Social and political philosophy Books
University of Minnesota Press Reimagining Livelihoods: Life beyond Economy,
Book SynopsisA provocative reassessment of the concepts underlying the struggle for sustainable developmentMuch of the debate over sustainable development revolves around how to balance the competing demands of economic development, social well-being, and environmental protection. “Jobs vs. environment” is only one of the many forms that such struggles take. But what if the very terms of this debate are part of the problem? Reimagining Livelihoods argues that the “hegemonic trio” of economy, society, and environment not only fails to describe the actual world around us but poses a tremendous obstacle to enacting a truly sustainable future.In a rich blend of ethnography and theory, Reimagining Livelihoods engages with questions of development in the state of Maine to trace the dangerous effects of contemporary stories that simplify and domesticate conflict. As in so many other places around the world, the trio of economy, society, and environment in Maine produces a particular space of “common sense” within which struggles over life and livelihood unfold. Yet the terms of engagement embodied by this trio are neither innocent nor inevitable. It is a contingent, historically produced configuration, born from the throes of capitalist industrialism and colonialism. Drawing in part on his own participation in the struggle over the Plum Creek Corporation’s “concept plan” for a major resort development on the shores of Moosehead Lake in northern Maine, Ethan Miller articulates a rich framework for engaging with the ethical and political challenges of building ecological livelihoods among diverse human and nonhuman communities. In seeking a pathway for transformative thought that is both critical and affirmative, Reimagining Livelihoods provides new frames of reference for living together on an increasingly volatile Earth.Trade Review"Interesting, imaginative, and extraordinarily well written, Reimagining Livelihoods is an exemplary case of how to think through the ideas and forces that shape our existence behind our backs. Ethan Miller's work is empirical in the best sense, with the information gleaned from interviews often as enlightening as it is unexpected."—Mick Smith, author of Against Ecological Sovereignty: Ethics, Politics, and Saving the Natural World"Ethan Miller provides vital tools to imagine and enact ways of life no longer tethered to the constraining categories of economy, society, and environment. Written with passion and insight and deeply grounded in the material realities of Maine life, Reimagining Livelihoods is essential reading for activists, planners, and academics struggling to compose common worlds within late capitalist ecologies."—Bruce Braun, University of Minnesota"It tacks between deep theory and rich empirical material to carefully, insidiously open up alternate ways-of-seeing in the readers’ minds."—Environmental Values "I applaud Miller’s ambition in this book and would suggest that the ideas within have the potential to ignite a well-taught classroom and leap far beyond."—American Anthropologist Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Troubling Economy, Society, and Environment in MainePart I. Problematizing the Trio1. Constitutional Geometry: Shapes of PowerPart II. Tracing Hegemonies2. Forces and Domains: Dynamics of Mastery and Submission3. Enclosures and Outsides: Making and Unmaking Boundaries 4. A Diagram of Power: Nature-Culture, Capital-State, and DevelopmentPart III. Decomposing the Trio5. Cracks in the Assemblage: Uncertainties, Resistances, and Swerves 6. Multiplying Articulations: How Many Definitions Can Maine’s Professionals Produce? Part IV. (Re)composing Livelihoods 7. Ecopoiesis: Making Habitats and Inhabitants8. Ecological Livelihoods: Beyond the Trio9. Tools for a Politics of Ecological Livelihood10. Ontopolitical Coordinates: Rearticulating Struggles in MaineConclusion: Becoming OtherwiseAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press Reimagining Livelihoods: Life beyond Economy,
Book SynopsisA provocative reassessment of the concepts underlying the struggle for sustainable developmentMuch of the debate over sustainable development revolves around how to balance the competing demands of economic development, social well-being, and environmental protection. “Jobs vs. environment” is only one of the many forms that such struggles take. But what if the very terms of this debate are part of the problem? Reimagining Livelihoods argues that the “hegemonic trio” of economy, society, and environment not only fails to describe the actual world around us but poses a tremendous obstacle to enacting a truly sustainable future.In a rich blend of ethnography and theory, Reimagining Livelihoods engages with questions of development in the state of Maine to trace the dangerous effects of contemporary stories that simplify and domesticate conflict. As in so many other places around the world, the trio of economy, society, and environment in Maine produces a particular space of “common sense” within which struggles over life and livelihood unfold. Yet the terms of engagement embodied by this trio are neither innocent nor inevitable. It is a contingent, historically produced configuration, born from the throes of capitalist industrialism and colonialism. Drawing in part on his own participation in the struggle over the Plum Creek Corporation’s “concept plan” for a major resort development on the shores of Moosehead Lake in northern Maine, Ethan Miller articulates a rich framework for engaging with the ethical and political challenges of building ecological livelihoods among diverse human and nonhuman communities. In seeking a pathway for transformative thought that is both critical and affirmative, Reimagining Livelihoods provides new frames of reference for living together on an increasingly volatile Earth.Trade Review"Interesting, imaginative, and extraordinarily well written, Reimagining Livelihoods is an exemplary case of how to think through the ideas and forces that shape our existence behind our backs. Ethan Miller's work is empirical in the best sense, with the information gleaned from interviews often as enlightening as it is unexpected."—Mick Smith, author of Against Ecological Sovereignty: Ethics, Politics, and Saving the Natural World"Ethan Miller provides vital tools to imagine and enact ways of life no longer tethered to the constraining categories of economy, society, and environment. Written with passion and insight and deeply grounded in the material realities of Maine life, Reimagining Livelihoods is essential reading for activists, planners, and academics struggling to compose common worlds within late capitalist ecologies."—Bruce Braun, University of Minnesota"It tacks between deep theory and rich empirical material to carefully, insidiously open up alternate ways-of-seeing in the readers’ minds."—Environmental Values "I applaud Miller’s ambition in this book and would suggest that the ideas within have the potential to ignite a well-taught classroom and leap far beyond."—American Anthropologist Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Troubling Economy, Society, and Environment in MainePart I. Problematizing the Trio1. Constitutional Geometry: Shapes of PowerPart II. Tracing Hegemonies2. Forces and Domains: Dynamics of Mastery and Submission3. Enclosures and Outsides: Making and Unmaking Boundaries 4. A Diagram of Power: Nature-Culture, Capital-State, and DevelopmentPart III. Decomposing the Trio5. Cracks in the Assemblage: Uncertainties, Resistances, and Swerves 6. Multiplying Articulations: How Many Definitions Can Maine’s Professionals Produce? Part IV. (Re)composing Livelihoods 7. Ecopoiesis: Making Habitats and Inhabitants8. Ecological Livelihoods: Beyond the Trio9. Tools for a Politics of Ecological Livelihood10. Ontopolitical Coordinates: Rearticulating Struggles in MaineConclusion: Becoming OtherwiseAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press Another Mother: Diotima and the Symbolic Order of
Book SynopsisA groundbreaking volume introduces the unique feminist thought of the longstanding Italian group known as Diotima Introducing Anglophone readers to a potent strain of Italian feminism known to French, Spanish, and German audiences but as yet unavailable in English, Another Mother argues that the question of the mother is essential to comprehend the matrix of contemporary culture and society and to pursue feminist political projects. Focusing on Diotima, a community of women philosophers deeply involved in feminist politics since the 1960s, this volume provides a multifaceted panorama of its engagement with currents of thought including structuralism, psychoanalysis, linguistics, and Marxism. Starting from the simple insight that the mother is the one who gives us both life and language, these thinkers develop concepts of the mother and sexual difference in contemporary society that differ in crucial ways from both French and U.S. feminisms. Arguing that Diotima anticipates many of the themes in contemporary philosophical discourses of biopolitics—exemplified by thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, and Roberto Esposito—Another Mother opens an important space for reflections on the past history of feminism and on feminism’s future. Contributors: Anne Emmanuelle Berger, Paris 8 U–Vincennes Saint-Denis; Ida Dominijanni; Luisa Muraro; Diana Sartori, U of Verona; Chiara Zamboni, U of Verona.Trade Review"To those of us who teach, study, and value activist feminist thought, this collection is a gift. It makes accessible to Anglophone readers Italian feminist philosopher-activists’ radical theorization and practice of sexual difference and establishes that concept not as a relic of the ‘Second Wave’ but as a vital resource for theorizing biopolitics, for fighting violence against ‘the feminine,’ and for envisioning and practicing anti-racist political projects."—Lisa Disch, University of MichiganTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Another Mother, Another IntroductionCesare Casarino and Andrea RighiPart One: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Politics of Sexual Difference1. The Contact WordIda Dominijanni2. To Knit or to Crochet: A Political-Linguistic Tale on the Enmity between Metaphor and MetonymyLuisa Muraro3. On the Relation between Words and Things as FrequentationLuisa Muraro Part Two: On the Maternal Symbolic and Its Language4. Maternal Language between Limit and Infinite OpeningChiara Zamboni5. Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Dead Mother ComplexLuisa MuraroPart Three: The Mother and The Negative6. With the Maternal SpiritDiana Sartori7. The Undecidable ImprintIda DominijanniPart Four: Thinking with Diotima8. And Yet She Speaks!: “Italian Feminism” and LanguageAnne Emmanuelle Berger9. Origin and Dismeasure: The Thought of Sexual Difference in Luisa Muraro and Ida Dominijanni, and the Rise of Post-Fordist PsychopathologyAndrea Righi10. Mother Degree Zero; or, of Beginnings: An Afterword on Luisa Muraro’s Feminist Inaptitude for PhilosophyCesare Casarino Index
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press Another Mother: Diotima and the Symbolic Order of
Book SynopsisA groundbreaking volume introduces the unique feminist thought of the longstanding Italian group known as Diotima Introducing Anglophone readers to a potent strain of Italian feminism known to French, Spanish, and German audiences but as yet unavailable in English, Another Mother argues that the question of the mother is essential to comprehend the matrix of contemporary culture and society and to pursue feminist political projects. Focusing on Diotima, a community of women philosophers deeply involved in feminist politics since the 1960s, this volume provides a multifaceted panorama of its engagement with currents of thought including structuralism, psychoanalysis, linguistics, and Marxism. Starting from the simple insight that the mother is the one who gives us both life and language, these thinkers develop concepts of the mother and sexual difference in contemporary society that differ in crucial ways from both French and U.S. feminisms. Arguing that Diotima anticipates many of the themes in contemporary philosophical discourses of biopolitics—exemplified by thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, and Roberto Esposito—Another Mother opens an important space for reflections on the past history of feminism and on feminism’s future. Contributors: Anne Emmanuelle Berger, Paris 8 U–Vincennes Saint-Denis; Ida Dominijanni; Luisa Muraro; Diana Sartori, U of Verona; Chiara Zamboni, U of Verona.Trade Review"To those of us who teach, study, and value activist feminist thought, this collection is a gift. It makes accessible to Anglophone readers Italian feminist philosopher-activists’ radical theorization and practice of sexual difference and establishes that concept not as a relic of the ‘Second Wave’ but as a vital resource for theorizing biopolitics, for fighting violence against ‘the feminine,’ and for envisioning and practicing anti-racist political projects."—Lisa Disch, University of MichiganTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Another Mother, Another IntroductionCesare Casarino and Andrea RighiPart One: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Politics of Sexual Difference1. The Contact WordIda Dominijanni2. To Knit or to Crochet: A Political-Linguistic Tale on the Enmity between Metaphor and MetonymyLuisa Muraro3. On the Relation between Words and Things as FrequentationLuisa Muraro Part Two: On the Maternal Symbolic and Its Language4. Maternal Language between Limit and Infinite OpeningChiara Zamboni5. Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Dead Mother ComplexLuisa MuraroPart Three: The Mother and The Negative6. With the Maternal SpiritDiana Sartori7. The Undecidable ImprintIda DominijanniPart Four: Thinking with Diotima8. And Yet She Speaks!: “Italian Feminism” and LanguageAnne Emmanuelle Berger9. Origin and Dismeasure: The Thought of Sexual Difference in Luisa Muraro and Ida Dominijanni, and the Rise of Post-Fordist PsychopathologyAndrea Righi10. Mother Degree Zero; or, of Beginnings: An Afterword on Luisa Muraro’s Feminist Inaptitude for PhilosophyCesare Casarino Index
