Mechthild Nagel

Andrew Fitz-Gibbon in Pragmatic Nonviolence: Working Toward a Better World argues that a principled form of pragmatism—pragmatism shaped by the theory of nonviolence—is the best hope for our world. He defines nonviolence as “a practice that, whenever possible seeks the well-being of the Other, by refusing to use violence to solve problems, and by having an intentional commitment to lovingkindness.” In the first part of the book, Fitz-Gibbon asks what a better world would look like. In the second part, he covers what is the greatest obstacle to that better world: violence. In the third part, he examines philosophical theories of nonviolence. The fourth part examines pragmatism as a philosophy of “what works” (William James) through the lens of the principle of maximizing well-being through nonviolent practice. In response to Fitz-Gibbon’s work, critic Danielle Poe asks what a nonviolence response looks like to the Other whom we have wronged and wonders how nonviolence responds to systemic violence. Sanjay Lal asks whether pragmatism and nonviolence can be synthesized given the popular conception that the pragmatic possible seems at odds with the ideal of absolute nonviolence. William C. Gay affirms much of the text and suggests its uses in teaching. Mechthild Nagel wonders if Fitz-Gibbon’s pragmatic nonviolence is too anthropocentric and questions the absence of a consideration of systemic violence in the criminal justice system. Fitz-Gibbon then responds to the critics.

Since the emergence of Ubuntu ethics in the context of transitional justice mechanisms, most notably in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, scholars have extended its relevance to all sectors of society, including education, healthcare, and the economy. The focus of this chapter is on how Ubuntu ethics can contribute to efforts among scholars and community organizers concerned with racial settler colonialism and, specifically, with the behemoth of the prison industrial complex. With the rise of a global movement for Black Lives and Indigenous demands for restitution, reparations, and for cessation of harm by actors of state violence, it is pertinent to analyze these demands from a perspective of shared humanity. What does it mean to be recognized in one’s humanness and how can racial healing be promoted at the local level and beyond? Ubuntu ethics, which is community-oriented, favors a dignitarian approach: “I am human because you recognize me as such.” However, discriminatory practices as witnessed in the Gacaca trials of Rwanda deepened an ethnic divide shored up by colonial practices of divide and rule. Too often, Gacaca has been thought of as exemplifying innovative restorative justice. It is important to understand the tenets of restorative justice and how it needs to be differentiated from a transformative justice philosophy. It is only the latter, which is authentically wedded to an Ubuntu ethics. We begin with an exploration of Ubuntu that should guide ethical and legal reform policy discussions the world over, especially, where it is most neglected—the Global North.

Masking the Abject traces the beginnings of the malediction of play in Western metaphysics to Aristotle. Mechthild Nagel's innovative study demonstrates how play has served as a 'castaway' in western philosophical thinking: It is considered to be repulsive and loathsome, yet also fascinating and desirable. The book illustrates how play 'succeeds' and proliferates after Hegel—despite its denunciation by classical philosophers—entering Marxist, phenomenological, postmodern, and feminist discourses. This work provides the reader with a superb analyisis of how the distinction between the serious and the playful has developed over time, charting play's changing ontological status, and ethical and aesthetic dimensions, from the logocentric to the bacchnalian

Play has undergone a "process of abjection" in western philosophical thinking: It is considered to be repulsive and loathsome, yet it is also fascinating and desirable, that is, the more reason disavows play and unseriousness, the more it desires to incorporate them. Even though play has to be denounced, philosophers seem unaware that their own activity is inherently playful. In my dissertation I trace a malediction of play in western metaphysics to Aristotle who eclipses tragic, Dionysian play in his ethical and political theory. In the archaic ludic beginnings of Homer and Hesiod, play is not yet put in binary opposition to seriousness; this conceptual shift occurs in the pre-Socratic classical Greek period. While Plato maligns certain mimetic practices in his infamous critique of the poets, I aver that he does not turn against the Dionysian aspects of play. This is clearly shown in his uses of masks and mimicry, in his mockery of the sophists and in his endorsement of divine inspiration. ;I pursue the Aristotelian thread of the malediction of play in Kant's and Schiller's discussions of the concept and function of play. Although Kant parts from Aristotle in important ways in The Critique of Judgment, e.g. with the modern conception of the artist as not merely being a follower but also a creator of standards, I argue that Kant still remains committed to an Apollonian, rationalistic play of the imagination. In this dissertation, Kant serves as a transition figure between Aristotle and Hegel. In Nietzsche's thought, we see an important ludic turn, as argued by many play theoreticians. However, I argue that this reversal has been paved by Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. In good Heraclitean terminology, truth becomes a "Bacchanalian whirl," an interplay of drunken frenzy and calm repose, i.e. of Dionysian and Apollonian impulses. This trope serves as a key category for the interpretation of Hegel's play theory. Hence, I will argue against critics, who narrowly view Hegel's dialectic as carrying a notion of 'resentment' and a 'spirit of gravity.'

