Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper is an enquiry into one strand of the stadial history articulated by several Scottish Enlightenment thinkers and their heirs amongst early nineteenth century political economists. It examines how they constructed and offered a history of sexual desire and endeavours to relate it to their larger theory of societal development.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: My paper argues that racist acts provide meaning to colonial violence. Within this atmosphere a culture of terror managed to sustain conquest and dispossession, and continues to be an important element in the colonial process. This paper situates the hi

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explores the career and work of journalist Elmo Scott Watson, describing the role of his syndicated feature stories in standardizing discourses about American Indian people in the popular press of the early twentieth century. Situating Watson’s work against the backdrop of professionalized news, I argue that it was not merely the emerging technologies which led to the reproduction of the noble and ignoble savage binary in the popular press, but the “internal logics” of such discursive formations which made them so easily reproduced. In addition, I suggest that while scholars have focused a great deal of attention on hard news stories and the ideal of objectivity, we can learn more by exploring the productivity of “entertaining” newspaper content such as Watson’s stories. Watson was an agent in reproducing the standards of his discipline, and looking to his work can tell us a great deal about the exigency of his field as journalism was becoming professionalized. I argue that while Watson’s stories were considered entertaining, he and others in his field believed such content served an important educational function; in particular, Watson believed he was correcting negative misconceptions about American Indian people through the noble savage identity construct.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Most theorists are unaware that Hegel was an astute student of political economy. Not only did he read Adam Smith and Smith?s Scottish Enlightenment contemporaries, he also carefully read the work of James Steuart ? an important figure bridging the French Physiocrats with the Scottish Enlightenment. Indeed, a central concern of Hegel?s early work is to sort out the relationship between modern wealth creation and the presence of modern poverty. Hegel postulates that poverty is in fact generated by wealth creation and that the two ? wealth and poverty ? necessarily and systematically go hand in hand. He admits to his own failure in providing a ?solution? to the problem of poverty. As the noted Hegel scholar Shlomo Avineri highlights, it is the only time in the corpus of Hegel?s work that he confesses to such a failure. Hegel?s confession and his rigorous understanding of the insurmountable problems generated by poverty in market society stand in some tension with his theory of historical progress in which American Indians represent the beginning of history and Europeans the end point. Such a theory of historical progress seems hard to square with Hegel?s earlier claim that: (1) poverty is endemic to modern society; and (2) that such systematic poverty was most likely absent among earlier forms of society. Given the pervasiveness of poverty in European market society, how then does Hegel find confidence in a theory of progressive history in which Europeans stand above all other forms of society? The purpose of this paper is to confront this dilemma. We will use Hegel?s thought to demonstrate how poverty can be taken with the utmost seriousness while also being utterly disregarded. Hegel?s eventual discounting of poverty foreshadows the contemporary stance towards this problem, exemplified by the constant anti-poverty efforts?from basic needs to poverty reduction?associated with the international apparatuses for promoting development that reinforce the very processes by which poverty is produced.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: There is much literature to support the argument that myth-making is natural, even unavoidable, and that the practice of myth-making has been built into the news production industry. Very little attention, however, has been directed toward myth-making online. This paper explores the myths created by and about Mexico’s Zapatista movement online. Three significant myths and their implications are discussed: (1) the myth of the universal Marcos; (2) of noble savages and passive victims; and (3) of the neoliberal beast. These myths inscribe the movement with meaning that goes well beyond events and circumstances in Mexico and they channel the energies of national and international supporters. This case of myth-making helps to explore the ways people use myths online to come together, to address issues of global concern, and to make sense of the unwieldy amount of information on the Internet.