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press Heidegger: Phenomenology, Ecology, Politics
Book SynopsisUnderstanding the political and ecological implications of Heidegger’s work without ignoring his noxious public engagements The most controversial philosopher of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger has influenced generations of intellectuals even as his involvement with Nazism and blatant anti-Semitism, made even clearer after the publication of his Black Notebooks, have recently prompted some to discard his contributions entirely. For Michael Marder, Heidegger’s thought remains critical for interpretations of contemporary politics and our relation to the natural environment.Bringing together and reframing more than a decade of Marder’s work on Heidegger, this volume questions the wholesale rejection of Heidegger, arguing that dismissive readings of his project overlook the fact that it is impossible to grasp without appreciating his lifelong commitment to phenomenology and that Heidegger’s anti-Semitism is an aberration in his still-relevant ecological and political thought, rather than a defining characteristic. Through close readings of Heidegger’s books and seminars, along with writings by other key phenomenologists and political philosophers, Marder contends that neither Heidegger’s politics nor his reflections on ecology should be considered in isolation from his phenomenology. By demonstrating the codetermination of his phenomenological, ecological, and political thinking, Marder accounts for Heidegger’s failures without either justifying them or suggesting that they invalidate his philosophical endeavor as a whole.Trade Review"For many years, Michael Marder has been one of the most interesting philosophical interpreters of Heidegger. What he gives us to think here is really remarkable. The readers of his book on Heidegger will be inspired."—Peter Trawny, editor of the collected works of Martin Heidegger"Often indefensible, always indispensable: Heidegger, for all his errors, continues to provoke us as modernity draws nearer to a reckoning. In this thoughtful book, Michael Marder sifts through Heidegger’s texts in a search for an open yet finite dwelling, a home beyond parochialism and globalism."—Richard Polt, Xavier University"Deploying an exceptional familiarity with Heidegger scholarship, Michael Marder highlights how Heidegger’s thinking of the Thing offers a rich opening for ecological resistance to consumerist politics and economics."—David Wood, author of Deep Time, Dark Times: On Being Geologically Human"Michael Marder's book is particularly thought-provoking. Highly recommended for all who continue to wrestle with the dual legacy of Heidegger's thought and his "great mistakes," without minimizing either."—Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"Marder’s book struck a chord with me because the author sets out to make a significant point, that is, to advocate our duty to engage with Heidegger rather than continue to ignore him because of his antisemitic sentiments."—Phenomenological ReviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction: Heidegger’s Eternal TrianglePart I. Phenomenology1. “Higher than Actuality”: The Possibility of Phenomenology2. Failure and Nonactualizable Possibility3. The Phenomenology of Ontico-Ontological DifferencePart II. Ecology4. To Open a Site: A Political Phenomenology of Dwelling5. Devastation6. An Ecology of PropertyIII. Politics 7. The Question of Political Existence 8. The Other “Jewish Question”9. Philosophy without Right?: On Heidegger’s Notes for the 1934–35 “Hegel Seminar” (with Marcia Sá Cavalcante-Schuback)NotesIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Heidegger: Phenomenology, Ecology, Politics
Book SynopsisUnderstanding the political and ecological implications of Heidegger’s work without ignoring his noxious public engagements The most controversial philosopher of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger has influenced generations of intellectuals even as his involvement with Nazism and blatant anti-Semitism, made even clearer after the publication of his Black Notebooks, have recently prompted some to discard his contributions entirely. For Michael Marder, Heidegger’s thought remains critical for interpretations of contemporary politics and our relation to the natural environment.Bringing together and reframing more than a decade of Marder’s work on Heidegger, this volume questions the wholesale rejection of Heidegger, arguing that dismissive readings of his project overlook the fact that it is impossible to grasp without appreciating his lifelong commitment to phenomenology and that Heidegger’s anti-Semitism is an aberration in his still-relevant ecological and political thought, rather than a defining characteristic. Through close readings of Heidegger’s books and seminars, along with writings by other key phenomenologists and political philosophers, Marder contends that neither Heidegger’s politics nor his reflections on ecology should be considered in isolation from his phenomenology. By demonstrating the codetermination of his phenomenological, ecological, and political thinking, Marder accounts for Heidegger’s failures without either justifying them or suggesting that they invalidate his philosophical endeavor as a whole.Trade Review"For many years, Michael Marder has been one of the most interesting philosophical interpreters of Heidegger. What he gives us to think here is really remarkable. The readers of his book on Heidegger will be inspired."—Peter Trawny, editor of the collected works of Martin Heidegger"Often indefensible, always indispensable: Heidegger, for all his errors, continues to provoke us as modernity draws nearer to a reckoning. In this thoughtful book, Michael Marder sifts through Heidegger’s texts in a search for an open yet finite dwelling, a home beyond parochialism and globalism."—Richard Polt, Xavier University"Deploying an exceptional familiarity with Heidegger scholarship, Michael Marder highlights how Heidegger’s thinking of the Thing offers a rich opening for ecological resistance to consumerist politics and economics."—David Wood, author of Deep Time, Dark Times: On Being Geologically Human"Michael Marder's book is particularly thought-provoking. Highly recommended for all who continue to wrestle with the dual legacy of Heidegger's thought and his "great mistakes," without minimizing either."—Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"Marder’s book struck a chord with me because the author sets out to make a significant point, that is, to advocate our duty to engage with Heidegger rather than continue to ignore him because of his antisemitic sentiments."—Phenomenological ReviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction: Heidegger’s Eternal TrianglePart I. Phenomenology1. “Higher than Actuality”: The Possibility of Phenomenology2. Failure and Nonactualizable Possibility3. The Phenomenology of Ontico-Ontological DifferencePart II. Ecology4. To Open a Site: A Political Phenomenology of Dwelling5. Devastation6. An Ecology of PropertyIII. Politics 7. The Question of Political Existence 8. The Other “Jewish Question”9. Philosophy without Right?: On Heidegger’s Notes for the 1934–35 “Hegel Seminar” (with Marcia Sá Cavalcante-Schuback)NotesIndex
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal
Book SynopsisA field guide to a nonfascist life at the end of the world as we know itA Guerrilla Guide to Refusal is an unexpected approach to philosophy from a guerrilla-logic point of view. Harnessing critical theory to creatively reimagine counterinsurgency, guerrilla warfare, and interventions beyond the political mainstream, it takes us on a journey through anarchist infowar, queer outlaws, and black insurgency—through a subterranean network of communiques, military documents, contemporary art, political slogans, adversarial blogs, and captive media. In doing so, it provides powerful new insight into contemporary political movements that pose no demands, refuse labels, and offer no solutions.Written to both inspire and provoke, A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal urges us to think through the refusal to participate in politics as usual. Author Andrew Culp demonstrates how evasion can combatively deny the existing order its power. Focusing on punk cinema, anarchist pamphlets, feminist art projects, hacker manifestos, and guerrilla manuals, he foregrounds invisibility as a novel force of disruption. He draws on concepts of criminality, fugitivity, and anonymity to bring a more nuanced understanding of how power makes things—and people—visible.The book’s unique format is that of a theoretical manual, comprising freestanding segments instead of blueprints. Poised to reach beyond the academy into activist circles, this potent theory-in-action intervention forces us to reconsider the terrain upon which our struggles against patriarchy, anti-Blackness, capitalism, and the state operate.Trade Review"In this moment of miasma, Andrew Culp opens an aperture on a politics of negation that lives and breathes only for itself. A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal taps the vein of revolt, recognizing that its lifeblood already flows through our societies. For Culp, the cry for liberation is an ever-present reverberation that echoes across the beautiful wilderness that is life." —Simon Springer, author of The Anarchist Roots of Geography: Toward Spatial EmancipationTable of ContentsIntroduction: Underground PhilosophyI. Anonymity1. The Guerrilla Force of Liberation2. Propaganda of the Deed3. The Voice of Bullets and Bombs4. Messages without a Sender5. The Sprawl6. The Politics of AsymmetryII. Criminality7. Society with Sexual Characteristics8. Excitement and Exposure9. A Heart That Burns and Burns10. We Are Bad, but We Could Be Worse11. We Don’t12. Making Illness into a WeaponIII. Fugitivity13. Uprising14. Self-Abolition15. Searing Flesh16 Captive Media17. Black Out18. Trapped between Withdrawal and HypervisibilityConclusion: Communism at the End of the WorldAcknowledgmentsNotes Index
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal
Book SynopsisA field guide to a nonfascist life at the end of the world as we know itA Guerrilla Guide to Refusal is an unexpected approach to philosophy from a guerrilla-logic point of view. Harnessing critical theory to creatively reimagine counterinsurgency, guerrilla warfare, and interventions beyond the political mainstream, it takes us on a journey through anarchist infowar, queer outlaws, and black insurgency—through a subterranean network of communiques, military documents, contemporary art, political slogans, adversarial blogs, and captive media. In doing so, it provides powerful new insight into contemporary political movements that pose no demands, refuse labels, and offer no solutions.Written to both inspire and provoke, A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal urges us to think through the refusal to participate in politics as usual. Author Andrew Culp demonstrates how evasion can combatively deny the existing order its power. Focusing on punk cinema, anarchist pamphlets, feminist art projects, hacker manifestos, and guerrilla manuals, he foregrounds invisibility as a novel force of disruption. He draws on concepts of criminality, fugitivity, and anonymity to bring a more nuanced understanding of how power makes things—and people—visible.The book’s unique format is that of a theoretical manual, comprising freestanding segments instead of blueprints. Poised to reach beyond the academy into activist circles, this potent theory-in-action intervention forces us to reconsider the terrain upon which our struggles against patriarchy, anti-Blackness, capitalism, and the state operate.Trade Review"In this moment of miasma, Andrew Culp opens an aperture on a politics of negation that lives and breathes only for itself. A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal taps the vein of revolt, recognizing that its lifeblood already flows through our societies. For Culp, the cry for liberation is an ever-present reverberation that echoes across the beautiful wilderness that is life." —Simon Springer, author of The Anarchist Roots of Geography: Toward Spatial EmancipationTable of ContentsIntroduction: Underground PhilosophyI. Anonymity1. The Guerrilla Force of Liberation2. Propaganda of the Deed3. The Voice of Bullets and Bombs4. Messages without a Sender5. The Sprawl6. The Politics of AsymmetryII. Criminality7. Society with Sexual Characteristics8. Excitement and Exposure9. A Heart That Burns and Burns10. We Are Bad, but We Could Be Worse11. We Don’t12. Making Illness into a WeaponIII. Fugitivity13. Uprising14. Self-Abolition15. Searing Flesh16 Captive Media17. Black Out18. Trapped between Withdrawal and HypervisibilityConclusion: Communism at the End of the WorldAcknowledgmentsNotes Index
