Last Post

I feel the need to add a tiny conclusion to our deliberations in this course. So here goes.

You are not the children of revolutionaries. You are the children of neo-liberalist thought. This thought emancipates primarily the individual along with and along side late capitalist commerce. The problems this commerce faces are all too clear for us (especially presently in the universities, but also re: climate change, global inequalities etc) but strangely, because the essence of this clever game requires it is essential you never see a problem with it; that you read the Sun, that you shop cheap at Tescos; that X Factor is excellent entertainment, that university is a ticket for a job (and if that is the process, education actually disappears) in short that you never run into the horrors of ideological struggle, you will not, never, confront the real.

I've just watched Matt Cardle's Christmas video, and as if by perfect example, despite the programs essential qualities 'those of enabling the individual' ('It means so much!!') it is actually a pean to the show itself, now a commercial media giant. Matt is no longer, in any sense, himself.

As we have progressed and especially when you get to indulge yourselves in Dos Passos some more, I hope you will realize a certain loss involved in this process, a certain concern for the nature of struggle, and also some of the absolute drama of modernity, and it's inevitable challenges as we discover that 'all thats solid melts in to air'.

Your hand-in date for your hardcopy weekly blogs and some kind of extended conclusion is Friday 28th January to the school office. Any problems, e-mail me.

Seasons Greetings and Thanks.

Paul

Final Session

Really sorry to be so long in posting this image, but you all have the idea by now I hope. This big book is truly amazing, so if you think you've bought a pup, forget it. Some of you will notice it's extraordinary structure, and hopefully enjoy it. It really is a sublime piece of commentary on 'Modernity' (our purpose) and when I first read it, in a cottage in Ireland in the middle of nowhere, Julie couldn't believe I'd 'got it' in less than a week. You have to dip in to this thing, not read it like Tolstoy. If you are under pressure elsewhere then 'save it for later' as they say. Just for now read the chapters 'Tin Lizzie' (Thin Lizzy?!-sic) Architect (FLW) and finally 'The Bitter Drink'. The final one really tells you what happens when you take things seriously.

I'm looking forward to Friday's last session, I hope you will drag your hangovers from the school party to the session for some mental nourishment.

Thank you for being a very engaging group of students. Remember nothing can be resolved, only continual effort in everyday life to do the right thing, and also, above all, understand that 'Theory fucks you up' and that it's good for you!

luv

Paul

Session Friday 10th December

This week we'll take welcome relief by watching this extraordinary film. But we'll be starting early at 1pm. Bring your popcorn.

Session Friday 3rd December

The chapters on Faust are what I want you to read from this book this week. This is a standard text for a wide variety of post-graduate students and so I recommend you buy it. I'm not saying the information you glean from it will make life easy, but I was at dinner last night with a very bright fellow who began talking about a chapter in there that I had not even read! It's that kind of book. Old New York Marxists, you gotta lov'em.

Session Friday 26th

The novel you should read for this week's session is the sardonic appreciation of modernism via Evelyn Waugh. It's a good read and should be easily available from almost any library. It's obviously not the most obvious of theoretical texts, but you need to get inside the mind of Le Corbusier somehow. Thats what the session will be about.

Session 6th Nov

The reading this week is from Henri Lefebvre's volume 'The Production of Space' the chapter being 'Social Space'. This piece usually causes some brains to wrack but this is a useful process.

Getting hold of the book maybe problematic for you but I shall be making copies on Monday and suggest you stop by my office K316 to pick up a copy.

Session 5

This is your reading for next week's session, easily available via the internet. However I would also like you to have a working knowledge of William S Burroughs 'The Job' and another writer I may well refer to is JG Ballard, whose novel 'High Rise' is significant.

Dave Hickey

I'm aware there's been limited pick up on the Hickey piece, please swoop by the office tomorrow and pick up a copy from the door, and check out my blog posted today on pauldaviesarchtecture.blogspot.com for a little background on my point of view which I hope is worth thinking about.

Criticism by enjoying writing will be the theme of the next two sessions.

Please equip yourselves with a copy of WS Burrough's 'The Job' for next week.

Books

I thought it would be a good idea to let you know in advance some of the books we will be studying as we move forward (backwards).

