Making and Unmaking Worlds: Towards Liberation Beyond Subjectivity

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Date

2024-08-07

Authors

Friaz, Ricardo

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

This dissertation develops the concept of liberation by questioning what it means to destroy, abolish, and create worlds. I develop a critical position towards agential or subject-based accounts of liberation in order to think through Abolitionist and Decolonial accounts of mourning and collective world-making. I trace the endurance of historical processes of slavery and colonialism and their violent effects today, and I discuss contemporary police torture and migrant camps to reflect on practices of observing world destruction that do not center a subject of liberation. I give a critical account of the contemporary organization of the world around the Cartesian subject, and develop an alternative account of the world by drawing on Spinoza’s account of substance and bodily knowing. I conclude by developing an account of world creation by engaging with Lugones’ account of world-traveling and playfulness along with Winnicott’s theories of the playground and transitional object.

Description

Keywords

abolition, critical philosophy of race, decolonization, playfulness, Spinoza, worlds

Citation