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press Outsider Theory: Intellectual Histories of
Book SynopsisA vital and timely reminder that modern life owes as much to outlandish thinking as to dominant ideologies What do the Nag Hammadi library, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, speculative feminist historiography, Marcus Garvey’s finances, and maps drawn by asylum patients have in common? Jonathan P. Eburne explores this question as never before in Outsider Theory, a timely book about outlandish ideas. Eburne brings readers on an adventure in intellectual history that stresses the urgency of taking seriously—especially in an era of fake news—ideas that might otherwise be discarded or regarded as errant, unfashionable, or even unreasonable. Examining the role of such thinking in contemporary intellectual history, Eburne challenges the categorical demarcation of good ideas from flawed, wild, or bad ones, addressing the surprising extent to which speculative inquiry extends beyond the work of professional intellectuals to include that of nonprofessionals as well, whether amateurs, unfashionable observers, or the clinically insane. Considering the work of a variety of such figures—from popular occult writers and gnostics to so-called outsider artists and pseudoscientists—Eburne argues that an understanding of its circulation and recirculation is indispensable to the history of ideas. He devotes close attention to ideas and texts usually omitted from or marginalized within orthodox histories of literary modernism, critical theory, and continental philosophy, yet which have long garnered the critical attention of specialists in religion, science studies, critical race theory, and the history of the occult. In doing so he not only sheds new light on a fascinating body of creative thought but also proposes new approaches for situating contemporary humanities scholarship within the history of ideas. However important it might be to protect ourselves from “bad” ideas, Outsider Theory shows how crucial it is for us to know how and why such ideas have left their impression on modern-day thinking and continue to shape its evolution.Trade Review"A bracing challenge to academic squeamishness, Outsider Theory is a learned, mischievous, and fascinating book that makes a compelling argument for the positive role of fraud, failure, and error in knowledge production. Outsider art, writing, and thinking can no longer be neatly quarantined in isolated and eccentric individuals, but must be recognized as thoroughly implicated in mass culture, scholarship, laboratory work, and critical theory."—John Wilkinson, University of Chicago"Jonathan P. Eburne has written a generous, curious, rigorous book about ideas often dismissed as ridiculous, embarrassing, and even dangerous. Outsider Theory takes them seriously, which means subjecting them to the same caliber of historical analysis and philosophical critique usually reserved for ‘good’ ideas. In doing so, he launches us on several fascinating voyages across what he calls ‘the oceanic expanse of modern intellectual history.’"—Evan Kindley, author of Poet-Critics and the Administration of Culture"This timely book is not only genuinely interesting, but makes a strong and original contribution to the discussion concerning the future of the humanities. Jonathan P. Eburne's study of questions of method is itself an achievement of method, engaging with the outsiders not as a cabinet of curiosities, but in a way that troubles thinking, and especially thinking about thinking."—Margret Grebowicz, Tyumen State University "Scholars will find much to consider in Eburne’s methodological innovations, and students will find Eburne’s case studies of outsider theory to be fascinating explorations of how ideas, once discarded, often have had a subterranean influence on contemporary intellectual life."—CHOICE"Jonathan Eburne’s book encourages a resolve to take as seriously and generously as he entertains every strange invention and its productive errancy, even one’s drifting thoughts on finally putting the book aside."—SubStanceTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPreface: Enemies of the TruthIntroductionPart I. Alien Gods1. The Library We’ve Been Waiting For: The Alien Knowledge of Nag Hammadi2. Gnostic MaterialismPart II. Mythomorphoses3. So Dark, the Con of Man4. The Chalice, the Blade, and the Bifurcation PointPart III. Sovereign Institutions5. Garveyism and Its Involutions6. The Sade IndustryPart IV. Products of Mind7. Cartographorrhea: On Psychotic Maps8. Communities of Suspicion: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Laws of ScienceCoda: Thought from Outer SpaceNotesIndex
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Glissant and the Middle Passage: Philosophy,
Book SynopsisA reevaluation of Édouard Glissant that centers on the catastrophe of the Middle Passage and creates deep, original theories of trauma and Caribbeanness While philosophy has undertaken the work of accounting for Europe’s traumatic history, the field has not shown the same attention to the catastrophe known as the Middle Passage. It is a history that requires its own ideas that emerge organically from the societies that experienced the Middle Passage and its consequences firsthand. Glissant and the Middle Passage offers a new, important approach to this neglected calamity by examining the thought of Édouard Glissant, particularly his development of Caribbeanness as a critical concept rooted in the experience of the slave trade and its aftermath in colonialism.In dialogue with key theorists of catastrophe and trauma—including Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, George Lamming, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Derek Walcott, as well as key figures in Holocaust studies—Glissant and the Middle Passage hones a sharp sense of the specifically Caribbean varieties of loss, developing them into a transformative philosophical idea. Using the Plantation as a critical concept, John E. Drabinski creolizes notions of rhizome and nomad, examining what kinds of aesthetics grow from these roots and offering reconsiderations of what constitutes intellectual work and cultural production.Glissant and the Middle Passage establishes Glissant’s proper place as a key theorist of ruin, catastrophe, abyss, and memory. Identifying his insistence on memories and histories tied to place as the crucial geography at the heart of his work, this book imparts an innovative new response to the specific historical experiences of the Middle Passage.Trade Review"Glissant and the Middle Passage is an ingeniously cast light on Glissant’s remarkable philosophical proposition to the world from the Caribbean geography of reason. It critically shows how the singularity of a Caribbean mode of thought strikingly disrupts admitted stances on crucial philosophical precepts to fruitfully expand and broaden the realm of a philosophy that ordinarily centered its concerns and frames of reference around an established European worldview."—Hanétha Vété-Congolo, Bowdoin College"Glissant and the Middle Passage is the single most comprehensive and compelling treatment to date of the philosophical dimension of Édouard Glissant’s non-fiction. John E. Drabinski maps Glissant’s geography of reason in the mode of a postcolonial ‘intensification of qualities,’ summoning a philosophy of post-traumatic relationality that tracks the philosophical valences and aftershocks of the Middle Passage. Essential reading."—Nick Nesbitt, Princeton UniversityTable of ContentsContentsAbbreviationsPrefaceIntroduction: Between Europe and the Americas1. Origins I: Memory, Root, Abyss2. Origins II: Memory, Future, Abyss3. Ontology of an Abyssal Subject4. Aesthetics of an Abyssal Subject5. Thinking and Building: What Is an Intellectual?AcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press Homesickness: Of Trauma and the Longing for Place
Book SynopsisIntroducing a posthumanist concept of nostalgia to analyze steadily widening themes of animality, home, travel, slavery, shopping, and war in U.S. literature after 1945 In the Anthropocene, as climate change renders environments less stable, the human desire for place underscores the weakness of the individual in the face of the world. In this book, Ryan Hediger introduces a distinctive notion of homesickness, one in which the longing for place demonstrates not only human vulnerability but also intersubjectivity beyond the human. Arguing that this feeling is unavoidable and characteristically posthumanist, Hediger studies the complex mix of attitudes toward home, the homely, and the familiar in an age of resurgent cosmopolitanism, especially eco-cosmopolitanism. Homesickness closely examines U.S. literature mostly after 1945, including prominent writers such as Annie Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, and Ernest Hemingway, in light of the challenges and themes of the Anthropocene. Hediger argues that our desire for home is shorthand for a set of important hopes worth defending—serious and genuine relationships to places and their biotic regimes and landforms; membership in vital cultures, human and nonhuman; resistance to capital-infused forms of globalization that flatten differences and turn life and place into mere resources. Our homesickness, according to Hediger, is inevitable because the self is necessarily constructed with reference to the material past. Therefore, homesickness is not something to dismiss as nostalgic or reactionary but is rather a structure of feeling to come to terms with and even to cultivate.Recasting an expansive range of fields through the lens of homesickness—from ecocriticism to animal studies and disability studies, (eco)philosophy to posthumanist theory—Homesickness speaks not only to the desire for a physical structure or place but also to a wide range of longings and dislocations, including those related to subjectivity, memory, bodies, literary form, and language. Trade Review"For anyone who’s felt alienated from a mall, a suburb, a landscape, a culture, or our shared biosphere, this book offers homesickness as a powerful human desire, a mode of interpretation, a corrective to increased mobility, consumer capitalism, and utopian cosmopolitanism, and a hopeful sensibility that connects us with others—exactly what we need in our troubled times."—Jennifer Ladino, author of Reclaiming Nostalgia: Longing for Nature in American Literature"Ryan Hediger richly brings to life the feelings of homesickness that infuse cultural production amid the dislocations of capitalism, warfare, and the Anthropocene. His deeply researched and beautifully written book illuminates the experiences of weakness, mortality, and desire for home that have often been overlooked in the environmental humanities."—Teresa Shewry, author of Hope at Sea: Possible Ecologies in Oceanic Literature "Ryan Hediger’s Homesickness is an intriguing book that proposes its titular concept as a master category for reading twentieth- and twenty-first-century US art, particularly fiction and films."—ALH Online Review
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Homesickness: Of Trauma and the Longing for Place
Book SynopsisIntroducing a posthumanist concept of nostalgia to analyze steadily widening themes of animality, home, travel, slavery, shopping, and war in U.S. literature after 1945 In the Anthropocene, as climate change renders environments less stable, the human desire for place underscores the weakness of the individual in the face of the world. In this book, Ryan Hediger introduces a distinctive notion of homesickness, one in which the longing for place demonstrates not only human vulnerability but also intersubjectivity beyond the human. Arguing that this feeling is unavoidable and characteristically posthumanist, Hediger studies the complex mix of attitudes toward home, the homely, and the familiar in an age of resurgent cosmopolitanism, especially eco-cosmopolitanism. Homesickness closely examines U.S. literature mostly after 1945, including prominent writers such as Annie Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, and Ernest Hemingway, in light of the challenges and themes of the Anthropocene. Hediger argues that our desire for home is shorthand for a set of important hopes worth defending—serious and genuine relationships to places and their biotic regimes and landforms; membership in vital cultures, human and nonhuman; resistance to capital-infused forms of globalization that flatten differences and turn life and place into mere resources. Our homesickness, according to Hediger, is inevitable because the self is necessarily constructed with reference to the material past. Therefore, homesickness is not something to dismiss as nostalgic or reactionary but is rather a structure of feeling to come to terms with and even to cultivate.Recasting an expansive range of fields through the lens of homesickness—from ecocriticism to animal studies and disability studies, (eco)philosophy to posthumanist theory—Homesickness speaks not only to the desire for a physical structure or place but also to a wide range of longings and dislocations, including those related to subjectivity, memory, bodies, literary form, and language. Trade Review"For anyone who’s felt alienated from a mall, a suburb, a landscape, a culture, or our shared biosphere, this book offers homesickness as a powerful human desire, a mode of interpretation, a corrective to increased mobility, consumer capitalism, and utopian cosmopolitanism, and a hopeful sensibility that connects us with others—exactly what we need in our troubled times."—Jennifer Ladino, author of Reclaiming Nostalgia: Longing for Nature in American Literature"Ryan Hediger richly brings to life the feelings of homesickness that infuse cultural production amid the dislocations of capitalism, warfare, and the Anthropocene. His deeply researched and beautifully written book illuminates the experiences of weakness, mortality, and desire for home that have often been overlooked in the environmental humanities."—Teresa Shewry, author of Hope at Sea: Possible Ecologies in Oceanic Literature "Ryan Hediger’s Homesickness is an intriguing book that proposes its titular concept as a master category for reading twentieth- and twenty-first-century US art, particularly fiction and films."—ALH Online Review