Margaret McLaren’s ethnographic study that is ostensibly about Indian women’s activism also presents a nuanced critique of liberal human rights discourse and advances a relational cosmopoli­tanism. Her defense of Tagore’s decolonial worldview has much in common with an African Ubuntu ethics, which also eschews pos­sessive individualism in favor of a sociocentric social justice praxis philosophy. McLaren’s book provides an important contribution to questions of women’s empowerment, women’s rights, cultural rites, and situated knowledges.

Andrew Fitz-Gibbon in Pragmatic Nonviolence: Working Toward a Better World argues that a principled form of pragmatism—pragmatism shaped by the theory of nonviolence—is the best hope for our world. He defines nonviolence as “a practice that, whenever possible seeks the well-being of the Other, by refusing to use violence to solve problems, and by having an intentional commitment to lovingkindness.” In the first part of the book, Fitz-Gibbon asks what a better world would look like. In the second part, he covers what is the greatest obstacle to that better world: violence. In the third part, he examines philosophical theories of nonviolence. The fourth part examines pragmatism as a philosophy of “what works” (William James) through the lens of the principle of maximizing well-being through nonviolent practice. In response to Fitz-Gibbon’s work, critic Danielle Poe asks what a nonviolence response looks like to the Other whom we have wronged and wonders how nonviolence responds to systemic violence. Sanjay Lal asks whether pragmatism and nonviolence can be synthesized given the popular conception that the pragmatic possible seems at odds with the ideal of absolute nonviolence. William C. Gay affirms much of the text and suggests its uses in teaching. Mechthild Nagel wonders if Fitz-Gibbon’s pragmatic nonviolence is too anthropocentric and questions the absence of a consideration of systemic violence in the criminal justice system. Fitz-Gibbon then responds to the critics.

This book brings together a collection of social justice scholars and activists who take Foucault’s concept of discipline and punishment to explain how prisons are constructed in society from nursing homes to zoos. This book expands the concept of prison to include any institution that dominates, oppresses, and controls. Criminologists and others, who have been concerned with reforming or dismantling the criminal justice system, have mostly avoided to look at larger carceral structures in society. In this book, for example, scholars and activists question the way patriarchy has incapacitated women and imagine the deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities. In a time when popular sentiment critiques the dominant role of the elites, the state’s role in policing dissenting voices, school children, LGBTQ persons, people of color, and American Indian Nations, needs to be investigated. A prison, as defined in this book, is an institution or system that oppresses and does not allow freedom for a particular group. Within this definition, we include the imprisonment of nonhuman animals and plants, which are too often overlooked.

Contesting Carceral Logic provides an innovative and cutting-edge analysis of how carceral logic is embedded within contemporary society, emphasizing international perspectives, the harms and critiques of using carceral logic to respond to human wrongdoing, and exploring penal abolition thought. With chapters from scholars across many disciplines, people in prison, as well as penal abolition activists, the book explores what a future without carceral logic would look like, as well as how such a future is to be developed. The book is also an exploration of penal abolition thought as it is developing in the twenty-first century. Diverse geographical, cultural, identity and experiential frames inform the book's themes of analysing carceral logic as it harms disparate people in disparate places, creating anti-carceral knowledge, exploring case studies pointing to radical alternatives, and to contesting carceral logic from below. Ultimately, Contesting Carceral Logic provides the reader with an alternative and critical perspective from which to reflect on carceral logic, the punitive state and the criminalizing systems that almost exclusively dominate across the world. Finally, it raises the questions of how we are to build communities as well as transform our response to human wrongdoing in ways that are not defined by racism/ethnocentrism, class war and heteropatriarchy. Contesting Carceral Logic will be of great interest to not only scholars and activists, but also provides an introduction to key carceral issues and debates for students of penology, criminology, social policy, geography, politics, philosophy, social work and social history programmes in countries all around the world.