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SUMMARY:Conflict and Modernity in Algeria: A Dialectical Interpretation of
  Strategy and Urban War - Matthew Lewis\, King's College London 
DTSTART:20151111T170000Z
DTEND:20151111T190000Z
UID:TALK62433@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:39391
DESCRIPTION:Though confronted by the grotesques of Aleppo and Kobane\, ‘
 orthodox’ Strategy has yet offered no coherent explanation for the scale
  of Twenty-First Century urbicide.  Whilst a number of compelling narrativ
 es account for the increasing likelihood of 'wars amongst the people' and 
 the subsequent escalation of urban violence\, the emergent 'Systems Theori
 es' are anything but systematic: distilling down to crass comparisons of d
 emographic 'ferality'.  This paper\, which represents an early overview of
  the doctoral research I have recently begun at the Defence Studies Depart
 ment KCL\, will attempt to make a short case for the relevance of early Fr
 ankfurt School scholarship (principally Theodor Adorno) to the effective i
 nterpretation of modern urban violence.  \n\nIn examining the Algerian War
  of Independence and the oblique and sometimes direct influence it had on 
 Sartre’s conception of dialectical reason\; I will attempt to build an i
 nterpretation of Algeria’s ensuing patterns of recursive violence as exp
 licitly dialectical phenomena: noting how it is represented\, reproduced a
 nd reflected in urban space.\n \nBound to a broadly optimistic historiogra
 phy that presents a linear vision of technical progress\, orthodox Strateg
 y clings to culminative (Hegelian) visions of change\; historic episodes a
 re thus presented as ‘Revolutions in Military Affairs’ apparently cont
 ributing as much to the democratisation of the conflict zone\, as to the e
 mergence of ’Post Heroic’ warfare.  In contrast to the rigour of diale
 ctical thought\, Strategy remains framed by moribund classifications that 
 evoke Clausewitz and the nature/character binary.  Seemingly content to cr
 am the vast complexities of modern conflict into useless categories\, prog
 ress is typically conceived in terms of four ‘megatrends’\, whose iron
 y instead speaks more to Adorno’s ‘Enlightenment as domination over na
 ture’: rapid population growth\, accelerated urbanisation\, littoralisat
 ion and increasing connectedness.\n\n
LOCATION:Wolfson Seminar Room South\, Trinity College 
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