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Resisting Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future
Book SynopsisA bold new critique of dialogue as a method of eliminating dissent Is dialogue always the productive political and communicative tool it is widely conceived to be? Resisting Dialogue reassesses our assumptions about dialogue and, in so doing, about what a politically healthy society should look like. Juan Meneses argues that, far from an unalloyed good, dialogue often serves as a subtle tool of domination, perpetuating the underlying inequalities it is intended to address.Meneses investigates how “illusory dialogue” (a particular dialogic encounter designed to secure consensus) is employed as an instrument that forestalls—instead of fostering—articulations of dissent that lead to political change. He does so through close readings of novels from the English-speaking world written in the past hundred years—from E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion to Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and more. Resisting Dialogue demonstrates how these novels are rhetorical exercises with real political clout capable of restoring the radical potential of dialogue in today’s globalized world. Expanding the boundaries of postpolitical theory, Meneses reveals how these works offer ways to practice disagreement against this regulatory use of dialogue and expose the pitfalls of certain other dialogic interventions in relation to some of the most prominent questions of modern history: cosmopolitanism at the end of empire, the dangers of rewriting the historical record, the affective dimension of neoliberalism, the racial and nationalist underpinnings of the “war on terror,” and the visibility of environmental violence in the Anthropocene. Ultimately, Resisting Dialogue is a complex, provocative critique that, melding political and literary theory, reveals how fiction can help confront the deployment of dialogue to preempt the emergence of dissent and, thus, revitalize the practice of emancipatory politics. Trade Review"Deepening and widening a furrow first plowed by Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek, Resisting Dialogue marks a refusal to underwrite ‘postpolitics’ as politics by insisting that unspeakable political ambition take its place, without apology, so that our voyage from a troubled modernist literature to the Anthropocene maps, simultaneously, a continuous trajectory and a jarring, disjunctive continuity."—Grant Farred, Cornell University"Resisting Dialogue draws on literature to develop a fresh vocabulary of political activism and thetic force. Contrarianism, deadlock, impasse, silence, resilience, persistence, the power of unexceptional figures of history to block and oppose the status quo—these immobilizing postures acquire a make-over as acts of agency that contest the eclipse of political agency besetting progressive theories of the Political."—Emily Apter, author of Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse and the Impolitic "In all, Resisting Dialogue will be immensely useful for those conducting scholarly work in global studies across the disciplines, especially in the twentieth- and twenty-first century literary studies."—Project Muse "In attuning us to examine with greater sensitivity the political contours of dialogue... Meneses makes a genuinely original,impactful contribution to the study of the novel, as well as to political discourse and theory. "—American Literary History"Meneses changes the terms of a larger cultural debate about dialogue to reframe what is actually happening as the illusory manipulations of postpolitical power... in doing so, he demonstrates a promising correlation between reading imaginative texts and reading the world."—MFS Modern Fiction Studies"Resisting Dialogue is a crucial meditation on our fraught times of ever-deepening social, cultural and political divides, where all attempts at dialogue seem to be failing."—LSE Review of Books
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press Resisting Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future
Book SynopsisA bold new critique of dialogue as a method of eliminating dissent Is dialogue always the productive political and communicative tool it is widely conceived to be? Resisting Dialogue reassesses our assumptions about dialogue and, in so doing, about what a politically healthy society should look like. Juan Meneses argues that, far from an unalloyed good, dialogue often serves as a subtle tool of domination, perpetuating the underlying inequalities it is intended to address.Meneses investigates how “illusory dialogue” (a particular dialogic encounter designed to secure consensus) is employed as an instrument that forestalls—instead of fostering—articulations of dissent that lead to political change. He does so through close readings of novels from the English-speaking world written in the past hundred years—from E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion to Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and more. Resisting Dialogue demonstrates how these novels are rhetorical exercises with real political clout capable of restoring the radical potential of dialogue in today’s globalized world. Expanding the boundaries of postpolitical theory, Meneses reveals how these works offer ways to practice disagreement against this regulatory use of dialogue and expose the pitfalls of certain other dialogic interventions in relation to some of the most prominent questions of modern history: cosmopolitanism at the end of empire, the dangers of rewriting the historical record, the affective dimension of neoliberalism, the racial and nationalist underpinnings of the “war on terror,” and the visibility of environmental violence in the Anthropocene. Ultimately, Resisting Dialogue is a complex, provocative critique that, melding political and literary theory, reveals how fiction can help confront the deployment of dialogue to preempt the emergence of dissent and, thus, revitalize the practice of emancipatory politics. Trade Review"Deepening and widening a furrow first plowed by Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek, Resisting Dialogue marks a refusal to underwrite ‘postpolitics’ as politics by insisting that unspeakable political ambition take its place, without apology, so that our voyage from a troubled modernist literature to the Anthropocene maps, simultaneously, a continuous trajectory and a jarring, disjunctive continuity."—Grant Farred, Cornell University"Resisting Dialogue draws on literature to develop a fresh vocabulary of political activism and thetic force. Contrarianism, deadlock, impasse, silence, resilience, persistence, the power of unexceptional figures of history to block and oppose the status quo—these immobilizing postures acquire a make-over as acts of agency that contest the eclipse of political agency besetting progressive theories of the Political."—Emily Apter, author of Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse and the Impolitic "In all, Resisting Dialogue will be immensely useful for those conducting scholarly work in global studies across the disciplines, especially in the twentieth- and twenty-first century literary studies."—Project Muse "In attuning us to examine with greater sensitivity the political contours of dialogue... Meneses makes a genuinely original,impactful contribution to the study of the novel, as well as to political discourse and theory. "—American Literary History"Meneses changes the terms of a larger cultural debate about dialogue to reframe what is actually happening as the illusory manipulations of postpolitical power... in doing so, he demonstrates a promising correlation between reading imaginative texts and reading the world."—MFS Modern Fiction Studies"Resisting Dialogue is a crucial meditation on our fraught times of ever-deepening social, cultural and political divides, where all attempts at dialogue seem to be failing."—LSE Review of Books
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry
Book SynopsisA trailblazing exploration of the political stakes of curiosity Curiosity is political. Who is curious, when, and how reflects the social values and power structures of a given society. In Curiosity and Power, Perry Zurn explores the political philosophy of curiosity, staking the groundbreaking claim that it is a social force—the heartbeat of political resistance and a critical factor in social justice. He argues that the very scaffolding of curiosity is the product of political architectures, and exploring these values and architectures is crucial if we are to better understand, and more ethically navigate, the struggle over inquiry in an unequal world. Curiosity and Power explores curiosity through the lens of political philosophy—weaving in Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida in doing so—and the experience of political marginalization, demonstrating that curiosity is implicated equally in the maintenance of societies and in their transformation. Curiosity plays as central a role in establishing social institutions and fields of inquiry as it does in their deconstruction and in building new forms of political community. Understanding curiosity is critical to understanding politics, and understanding politics is critical to understanding curiosity. Drawing not only on philosophy and political theory but also on feminist theory, race theory, disability studies, and trans studies, Curiosity and Power tracks curiosity in the structures of political marginalization and resistance—from the Civil Rights Movement to building better social relationships. Curiosity and Power insists that the power of curiosity be recognized and engaged responsibly.Trade Review "How curious that recent philosophy has been so incurious about curiosity. But Perry Zurn, to use his apt descriptor for Foucault, shows us how to be ‘incontrovertibly curious’ about curiosity itself. Zurn shows that this is no simple virtue but rather bears within itself a potential for dissecting dominations. There is a politics not only to our incuriosity but also to all our curiosities."—Colin Koopman, author of How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person "This book is an invitation to engage in curiosity with careful attentiveness to otherwise possibilities. It is also a reminder that curiosity can turn situations into spectacles, cutting into bodies to extract knowledge and value. Perry Zurn navigates this ambiguity with insight, clarity, and compassion, teaching us to encounter the world anew, with both courage and humility."—Lisa Guenther, author of Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives "Curiosity and Power offers a call to acknowledge the importance of collective inquiry."—Art Discourse "The book crucially contributes not only to enhancing curiosity’s status in philosophical inquiry but also o enhancing the role of philosophy in curiosity studies. "—The European Legacy Table of ContentsContentsPrefaceWhy the Politics of Curiosity?1. A Political History of Curiosity Part I. Episodes from Political Theory2. Friedrich Nietzsche: Curiosity and the Scene of Struggle3. Michel Foucault: Institutionalized Curiosity and Resistance4. Jacques Derrida: Sovereign Curiosity and DeconstructionPart II. Archives of Political Experience5. Curiosity, Activism, and Political Resistance6. Cripping Curiosity: A Critical Disability Framework7. Trans Curiosity: Beyond the Curio Unsettling CuriosityAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry
