Jeffrey Di Leo

This book explores questions concerning personal identity and individual conduct within neoliberal academe. The author suggests that neoliberal academe is normal academe in the new millennium though well aware of its contested nature and destructive capacities. Examining higher education through a number of ideals, such as austerity and transparency, brings readers on a journey into its present as well as its past. If some of these ideals can be identified and critiqued, there is a chance that the foundations of neoliberal academe can be weakened. This book actively pursues pathways out of the neoliberal abyss--and offers that demanding a role for pleasure in higher education may be one of them.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editor's NoteJeffrey R. Di Leo (bio)The title of this issue could have easily been "Intellectuals in Dark Times." Its genesis was a series of conversations between Ian Buchanan, the Associate Editor of this journal, and myself about the increasing levels of discouragement we find among our colleagues around the world. Ian was, at that time, living and working in Australia (he is now in Great Britain), while I was and remain in the United States. It seemed that despite living on different continents and being involved in different professional environments, nearly every colleague we spoke with shared a common set of discouraging responses regarding the ability of academics and intellectuals to respond to increasingly disturbing social, political, economic and environmental policies that were being implemented around the world.We decided at that point that an issue of symplokē should be solely devoted to critical reflection on discouragement. We knew that Fredric Jameson had mused that a theory of discouragement was needed, but did not know precisely what one might entail. The hope in putting together this issue was that it might not only inspire others to develop such a theory, but also that exploration of the general topic of discouragement might work toward addressing the feeling shared by many intellectuals and academics: that no matter how important or interesting their message may be, it will not galvanize change.Though the articles collected in this issue take up the topic of discouragement and its role in various dimensions of intellectual and academic life, they provide a more hopeful message than one might assume. Just as Salman Rushdie thought that in its own way the fatwa on his life had been a good thing because it showed that books could still matter enough for people to get shot for writing them, the articles in this issue collectively establish a complex dialectic wherein hope reveals itself in the wake of an extremely discouraging set of circumstances.Working versions of some of the articles in this issue were presented in a very exciting two-day seminar in March of 2005 at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference at Penn State. I thank the participants in this session, particularly Michael Bérubé, Gregory Flaxman, Gregg Lambert, Jeffrey Nealon, David R. Shumway, and Jeffrey J. Williams for the stimulating dialogue that enriched the articles published here—my own included. [End Page 5]Currently, three issues are in preparation. The first issue is entitled Cinema without Borders (Vol. 15, Nos. 1-2 (2007)). It will be concerned with philosophical questions of the border in film, including literal border cinema, multinational productions, theoretical investigations of liminal space and challenges to "world cinema" paradigms. This issue will address the question, if we are moving past notions of nation towards a borderless global order, how is this shift both reflected in and brought about by cinema? Submission deadline: closed.The second issue in preparation will be entitled Anonymity (Vol. 16, No. 1 (2008)). Welcome are contributions discussing the nature and limits of anonymity. What are the social, economic, political, and intellectual dimensions of anonymity in contemporary public and/or academic culture? How does anonymity affect reading, writing and teaching practices, as well as other aspects of academic performance such as tenure and publication review? What are the philosophical dimensions of anonymity? What are the theoretical implications of new media technologies and globalization on anonymity? Submission deadline: 1 July 2007.The third and final issue in preparation will be entitled Gaming and Theory (Vol. 16, No. 2 (2008)). Welcome are contributions that engage the various intersections of the idea and practice of digital gaming and critical theory. Topics include, but are not limited to, gaming and postmodernism, the politics of gaming, gaming and cultural studies, gaming and philosophy, gaming and narrative theory, gaming and globalization, gaming and pedagogical theory, gaming and aesthetics, gaming and media theory, gaming and feminism, and gaming and its critics. Submission deadline: 31 December 2007.I would like to thank the contributors to this issue for sharing their intriguing thoughts and reflections on discouragement with us, and Ian Buchanan for helping to get this issue off the ground. Special thanks also to David Felts...

Introduction / Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Peter Hitchcock, and Sophia A. McClennen -- Theory and history -- The rights to debt? / Sophia A. McClennen -- Kant at the Federal Reserve : on the aesthetics of quantitative easing / Peter Hitchcock -- Materialism : debt and sensuality / Christopher Breu -- The indebted man's cognitive mapping : boundaries and biohorror in the neoliberal debt economy / Liane Tanguay -- Living in the debt age -- The debt experience / Jeffrey J. Williams -- Paying your debt to society : the neoliberal state and the logic of quid pro quo / Esther Peeren -- Indebted youth and neoliberalism / Tyler J. Pollard -- Austerity politics and the neoliberal target austerity politics and the neoliberal targeting of the body in public education / Kenneth J. Saltman -- Resisting the debt age -- On debt resistance / Jeffrey R. Di Leo -- Debt and financial literacy education : an ethics for capital or the other / Chris Arthur -- Student debt and the social functions of consolidation college / Christopher Newfield -- Confronting the creditor class / Andrew Ross -- Index.

The traditional analytic understanding of Western philosophy takes it to be a set of inquiries that aim at true theories about fundamental problems or questions. Moreover, it tacitly assumes that there is no text in philosophy. This study articulates this assumption, showing that what philosophy is cannot be separated from assumptions about the textuality of philosophy . Two distinct senses of "text" are identified, and it is argued that the failure to observe this distinction leads to misunderstanding concerning the textuality of philosophy. The relationship of writing, style, and rhetoric to the products of philosophical inquiry is then examined. Rather than attack the textuality of philosophy directly, most philosophers deny textuality a role in philosophy by maintaining that writing, style and rhetoric are insignificant or even detrimental to the products of philosophical inquiry. It is argued that the textual nature of the products of philosophical inquiry is indirectly challenged through primarily hostile positions on the value of writing, style and rhetoric in philosophy. Consequently, philosophical commonplaces like the belief that philosophy should not be written, or that philosophical style is styleless, or that rhetoric is antithetical to philosophy are viewed as indicative of a more general belief in the non-textuality of philosophy. This study shows how positions on the nature of philosophy dialectically support and maintain these and other philosophical commonplaces on writing, style and rhetoric. Hence, rather than pointing to the non-textuality of philosophy, examinations of the relationship of writing, style and rhetoric to philosophy provide a richer understanding of the textuality of philosophy. In addition, an account of how a cultural studies model of textuality affects a picture of the nature of philosophy is offered. This study concludes that the dominant belief among philosophers that the products of philosophical inquiry are non-textual is ultimately untenable. It also maintains that acknowledging the textuality of philosophy is not necessarily the end of philosophy or a move away from philosophical truth, but rather should be viewed as part of a more complete understanding of the nature and limits of both philosophy and the products of philosophical inquiry