Some others will be covered by photocopies, but these it would be advisable for you to get hold of:

WS Burroughs The Job

Evelyn Waugh Decline and Fall

Marshall Berman All That's Solid Melts in to Air

Dos Passos USA

Session 4

The text I'd like you to read for next week's session (5th Nov) is 'At Home in the Neon', the first essay in this invaluable collection of essays by art and rock critic Dave Hickey. This will absolutely lighten the tone of our debates so far. Meanwhile, as we often define our friends by what we love reading, I've never met anybody in our business (who was any good) who doesn't love this writer.

I have copies of the essay posted against my door in my office, and more inside on the table. I'll be in Monday afternoon.

Session3

This is the book I would like you to read this week. On Amazon I think you can view the first six pages for free, but I would recommend it to you anyway for future reference and present stimulation.

Your blog addresses

Here are your blog addresses as I've received them so far. I hope you will browse each others opinions. Do not be afraid to express your thoughts in your own blogs, after all free speech is our last bastion to defend! Meanwhile, be aware that the purpose of the course is to inform your opinions over time, so if you blog weekly the total blog volume will be rather informative as to your learning experience. Please become followers of the main theory1lasbu201011.blogspot.com site, for then it is easier to me to casually dip in to your submissions, and then you need to place your blog as a link to this site, otherwise we are all in the dark.

Any errors below, please let me know via davies.vegas@virgin.net

theory1.blogspot.com

joaquingindre.blogspot.com

demitrisalexiou.blogspot.com

faisalbinladen.blogspot.com

phil-theory1.blogspot.com

andreabenedettini.blogspot.com

happystheory1.blogspot.com

tristram-t1.blogspot.com

nickheadtheory1.blogspot.com

lukemuzzathoughts.blogspot.com

jrballtheory1.blogspot.com

giuliacitellitheory1.blogspot.com

acr-theory-1.blogspot.com

acharleslsbu201011.blogspot.com

jonathanevanstheory1.blogspot.com

joshun-theory.blogspot.com

samanthafilippidi.blogspot.com

benetyteruta.blogspot.com

lsbunguyenk.blogspot.com

fbrown.blogspot.com

notanidea.blogspot.com

peggylecren.blogspot.com

awongtheory12010.blogspot.com

theory1alexthomalle.blogspot.com

vasiliki-lsbu-theory1.blogspot.com

beatrixfrankfurt.blogspot.com

theory1-alexandraanagnostopoulou.blogspot.com

jeremyrabin.blogspot.com

nicholastheodoroutheory1lsbu2010.blogspot.com

ashish81.blogspot.com

wintertheory1.blogspot.com

theory1lsbu201011lukepawlina.blogspot.com

shakeramangera.blogspot.com

Session Two

The essay I would like you to read this week is 'Sand, Fear and Money in Dubai' by Mike Davis. It is also easily found on the internet, but is collected in the above volume. We will discuss it on Friday 22nd October.

Sesion One B

I want you to read and mentally digest a second essay this week from this 'little red book'. The essay is easily found on the web as long as you search for Alain Badiou This Crisis Is the Spectacle: Where Is the Real? It's one of those modest pieces of writing that could blow your socks off. Often Badiou, whilst frighteningly clever, is a bit dense, but this piece is written for a newspaper, hence is more readable. (see below for first essay).

Also, please each of you set up your own individual Theory 1 blogs via blogspot.com

Discussion: It's difficult to gain a perspective on Badiou at this stage. His introduction at this point was to highlight our necessary confrontation with the question 'What is the Real?' This of course implies we are 'living in a lie', as evidenced by our highly theatrical (and highly nuanced) media and politics where vested interests, not the benefit of all, are paraded before us in a clear period of global crisis. If you are wondering what this global crisis might be, four corners of the discussion might be: Climate Change, Increased National and Global Inequality, Financial Iniquity and the challenges of the Bio-technological.

Session One A

You'll be able to to find this essay on Zaha on the web. Please look it up and digest (mentally) for next week.

Disscussion: Issues here might be summed up as; Might we be able to compare Zaha Hadid to Paris Hilton!

Office context

Office employees

What is digital knowledge?

Being a woman

Architectural press as PR machine

Architecture's impenetrable jargon

Zaha only reads magazines

The collapse of language

A dislike of simile (describing things via other things- and the origin of classical architecture)

Not being English

Alternative opinion as betrayal (here we contrasted 3 forms of argument: debate, rhetoric, and dialectical reason)

Is she perfect for the marketplace? Is she an art brand?

A possible subtext in the eternity/mortality dialectic with regard to geological form.