Book SynopsisA trailblazing exploration of the political stakes of curiosity Curiosity is political. Who is curious, when, and how reflects the social values and power structures of a given society. In Curiosity and Power, Perry Zurn explores the political philosophy of curiosity, staking the groundbreaking claim that it is a social force—the heartbeat of political resistance and a critical factor in social justice. He argues that the very scaffolding of curiosity is the product of political architectures, and exploring these values and architectures is crucial if we are to better understand, and more ethically navigate, the struggle over inquiry in an unequal world. Curiosity and Power explores curiosity through the lens of political philosophy—weaving in Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida in doing so—and the experience of political marginalization, demonstrating that curiosity is implicated equally in the maintenance of societies and in their transformation. Curiosity plays as central a role in establishing social institutions and fields of inquiry as it does in their deconstruction and in building new forms of political community. Understanding curiosity is critical to understanding politics, and understanding politics is critical to understanding curiosity. Drawing not only on philosophy and political theory but also on feminist theory, race theory, disability studies, and trans studies, Curiosity and Power tracks curiosity in the structures of political marginalization and resistance—from the Civil Rights Movement to building better social relationships. Curiosity and Power insists that the power of curiosity be recognized and engaged responsibly.Trade Review "How curious that recent philosophy has been so incurious about curiosity. But Perry Zurn, to use his apt descriptor for Foucault, shows us how to be ‘incontrovertibly curious’ about curiosity itself. Zurn shows that this is no simple virtue but rather bears within itself a potential for dissecting dominations. There is a politics not only to our incuriosity but also to all our curiosities."—Colin Koopman, author of How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person "This book is an invitation to engage in curiosity with careful attentiveness to otherwise possibilities. It is also a reminder that curiosity can turn situations into spectacles, cutting into bodies to extract knowledge and value. Perry Zurn navigates this ambiguity with insight, clarity, and compassion, teaching us to encounter the world anew, with both courage and humility."—Lisa Guenther, author of Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives "Curiosity and Power offers a call to acknowledge the importance of collective inquiry."—Art Discourse "The book crucially contributes not only to enhancing curiosity’s status in philosophical inquiry but also o enhancing the role of philosophy in curiosity studies. "—The European Legacy Table of ContentsContentsPrefaceWhy the Politics of Curiosity?1. A Political History of Curiosity Part I. Episodes from Political Theory2. Friedrich Nietzsche: Curiosity and the Scene of Struggle3. Michel Foucault: Institutionalized Curiosity and Resistance4. Jacques Derrida: Sovereign Curiosity and DeconstructionPart II. Archives of Political Experience5. Curiosity, Activism, and Political Resistance6. Cripping Curiosity: A Critical Disability Framework7. Trans Curiosity: Beyond the Curio Unsettling CuriosityAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press The Life Worth Living: Disability, Pain, and
Book SynopsisA philosophical challenge to the ableist conflation of disability and pain More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle said: “let there be a law that no deformed child shall live.” This idea is alive and well today. During the past century, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. argued that the United States can forcibly sterilize intellectually disabled women and philosopher Peter Singer argued for the right of parents to euthanize certain cognitively disabled infants. The Life Worth Living explores how and why such arguments persist by investigating the exclusion of and discrimination against disabled people across the history of Western moral philosophy.Joel Michael Reynolds argues that this history demonstrates a fundamental mischaracterization of the meaning of disability, thanks to the conflation of lived experiences of disability with those of pain and suffering. Building on decades of activism and scholarship in the field, Reynolds shows how longstanding views of disability are misguided and unjust, and he lays out a vision of what an anti-ableist moral future requires.The Life Worth Living is the first sustained examination of disability through the lens of the history of moral philosophy and phenomenology, and it demonstrates how lived experiences of disability demand a far richer account of human flourishing, embodiment, community, and politics in philosophical inquiry and beyond.Trade Review"In this philosophically ambitious and deeply personal book, Joel Michael Reynolds exposes the ableist mistake that has afflicted philosophy at least since Socrates asked what makes a life worth living. To repair the damage done by that mistake, Reynolds exhorts us to stop looking for the worth of human lives in individual ‘normate’ bodies and to start building systems of access and care that make it possible for people with all sorts of bodies to flourish. Anyone committed to understanding what disability justice requires should read this book."—Erik Parens, director, The Hastings Center Initiative in Bioethics and the Humanities"Joel Michael Reynolds’s The Life Worth Living is the most insightful analysis of pain since Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain. His phenomenology of foreboding, beholdenness, bioreckoning, and disruption is brilliant. And his critical engagement with ableist assumptions that run throughout the history of thought and continue into contemporary medical discourses powerfully demonstrates that these discourses continue to conflate disability, pain, and harm in ways that devalue ‘disabled’ lives."—Kelly Oliver, Vanderbilt UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Ableist ConflationPart I. Pain1. Theories of Pain2. A Phenomenology of Chronic PainPart II. Disability3. Theories of Disability4. A Phenomenology of Multiple SclerosisPart III. Ability5. Theories of Ability6. A Phenomenology of AbilityConclusion: An Anti-Ableist FutureAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£17.99
University of Minnesota Press Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive
Book SynopsisA radical new approach to humor, where traditional targets become its agents Humor is often dismissed as cruel ridicule or harmless fun. But what if laughter is a vital force to channel rage against patriarchy, Islamophobia, or mass incarceration? To create moments of empathy and dialogue between Black Lives Matter and the police? These and other such questions are at the heart of this powerful reassessment of humor. Placing theorists in conversation with comedians, Uproarious offers a full-frontal approach to the very foundation of comedy and its profound political impact. Here Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett address the four major theories of humor—superiority, relief, incongruity, and social play—through the lens of feminist and game-changing comics such as Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro. They take a radical and holistic approach to the understanding of humor, particularly of humor deployed by those from groups long relegated to the margins, and propose a powerful new understanding of humor as a force that can engender politically progressive social movements. Drawing on a range of cross-disciplinary sources, from philosophies and histories of humor to the psychology and physiology of laughter to animal studies, Uproarious offers a richer understanding of the political and cathartic potential of humor. A major new contribution to a wider dialogue on comedy, Uproarious grounds for us explorations of outsider humor and our golden age of feminist comics—showing that when women, prisoners, even animals, laugh back, comedy along with belly laughs forge new identities and alter the political climate. Trade Review"What happens when a professor of philosophy and a professor of history walk into a comedy club? If these professors are Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett, they write a brilliantly astute, acutely insightful, and sharply original book on gender, politics, ethnicities, empathy, humanism, and humor. In Uproarious, they stand up for the power of stand up, with Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro headlining their deeply erudite arguments. The result is an intellectual riot, overturning shibboleths and raising the roof—while breaking the glass ceiling—of ideas about women and comedy."—Gina Barreca, author of “If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?”: Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times"Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett take the reader on a delightful and inspiring voyage into the belly of satire, comedy, and laughter. While we may have a visceral sense of humor’s powers, philosophy has not yet found the language for it. In giving us just that, Uproarious expands our understanding of feminist and race politics and exposes dimensions of sociality, embodiment, and empathy that carry rich (and, yes, humorous!) implications for critical theory and aesthetics."—Monique Roelofs, author of The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic"If you think humans are the only animals with a sense of humor, Uproarious surely will break you out of your misleading speciesist perspective. There's a lot we can learn from other animals about how and why humans' sense of humor evolved. This wide-ranging, transdisciplinary, and future-looking collection of essays nicely lays the groundwork for stimulating discussions freed from human exceptionalism."—Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive
Book SynopsisA radical new approach to humor, where traditional targets become its agents Humor is often dismissed as cruel ridicule or harmless fun. But what if laughter is a vital force to channel rage against patriarchy, Islamophobia, or mass incarceration? To create moments of empathy and dialogue between Black Lives Matter and the police? These and other such questions are at the heart of this powerful reassessment of humor. Placing theorists in conversation with comedians, Uproarious offers a full-frontal approach to the very foundation of comedy and its profound political impact. Here Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett address the four major theories of humor—superiority, relief, incongruity, and social play—through the lens of feminist and game-changing comics such as Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro. They take a radical and holistic approach to the understanding of humor, particularly of humor deployed by those from groups long relegated to the margins, and propose a powerful new understanding of humor as a force that can engender politically progressive social movements. Drawing on a range of cross-disciplinary sources, from philosophies and histories of humor to the psychology and physiology of laughter to animal studies, Uproarious offers a richer understanding of the political and cathartic potential of humor. A major new contribution to a wider dialogue on comedy, Uproarious grounds for us explorations of outsider humor and our golden age of feminist comics—showing that when women, prisoners, even animals, laugh back, comedy along with belly laughs forge new identities and alter the political climate. Trade Review"What happens when a professor of philosophy and a professor of history walk into a comedy club? If these professors are Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett, they write a brilliantly astute, acutely insightful, and sharply original book on gender, politics, ethnicities, empathy, humanism, and humor. In Uproarious, they stand up for the power of stand up, with Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro headlining their deeply erudite arguments. The result is an intellectual riot, overturning shibboleths and raising the roof—while breaking the glass ceiling—of ideas about women and comedy."—Gina Barreca, author of “If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?”: Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times"Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett take the reader on a delightful and inspiring voyage into the belly of satire, comedy, and laughter. While we may have a visceral sense of humor’s powers, philosophy has not yet found the language for it. In giving us just that, Uproarious expands our understanding of feminist and race politics and exposes dimensions of sociality, embodiment, and empathy that carry rich (and, yes, humorous!) implications for critical theory and aesthetics."—Monique Roelofs, author of The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic"If you think humans are the only animals with a sense of humor, Uproarious surely will break you out of your misleading speciesist perspective. There's a lot we can learn from other animals about how and why humans' sense of humor evolved. This wide-ranging, transdisciplinary, and future-looking collection of essays nicely lays the groundwork for stimulating discussions freed from human exceptionalism."—Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press The Elements of Foucault
