Predrag Krstić

Enterprise Unlimited: On Mapping and Colonization of Space

The theme of this paper is the relationship to „others“ – other civilizations and cultures in the history of Earth, and other species and different forms of life in science fiction. The analysis of Star Trek series and films shows that, despite considerable endeavor to adopt „multiculturalism“ as a principle, and despite a conscious effort to respect and celebrate diversity, „colonial narrative“ remains in force in the popular science fiction visions of the future. Fear and/or violence are typical reactions that (un)hiddenly repeats the pattern of our thinking of otherness and treatment of different ones whenever it comes to aliens, whether they are foreigners or extraterrestrials.

ROMANTIZOVANJE ILI ROMANTIČARSKO OSPORAVANJE PROSVETITELJSTVA

The article argues that early Romanticism, articulating its own view, addresses to the Enlightenment an “aesthetic” remark which be traced deep into the twentieth century. The author of the work found it, after Schlegel and his school, not only in Weber ‘s diagnosis of institutionalized rationality of Western civilization, and in the Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and the critique of the goal-oriented or instrumental reason of modernity that followed, but in a different way, also in Foucault, Bohme brothers, and even in postmodern philosophy and neopragmatism. It is concluded that all these orientations share detection of the lack od self-enlightenment of the Enlightenment and, consequently, the lack of its self-referential correction. These unaccounted costs of violations the Enlightenment committed to its “other”, irreversibly or somehow still recoverable, undermines its original critical and emancipatory program.

Unwanted parenthood: Romanticism and Kant

Over the Romantic reception of Kant, the author attempts to show a relationship between the Romanticism and the Enlightenment. First part of the paper reconstructs the social conditions that created the strange path of transformation of parts of Kant’s teachings in the romantic motifs. The second part follows the theoretical precomposition of Kant’s thought in Fichte and expressly deviation from it in Novalis and Schlegel. Third section presents the key moments of the Romantic critique of the Enlightenment mind, and fourth its ambiguous pracital-political effects. In conclusion, it is suggested that Romanticism tested and testified the transcending of limits of the very freedom for which Kant believed that man becomes worthy of only if it is used in a lawful and purposeful manner.

Why still education

This paper focuses on a few simple questions that fundamentally challenge the idea of education, as well as its modern realization. The suggestion is that, within the undividedly accepted educational strategy of the West, there are still uninspected costs and smuggled dilemmas. They then burden the contemporary disputes over education at a lower level of generality: general or vocational, culturally determined or universal, standardized or deregulated, uniform or plural, privileged or available to all, elite or “open” education, and so on. We believe that such thorough clearing up of conceptual field would point to those presumed purposes, functions, and outcomes of education which make its investments seem constantly unsatisfactory, and education itself appears chronically in crisis. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 43007: Istraživanje klimatskih promena i njihovog uticaja na životnu sredinu, pracenje uticaja, adaptacija i ublažavanje, potprojekat: Etika i politike životne sredine: institucije, tehnike i norme pred izazovom promena prirodnog okruženja i br. 41004: Retke bolesti: molekularna patofiziologija, dijagnosticki i terapijski modaliteti i socijalni, eticki i pravni aspekti, potprojekat: Bioeticki aspekti: moralno prihvatljivo u biotehnoloski i drustveno mogucem]

Who is (still) afraid of queer: Homosexual and transgender strategies of star trek

This text gives a critical account of various, often conflicting interpretations of slash fiction - stories based on characters from popular TV show, The Star Trek, written (and read) by fans. What makes slash fiction, a subgenre of fan fiction, specific is a homoeroticization of characters that in the original narratives are either explicitly or implicitly heterosexual. Whether such “homoerotic pairing” has any foundation in the original Star Trek narrative, remains an open question. Answers to this question vary greatly. An affirmative answer, however, begs a further question: whether these narratives are “homosexual representations” in a strict gay/lesbian sense? The authors propose that slash represents a non-hegemonic narrative which transgresses borders (of the medium, genre, gender, sexuality etc.) set up in the original narrative - queering, reexamining thus both sex and gender. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 43007 i br. 41004]

Animals and philosophers: Preface to my critics

The author is here seeking to expose his book Philosophical Animal zoographical persuasion to philosophy, to his own remorseless analysis - and that way defend the book from potential criticism by the others. On the other hand, the author believes that this will open up the space for discussion about the book and themes that book provokes. This discussion is not going to be mere neatly registered response and/or appropriate praise but a contribution inspired by the book, resonating back to it.

Why still philosophy?: Once again

The intention of this paper is to revisit, once again the question asked by Adorno and Habermas and other contemporary thinkers under different headings few decades ago. The author is suggesting that nowadays philosophy requires a final departure from the idea of having single and perennial face, and that this would not only allow, but also enable philosophy to test its various faces freely, that is, without norm or limit set in advance. At the same time, by creating such ′liberal′ climate philosophy would no longer be frightened by the possible answer, and hence would no longer dramatize the very question of ′why still?′. Even if philosophy turns out to be far less than the mission it once bestowed upon itself.