living one's life in a heavily interconnected world. This adds new value to Jacques Rancière's notion of the aesthetic regime through Jean-Luc Nancy's revaluation of both Marxist transformation and Heideggerian worldliness, thus revealing Rancière's work as an elaborated version of Massumi's event-based Activist Philosophy. Massumi's work introduces a point of dissensus needed to embrace the notion of paradox called for within Ranciere's ideas. We see a similar point of paradox via dissensus in Nancy's argument that thought and praxis are one in the same when viewed from the point of semblance and sense. The result is a delightfully difficult and tangled sense of Being with real life applications and benefits for the people and organizations that embrace it.
In this paper I argue that the elitism of idealization inherent in Western aesthetic discourse ha... more In this paper I argue that the elitism of idealization inherent in Western aesthetic discourse has been overlooked via the equating of art and freedom and the Ideal as appropriated from the Hellenic world. Through a selective reading of Greek culture, the rejection of materiality, and the presentation of Hellenic aesthetics as innately sublime and superior to all others, a system of intellectual discrimination and bias has developed that favors the abstract over the material and the Ideal over the empirical. The Platonic mistruct of the human body has tacitly guided aesthetic theory for millennia in the West by encouraging the dismissal of non-Hellenic philosophical discourse within both philosophy and art history due to the prejudice of early Modern writers. Awareness of this process is crucial if one has any hope of arriving at a dynamic and widely applicable sense of aesthetic theory and its impact on the valuation of artistic expression.
This paper argues that time—not autonomy, freedom, or some other related concept—is the conceptua... more This paper argues that time—not autonomy, freedom, or some other related concept—is the conceptual and phenomenological thread running through Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Earth Art, and most of twentieth century Modernism. At the heart of this argument is a view of time as a process rather than a static or eternal concept. When one considers time as a flow of process within which other processes occur, Modernist purity falls away and reveals a tacit phenomenological coherence between many, if not all, Modernist art movements. The role of the viewer is considered equally alongside that of the artist and the two enter into a dialogical relationship with each other and the artwork itself. This relationship happens within time and tacitly deals with it as its phenomenological focus. Instead of formal purity or art as an a priori constant, we see here a view of art as foundationally tied into life is a complicated, messy, and fundamental way. By entertaining a common primary source of nearly all art made by human beings, we might be able to let go of artistic prejudices and feuds more easily and instead focus on what matters-simply making art in all of its varied and wondrous forms.
This paper uses the work of Jacqueline Rose, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Donna Haraw... more This paper uses the work of Jacqueline Rose, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Donna Haraway, and John Berger to question the assumption that subjectivity is an innate aspect of the human experience. Levinas' work pairs with that of Berger to reveal not just how subjectification is a collaboration between agents, but how that very interaction can become harmful and dehumanizing if not recognized as a true collaboration. The recognition of the Other can take many forms and Rose and Merleau-Ponty show how the interplay between Vision, Desire, and our visceral understanding of the visual world create immense opportunity for both validation, but also objectification. Haraway's work explores how our assumptions of subjectivity spring from assumptions of a patriarchal gendered human body that feeds into the objectification potential of the interplay noted by Rose and others. Haraway's metaphor of the cyborg reveals how the elimination of an a priori gender structure yields a truly liberating cultural space where one's identity as a subject takes precedence over any sort of objectification that may be foisted upon them. A collaborative fluidity can then develop enriching all those involved.
This paper seeks to address the apparent lack of synchronicity between the stated goals of avant-... more This paper seeks to address the apparent lack of synchronicity between the stated goals of avant-garde art movements of the early twentieth century and their resulting place in greater society. While claiming to grasp some form of universality via Modernist purity, much of these movements created art and artists who remain inscrutable and confusing to non-art laypeople of many educational levels. I explore here how the influence of Kantian aesthetics created an isolationist and elitist approach to the Modernist avant-garde via Formalism. Within the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, we also see how these same artists became trapped in what he would deem a Socratic trap of hyper-rationalization that made it nearly impossible to achieve anything close to the sort of primordial unity seen in truly powerful works of art. These findings call us to accept the inherently communal aspects of art and art production as the source of its cultural significance and to emphasize these aspects first and foremost in our creation and critique of fine art.
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Published Articles by Jonathan Morgan
Conference Presentations by Jonathan Morgan
Papers by Jonathan Morgan