Book SynopsisA new conceptual diagram of Foucault’s original vision of the biopolitical order The history around the critical reception of Michel Foucault’s published writings is troubled, according to Gregg Lambert, especially in light of the controversy surrounding his late lectures on biopolitics and neoliberal governmentality. In this book, Lambert’s unique approach distills Foucault’s thought into its most basic components in order to more fully understand its method and its own immanent rules of construction.The Elements of Foucault presents a critical study of Foucault’s concept of method from the earlier History of Sexuality, Volume 1, to his later lectures. Lambert breaks down Foucault’s post-1975 analysis of the idea of biopower into four elements: the method, the conceptual device (i.e., dispositif), the grid of intelligibility, and the notion of “milieu.” Taken together, these elements compose the diagram of Foucault’s early analysis and the emergence of the neoliberal political economy. Lambert further delves into how Foucault’s works have been used and misused over time, challenging the periodization of Foucault’s later thought in scholarship as well as the major and most influential readings of Foucault by other contemporary philosophers—in particular Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben. The Elements of Foucault is the first generally accessible, yet rigorous and comprehensive, discussion of lectures and major published works of Foucault’s post-1975 theory of biopower and of the major innovation of the concept of dispositif. It is also the first critical work to address the important influence of French philosopher Georges Canghuilhem on Foucault’s thought.Trade Review"In this provocative and highly original text, Gregg Lambert challenges the standard view that Michel Foucault’s works are discontinuous by showing that Foucault does not leave his past ideas behind, but rather incorporates them into new constellations as he confronts new problems. By introducing a fourth element—milieu—into Foucault’s analysis of biopower to supplement the elements of method, dispositif, and grid of intelligibility, Lambert’s self-described mutation of biopower will be required reading for any serious Foucault scholar."—Alan D. Schrift, author of Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers"Gregg Lambert's study of Michel Foucault's work from the formulation of the concept of discipline to the notion of biopower demonstrates the inadequacy of interpretations that offer either an evolutionary or devolutionary reading of its movement. He shows that, at every step, Foucault both retains and sets aside concepts elaborated in previous texts and does so in a purely provisional manner, subject to perpetual revision. Lambert takes us beyond the too obvious periodizations into which Foucault's work is so often divided and allows us to see the complexity and unevenness that give some of his most important contributions their singular power."—Warren Montag, Occidental CollegeTable of ContentsContentsArticle I. On “Foucault”Article II. On the Elements of Biopower (Circa 1975–1979)1. MethodFoucault’s More GeometricoThe Problem of “Rationalizing Power”The Axiomatic Method of AnalysisThe Rules of Immanence2. Conceptual Device“What is a Dispositif?”The “Deployment” of Sexuality“The Category of the Subject and its Functioning”The Birth of the Cartesian Dispositif3. Grid of IntelligibilityToward a Government of the LivingThe Principle of VitalpolitikThe Society of ControlThe Problem of an “Inflationary Theory of the State”Article III. On the Mutations of Biopower (Post-1984)AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£65.60
University of Minnesota Press The Elements of Foucault
Book SynopsisA new conceptual diagram of Foucault’s original vision of the biopolitical order The history around the critical reception of Michel Foucault’s published writings is troubled, according to Gregg Lambert, especially in light of the controversy surrounding his late lectures on biopolitics and neoliberal governmentality. In this book, Lambert’s unique approach distills Foucault’s thought into its most basic components in order to more fully understand its method and its own immanent rules of construction.The Elements of Foucault presents a critical study of Foucault’s concept of method from the earlier History of Sexuality, Volume 1, to his later lectures. Lambert breaks down Foucault’s post-1975 analysis of the idea of biopower into four elements: the method, the conceptual device (i.e., dispositif), the grid of intelligibility, and the notion of “milieu.” Taken together, these elements compose the diagram of Foucault’s early analysis and the emergence of the neoliberal political economy. Lambert further delves into how Foucault’s works have been used and misused over time, challenging the periodization of Foucault’s later thought in scholarship as well as the major and most influential readings of Foucault by other contemporary philosophers—in particular Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben. The Elements of Foucault is the first generally accessible, yet rigorous and comprehensive, discussion of lectures and major published works of Foucault’s post-1975 theory of biopower and of the major innovation of the concept of dispositif. It is also the first critical work to address the important influence of French philosopher Georges Canghuilhem on Foucault’s thought.Trade Review"In this provocative and highly original text, Gregg Lambert challenges the standard view that Michel Foucault’s works are discontinuous by showing that Foucault does not leave his past ideas behind, but rather incorporates them into new constellations as he confronts new problems. By introducing a fourth element—milieu—into Foucault’s analysis of biopower to supplement the elements of method, dispositif, and grid of intelligibility, Lambert’s self-described mutation of biopower will be required reading for any serious Foucault scholar."—Alan D. Schrift, author of Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers"Gregg Lambert's study of Michel Foucault's work from the formulation of the concept of discipline to the notion of biopower demonstrates the inadequacy of interpretations that offer either an evolutionary or devolutionary reading of its movement. He shows that, at every step, Foucault both retains and sets aside concepts elaborated in previous texts and does so in a purely provisional manner, subject to perpetual revision. Lambert takes us beyond the too obvious periodizations into which Foucault's work is so often divided and allows us to see the complexity and unevenness that give some of his most important contributions their singular power."—Warren Montag, Occidental CollegeTable of ContentsContentsArticle I. On “Foucault”Article II. On the Elements of Biopower (Circa 1975–1979)1. MethodFoucault’s More GeometricoThe Problem of “Rationalizing Power”The Axiomatic Method of AnalysisThe Rules of Immanence2. Conceptual Device“What is a Dispositif?”The “Deployment” of Sexuality“The Category of the Subject and its Functioning”The Birth of the Cartesian Dispositif3. Grid of IntelligibilityToward a Government of the LivingThe Principle of VitalpolitikThe Society of ControlThe Problem of an “Inflationary Theory of the State”Article III. On the Mutations of Biopower (Post-1984)AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£17.99
University of Minnesota Press The Big No
Book SynopsisWhat it means to celebrate the potential and the power of no What does it mean to refuse? To not participate, to not build a better world, to not come up with a plan? To just say “no”? Against the ubiquitous demands for positive solutions, action-oriented policies, and optimistic compromises, The Big No refuses to play. Here leading scholars traverse the wide range of political action when “no” is in the picture, analyzing topics such as collective action, antisocialism, empirical science, the negative and the affirmative in Deleuze and Derrida, the “real” and the “clone,” Native sovereignty, and Afropessimism.In his introduction, Kennan Ferguson sums up the concept of the “Big No,” arguing for its political importance. Whatever its form—he identifies various strains—the Big No offers power against systems of oppression. Joshua Clover argues for the importance of Marx and Fanon in understanding how people are alienated and subjugated. Theodore Martin explores the attractions of antisociality in literature and life, citing such novelists as Patricia Highsmith and Richard Wright. François Laruelle differentiates nonphilosophy from other forms of French critical theory. Katerina Kolozova applies this insight to the nature of reality itself, arguing that the confusion of thought and reality leads to manipulation, automation, and alienation. Using poetry and autobiography, Frank Wilderson shows how Black people—their bodies and being—are displaced in politics, replaced and erased by the subjectivities of violence, suffering, and absence. Andrew Culp connects these themes of negativity, comparing and contrasting the refusals of antiphilosophy and Afropessimism. Thinking critically usually demands alternatives: how would you fix things? But, as The Big No shows, being absolutely critical—declining the demands of world-building—is one necessary response to wrong, to evil. It serves as a powerful reminder that the presumption of political action is always positive.Contributors: Joshua Clover, U of California Davis and U of Copenhagen; Andrew Culp, California Institute of the Arts; Katerina Kolozova, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities Skopje; Theodore Martin, U of California, Irvine; Anthony Paul Smith, La Salle U; Frank B. Wilderson III, U of California, Irvine. Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: No PoliticsKennan Ferguson 1. Absorption and Coloniality Joshua Clover2. Antisocial (A Literary History) Theodore Martin 3. The Big and Small No: Critique of Contemporary Solutions of Difference (Deleuze and Derrida) François Laruelle Translated by Anthony Paul Smith4. The Philosophical Problem of the Demiurgic Dream as Inherently Humanist Katerina Kolozova5. Without Priors Frank B. Wilderson III6. Afro-Pessimism and Non-Philosophy at the Zero Point of Subjectivity, History, and AestheticsAndrew CulpContributorsIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press The Big No
Book SynopsisWhat it means to celebrate the potential and the power of no What does it mean to refuse? To not participate, to not build a better world, to not come up with a plan? To just say “no”? Against the ubiquitous demands for positive solutions, action-oriented policies, and optimistic compromises, The Big No refuses to play. Here leading scholars traverse the wide range of political action when “no” is in the picture, analyzing topics such as collective action, antisocialism, empirical science, the negative and the affirmative in Deleuze and Derrida, the “real” and the “clone,” Native sovereignty, and Afropessimism.In his introduction, Kennan Ferguson sums up the concept of the “Big No,” arguing for its political importance. Whatever its form—he identifies various strains—the Big No offers power against systems of oppression. Joshua Clover argues for the importance of Marx and Fanon in understanding how people are alienated and subjugated. Theodore Martin explores the attractions of antisociality in literature and life, citing such novelists as Patricia Highsmith and Richard Wright. François Laruelle differentiates nonphilosophy from other forms of French critical theory. Katerina Kolozova applies this insight to the nature of reality itself, arguing that the confusion of thought and reality leads to manipulation, automation, and alienation. Using poetry and autobiography, Frank Wilderson shows how Black people—their bodies and being—are displaced in politics, replaced and erased by the subjectivities of violence, suffering, and absence. Andrew Culp connects these themes of negativity, comparing and contrasting the refusals of antiphilosophy and Afropessimism. Thinking critically usually demands alternatives: how would you fix things? But, as The Big No shows, being absolutely critical—declining the demands of world-building—is one necessary response to wrong, to evil. It serves as a powerful reminder that the presumption of political action is always positive.Contributors: Joshua Clover, U of California Davis and U of Copenhagen; Andrew Culp, California Institute of the Arts; Katerina Kolozova, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities Skopje; Theodore Martin, U of California, Irvine; Anthony Paul Smith, La Salle U; Frank B. Wilderson III, U of California, Irvine. Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: No PoliticsKennan Ferguson 1. Absorption and Coloniality Joshua Clover2. Antisocial (A Literary History) Theodore Martin 3. The Big and Small No: Critique of Contemporary Solutions of Difference (Deleuze and Derrida) François Laruelle Translated by Anthony Paul Smith4. The Philosophical Problem of the Demiurgic Dream as Inherently Humanist Katerina Kolozova5. Without Priors Frank B. Wilderson III6. Afro-Pessimism and Non-Philosophy at the Zero Point of Subjectivity, History, and AestheticsAndrew CulpContributorsIndex
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press Practicing the Good: Desire and Boredom in Soviet
Book SynopsisA philosophical consideration of Soviet Socialism that reveals the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporary anticapitalist discourse and theory This book, a philosophical consideration of Soviet socialism, is not meant simply to revisit the communist past; its aim, rather, is to witness certain zones where capitalism’s domination is resisted—the zones of countercapitalist critique, civil society agencies, and theoretical provisions of emancipation or progress—and to inquire to what extent those zones are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition. By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research is marked by a broad cross-disciplinary approach based on political economy, philosophy, art theory, and cultural theory that redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies’ views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.Trade Review"This ambitious work proposes to reveal how anti-capitalist critique and institutions of civil society ‘are in fact permeated by an unconscious form of capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition.’"—The Russian Review "A stimulating introduction into Soviet Marxism and a persuasive critique of contemporary anti-capitalism’s thirst for acceleration, atomization, and alienation... Practicing the Good is an invaluable read for anyone interested in how Soviet Marxism of the 1960-70s can re-evaluate our view on contemporary capitalism."—Marx & Philosophy"It is to be counted as one of the most important publications for leftist self-criticism in recent years. "—Radical Philosophy
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press The Other Side of the Digital: The Sacrificial
Book SynopsisA necessary, rich new examination of how the wired world affects our humanity Our tech-fueled economy is often touted as a boon for the development of our fullest human potential. But as our interactions are increasingly turned into mountains of data sifted by algorithms, what impact does this infinite accumulation and circulation of information really have on us? What are the hidden mechanisms that drive our continuous engagement with the digital?In The Other Side of the Digital, Andrea Righi argues that the Other of the digital acts as a new secular God, exerting its power through endless accountability that forces us to sacrifice ourselves for the digital. Righi deconstructs the contradictions inherent in our digital world, examining how ideas of knowledge, desire, writing, temporality, and the woman are being reconfigured by our sacrificial economy. His analyses include how both our self-image and our perception of reality are skewed by technologies like fitness bands, matchmaking apps, and search engines, among others.The Other Side of the Digital provides a necessary, in-depth cultural analysis of how the political theology of the new media functions under neoliberalism. Drawing on the work of well-known thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as Carla Lonzi, Luisa Muraro, and Luciano Parinetto, Righi creates novel appraisals of popular digital tools that we now use routinely to process life experiences. Asking why we must sign up for this sort of regime, The Other Side of the Digital is an important wake-up call to a world deeply entangled with the digital.Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Sexed Truth of Neoliberal Digitality1. Transcendence: Moses, or The Other of the Other2. Knowledge: Online Fee-Ding as the Solution to Meno’s Paradox3. Desire: The Ballistic Sexuality of Drones and Tinder4. Writing: The Quantified Self and Digital Accountability5. Temporality: Turks, Mammets, and Digital Crowdworking Platforms6. Woman: Love and Automated Profit7. Hysteria: The Moses of Bernardo Bertolucci8. Passivity: The Other as OtherNotesIndex
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press The Other Side of the Digital: The Sacrificial
Book SynopsisA necessary, rich new examination of how the wired world affects our humanity Our tech-fueled economy is often touted as a boon for the development of our fullest human potential. But as our interactions are increasingly turned into mountains of data sifted by algorithms, what impact does this infinite accumulation and circulation of information really have on us? What are the hidden mechanisms that drive our continuous engagement with the digital?In The Other Side of the Digital, Andrea Righi argues that the Other of the digital acts as a new secular God, exerting its power through endless accountability that forces us to sacrifice ourselves for the digital. Righi deconstructs the contradictions inherent in our digital world, examining how ideas of knowledge, desire, writing, temporality, and the woman are being reconfigured by our sacrificial economy. His analyses include how both our self-image and our perception of reality are skewed by technologies like fitness bands, matchmaking apps, and search engines, among others.The Other Side of the Digital provides a necessary, in-depth cultural analysis of how the political theology of the new media functions under neoliberalism. Drawing on the work of well-known thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as Carla Lonzi, Luisa Muraro, and Luciano Parinetto, Righi creates novel appraisals of popular digital tools that we now use routinely to process life experiences. Asking why we must sign up for this sort of regime, The Other Side of the Digital is an important wake-up call to a world deeply entangled with the digital.Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Sexed Truth of Neoliberal Digitality1. Transcendence: Moses, or The Other of the Other2. Knowledge: Online Fee-Ding as the Solution to Meno’s Paradox3. Desire: The Ballistic Sexuality of Drones and Tinder4. Writing: The Quantified Self and Digital Accountability5. Temporality: Turks, Mammets, and Digital Crowdworking Platforms6. Woman: Love and Automated Profit7. Hysteria: The Moses of Bernardo Bertolucci8. Passivity: The Other as OtherNotesIndex
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press The Alienated Subject: On the Capacity to Hurt
Book SynopsisA timely and provocative discussion of alienation as an intersectional category of life under racial capitalism and white supremacy From the divisiveness of the Trump era to the Covid-19 pandemic, alienation has become an all-too-familiar contemporary concept. In this groundbreaking book, James A. Tyner offers a novel framework for understanding the alienated subject, situating it within racial capitalism and white supremacy. Directly addressing current economic trends and their rhetoric of xenophobia, discrimination, and violence, The Alienated Subject exposes the universal whitewashing of alienation. Drawing insight from a variety of sources, including Marxism, feminism, existentialism, and critical race theory, Tyner develops a critique of both the liberal subject and the alienated subject. Through an engagement with the recent pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, he demonstrates how the alienated subject is capable of both compassion and cruelty; it is a sadomasochist. Tyner goes on to emphasize the importance of the particular places we find the alienated subject and how the revolutionary transformation of alienation is inherently a spatial struggle. Returning to key interlocutors from Sartre to Fromm, he examines political notions of distance and the spatial practices of everyday life as well as the capitalist conditions that give rise to the alienated subject.For Tyner, the alienated subject is not the iconic, romanticized image of Marx’s proletariat. Here he calls for an affirmation of love as a revolutionary concept, necessary for the transformation of a society marred by capitalism into an emancipated, caring society conditioned by socially just relations.Trade Review"James A. Tyner hits hard on page one and never lets up. His passion for humanity is intense, his concern for the possibilities of humanity deep and penetrating, his disdain for the depths of wayward inhumanity unnerving, and his hope for a meaningful life for all humans compelling. His insightful and incisive analysis is a model of such hope. The world needs this book." —Audrey Kobayashi, Queen’s UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction1. A Flourishing, but Mortal Life2. The Alienated Subject3. The Intersectionality of Alienation4. Whose Lives Matter?5. The Emancipated SubjectAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press The Alienated Subject: On the Capacity to Hurt
Book SynopsisA timely and provocative discussion of alienation as an intersectional category of life under racial capitalism and white supremacy From the divisiveness of the Trump era to the Covid-19 pandemic, alienation has become an all-too-familiar contemporary concept. In this groundbreaking book, James A. Tyner offers a novel framework for understanding the alienated subject, situating it within racial capitalism and white supremacy. Directly addressing current economic trends and their rhetoric of xenophobia, discrimination, and violence, The Alienated Subject exposes the universal whitewashing of alienation. Drawing insight from a variety of sources, including Marxism, feminism, existentialism, and critical race theory, Tyner develops a critique of both the liberal subject and the alienated subject. Through an engagement with the recent pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, he demonstrates how the alienated subject is capable of both compassion and cruelty; it is a sadomasochist. Tyner goes on to emphasize the importance of the particular places we find the alienated subject and how the revolutionary transformation of alienation is inherently a spatial struggle. Returning to key interlocutors from Sartre to Fromm, he examines political notions of distance and the spatial practices of everyday life as well as the capitalist conditions that give rise to the alienated subject.For Tyner, the alienated subject is not the iconic, romanticized image of Marx’s proletariat. Here he calls for an affirmation of love as a revolutionary concept, necessary for the transformation of a society marred by capitalism into an emancipated, caring society conditioned by socially just relations.Trade Review"James A. Tyner hits hard on page one and never lets up. His passion for humanity is intense, his concern for the possibilities of humanity deep and penetrating, his disdain for the depths of wayward inhumanity unnerving, and his hope for a meaningful life for all humans compelling. His insightful and incisive analysis is a model of such hope. The world needs this book." —Audrey Kobayashi, Queen’s UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction1. A Flourishing, but Mortal Life2. The Alienated Subject3. The Intersectionality of Alienation4. Whose Lives Matter?5. The Emancipated SubjectAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press An Essay for Ezra: Racial Terror in America
Book SynopsisAn intensely personal, and philosophical, account of why white America’s racial unconscious is not so unconsciousAn Essay for Ezra is a critique of terror that begins but by no means ends with the presidency of Donald J. Trump. A father addresses his son and a boy shares his observations in a dynamic dialogistic exchange that is a commentary of and for its time, taking the measure of racial terror and of white supremacy both in our moment and as a historical phenomenon.Framed through the experiences of the author’s biracial son, An Essay for Ezra is intensely personal while also powerfully universal. Drawing on the social and political thought of James Baldwin and Martin Luther King, Grant Farred examines the temptation and the perils of essentialism and the need to discriminate—to engage the black mind as much as the black body. With that dialectic as his starting point, Farred engages the ideas of Jameson, Barthes, Derrida, Adorno, Kant, and other thinkers to derive an ethics of being in our time of social peril. His antiessentialist racial analysis is salient, especially when he deploys Dave Chappelle as a counterpoint to Baldwin—and Chappelle’s brilliant comic philosophic voice jabs at both racial and gender identity.Standing apart for its willingness to explore terror in all its ambivalence, this theoretical reflection on racism, knowledge, ethics, and being in our neofascist present brings to bear the full weight of philosophical inquiry and popular cultural critique on black life in the United States.Trade Review"You can’t reassure the frightened child. Your letter must add to the child’s terror. Welcome to the world of racism in America. Brilliantly original, mixing Heidegger and Chappelle, Grant Farred proves that Baldwin’s genre has not exhausted its magical potential to provoke and instruct. By a mysterious dialectical legerdemain, he bestows on his son an unlikely endowment: a sort of Afro-optimism, both outraged and salvific."—Bruce Robbins, author of The Beneficiary"Phrased as an epistle to his young son, Grant Farred's An Essay for Ezra grapples with difficult loci of racial violence in U.S. culture and in various philosophical traditions, from the Black exile of Baldwin to Heideggerian questionability of self. He proposes new genealogies and new problems for struggles of becoming and judgment amid the perpetual crisis that is the American racial order."—Rei Terada, University of California, IrvineTable of ContentsContents1. November, 20162. Martin Luther King and White People3. The Farceur4. De-racializing MLK5. Haunting: It Takes You Where You Don’t Want to Go6. And So I Turn to James Baldwin7. Do Not a Tarantula Be: A Nietzschean Interlude8. “Bagger Vance”Postscript: November 7, 2020AcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Statelessness: On Almost Not Existing
Book SynopsisA pathbreaking new genealogy of statelessness Just as the modern state and the citizenship associated with it are commonly thought of as a European invention, so too is citizenship’s negation in the form of twentieth-century diaspora and statelessness. Statelessness sets forth a new genealogy, suggesting that Europe first encountered mass statelessness neither inside its own borders nor during the twentieth century, as Hannah Arendt so influentially claimed, but outside of itself—in the New World, several hundred years earlier.Through close readings of political philosophers from Hobbes to Rousseau to Kant, Tony C. Brown argues that statelessness became a central problem for political thought early on, with far-reaching implications for thinking both on the state and on being human. What Europeans thought they saw among the “savages” of the Americas was life without political order, life less than human. Lacking almost everything those deemed clearly human had achieved, the stateless existed in a radically precarious, almost inhuman privation.And yet this existence also raised the unsettling possibility that state-based existence may not be inevitable, necessary, or even ideal. This possibility, as Brown shows, prompts the response—as defensive as it was aggressive—that we call Enlightenment political philosophy, which arguably still orders much thinking on being stateless today, including our discourses concerning migrants and Indigenous peoples.Trade Review"Magnificently learned, deeply rigorous, and exceptionally clear, this decisive, original work fundamentally and importantly reframes our understanding of statelessness as an operative political category."—Martin Crowley, University of Cambridge"Statelessness addresses a truly vital issue, and Tony C. Brown's analysis works to 'denaturalize' the state as the only and inevitable form of human social organization."—James C. Scott, author of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press Statelessness: On Almost Not Existing
Book SynopsisA pathbreaking new genealogy of statelessness Just as the modern state and the citizenship associated with it are commonly thought of as a European invention, so too is citizenship’s negation in the form of twentieth-century diaspora and statelessness. Statelessness sets forth a new genealogy, suggesting that Europe first encountered mass statelessness neither inside its own borders nor during the twentieth century, as Hannah Arendt so influentially claimed, but outside of itself—in the New World, several hundred years earlier.Through close readings of political philosophers from Hobbes to Rousseau to Kant, Tony C. Brown argues that statelessness became a central problem for political thought early on, with far-reaching implications for thinking both on the state and on being human. What Europeans thought they saw among the “savages” of the Americas was life without political order, life less than human. Lacking almost everything those deemed clearly human had achieved, the stateless existed in a radically precarious, almost inhuman privation.And yet this existence also raised the unsettling possibility that state-based existence may not be inevitable, necessary, or even ideal. This possibility, as Brown shows, prompts the response—as defensive as it was aggressive—that we call Enlightenment political philosophy, which arguably still orders much thinking on being stateless today, including our discourses concerning migrants and Indigenous peoples.Trade Review"Magnificently learned, deeply rigorous, and exceptionally clear, this decisive, original work fundamentally and importantly reframes our understanding of statelessness as an operative political category."—Martin Crowley, University of Cambridge"Statelessness addresses a truly vital issue, and Tony C. Brown's analysis works to 'denaturalize' the state as the only and inevitable form of human social organization."—James C. Scott, author of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press Insecurity
Book SynopsisInvestigating insecurity as the predominant logic of life in the present moment Challenging several key concepts of the twenty-first century, including precarity, securitization, and resilience, this collection explores the concept of insecurity as a predominant logic governing recent cultural, economic, political, and social life in the West. The essays illuminate how attempts to make human and nonhuman systems secure and resilient end up having the opposite effect, making insecurity the default state of life today.Unique in its wide disciplinary breadth and variety of topics and methodological approaches—from intellectual history and cultural critique to case studies, qualitative ethnography, and personal narrative—Insecurity is written predominantly from the viewpoint of the United States. The contributors’ analyses include the securitization of nongovernmental aid to Palestine, Bangladeshi climate refugees, and the privatization of U.S. military forces; the history of the concept of insecurity and the securitization of finance; racialized urban development in Augusta, Georgia; Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and the consequences of the Marie Kondo method; and the intricate politics of sexual harassment in the U.S. academy.Contributors: Neel Ahuja, U of California, Santa Cruz; Aneesh Aneesh, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Lisa Bhungalia, Kent State U; Jennifer Doyle, U of California, Riverside; Annie McClanahan, U of California, Irvine; Andrea Miller, Florida Atlantic U; Mark Neocleous, Brunel U London; A. Naomi Paik, U of Illinois, Chicago; Maureen Ryan, U of South Carolina; Saskia Sassen, Columbia U.Table of ContentsIntroductionRichard Grusin1. Securitati Perpetuae: Death, Fear, and the History of InsecurityMark Neocleous2. Microwork, Automation, and the Insecurity of Contemporary LaborAnnie McClanahan3. Deadly Entanglements: U.S. Imperialism and Perils of Privatizing SecurityA. Naomi Paik4. Governing Suspects: Race, Preemption, and Economies of Threat in American WarfareLisa Bhungalia5. Figuring the Climate Refugee: From Insecurity to Adaptation in Representations of Bangladeshi Environmental MigrationNeel Ahuja6. Cyber-Insecurities and Racialized Threat in the Embattled Urban EcosystemAndrea Miller7. The Burnout Generation Tidies Up: On the Insecurity of AdultingMaureen Ryan8. Rogue Capabilities and Invisible Violence: A Conversation between Saskia Sassen and Aneesh AneeshSaskia Sassen and Aneesh Aneesh9. Letting GoJennifer DoyleContributorsIndex
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press Insecurity
Book SynopsisInvestigating insecurity as the predominant logic of life in the present moment Challenging several key concepts of the twenty-first century, including precarity, securitization, and resilience, this collection explores the concept of insecurity as a predominant logic governing recent cultural, economic, political, and social life in the West. The essays illuminate how attempts to make human and nonhuman systems secure and resilient end up having the opposite effect, making insecurity the default state of life today.Unique in its wide disciplinary breadth and variety of topics and methodological approaches—from intellectual history and cultural critique to case studies, qualitative ethnography, and personal narrative—Insecurity is written predominantly from the viewpoint of the United States. The contributors’ analyses include the securitization of nongovernmental aid to Palestine, Bangladeshi climate refugees, and the privatization of U.S. military forces; the history of the concept of insecurity and the securitization of finance; racialized urban development in Augusta, Georgia; Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and the consequences of the Marie Kondo method; and the intricate politics of sexual harassment in the U.S. academy.Contributors: Neel Ahuja, U of California, Santa Cruz; Aneesh Aneesh, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Lisa Bhungalia, Kent State U; Jennifer Doyle, U of California, Riverside; Annie McClanahan, U of California, Irvine; Andrea Miller, Florida Atlantic U; Mark Neocleous, Brunel U London; A. Naomi Paik, U of Illinois, Chicago; Maureen Ryan, U of South Carolina; Saskia Sassen, Columbia U.Table of ContentsIntroductionRichard Grusin1. Securitati Perpetuae: Death, Fear, and the History of InsecurityMark Neocleous2. Microwork, Automation, and the Insecurity of Contemporary LaborAnnie McClanahan3. Deadly Entanglements: U.S. Imperialism and Perils of Privatizing SecurityA. Naomi Paik4. Governing Suspects: Race, Preemption, and Economies of Threat in American WarfareLisa Bhungalia5. Figuring the Climate Refugee: From Insecurity to Adaptation in Representations of Bangladeshi Environmental MigrationNeel Ahuja6. Cyber-Insecurities and Racialized Threat in the Embattled Urban EcosystemAndrea Miller7. The Burnout Generation Tidies Up: On the Insecurity of AdultingMaureen Ryan8. Rogue Capabilities and Invisible Violence: A Conversation between Saskia Sassen and Aneesh AneeshSaskia Sassen and Aneesh Aneesh9. Letting GoJennifer DoyleContributorsIndex
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press The World Is Gone: Philosophy in Light of the
Book SynopsisExploring the existential implications of the Covid-19 crisis through meditationsPart personal memoir, part philosophical reflection and written in the midst of the pandemic in 2021, The World Is Gone employs the Robinson Crusoe fable to launch an existential investigation of the effects of extreme isolation, profound boredom, nightly insomnia, and the fear of madness associated with the loss of a world populated by others.Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.Table of ContentsPreface: To My Fellow CastawaysFirst Day: The Darkening of the World (Heidegger)Second Day: Existence without Existents (Levinas)Third Day: The Two Ecstasies of Extreme Solitude (Heidegger and Levinas)Fourth Day: A World without Others (Tournier)Fifth Day: The Schizoid and the Depressive (Deleuze)Sixth Day: The Worst-Case Scenario Lullaby (Bonaparte)Seventh Day: Robinson? C’est Moi!The Complete Desert Island Library
£9.00
University of Minnesota Press African Meditations
Book SynopsisAn influential thinker’s fascinating reflections and meditations on reacclimating to his native Senegal as a young academic after years of study abroad The call to morning prayer. A group run at daybreak along the Corniche in Dakar. A young woman shedding tears on a beach as her friends take a boat to Europe. In African Meditations, paths to enlightenment collide with tales of loss and ruminations, musical gatherings, and the everyday sights and sounds of life in West Africa as a young philosopher and creative writer seeks to establish himself as a teacher upon his return to Senegal, his homeland, after years of study abroad. A unique contemporary portrait of an influential, multicultural thinker on a spiritual quest across continents—reflecting on his multiple literary influences along with French, African Francophone, and Senegalese tribal cultural roots in a homeland with a predominantly Muslim culture—African Meditations is a seamless blend of autobiography, journal entries, and fiction; aphorisms and brief narrative sketches; humor and Zen reflections. Taking us from Saint-Louis to Dakar, Felwine Sarr encounters the rhythms of everyday life as well as its disruptions such as teachers’ strikes and power outages while traversing a semi-surrealistic landscape. As he reacclimates to his native country after a life in France, we get candid glimpses, both vibrant and hopeful, sublime and mundane, into his Zen journey to resecure a foothold in his roots and to navigate academia, even while gleaning something of the good life, of joy, amid the struggles of life in Senegal. Trade Review"The following meditations are to be read so as to remind us that thought is not the product of some disincarnated spirit at rest but is rather a practice and activity of a body in movement."—Souleymane Bachir Diagne, from the Foreword"African Meditations speaks of the earth: how we inhabit it and connect to its most elementary forces. It aphoristically reflects on happiness but ponders its fragmentary nature and precariousness. Felwine Sarr shows us the good life and suggests that, in Senegal and beyond, it often takes the path of ‘motionless pilgrimages.’ A wise and richly evocative book."—Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, University of Warwick
£15.29
University of Minnesota Press Rescue Me: On Dogs and Their Humans
Book SynopsisWhat exactly is it we want from dogs today? This is a little book about the oldest relationship we humans have cultivated with another large animal—in something like the original interspecies space, as old or older than any other practice that might be called human. But it’s also about the role of this relationship in the attrition of life—especially social life—in late capitalism. As we become more and more obsessed with imagining ourselves as benevolent rescuers of dogs, it is increasingly clear that it is dogs who are rescuing us. But from what? And toward what? Exploring adoption, work, food, and training, this book considers the social as fundamentally more-than-human and argues that the future belongs to dogs—and the humans they are pulling along.
£9.00
University of Minnesota Press The Comic Self: Toward Dispossession
Book SynopsisA provocative and unconventional call to dispossess the self of itself Challenging the contemporary notion of “self-care” and the Western mania for “self-possession,” The Comic Self deploys philosophical discourse and literary expression to propose an alternate and less toxic model for human aspiration: a comic self. Timothy Campbell and Grant Farred argue that the problem with the “care of the self,” from Foucault onward, is that it reinforces identity, strengthening the relation between I and mine. This assertion of self-possession raises a question vital for understanding how we are to live with each other and ourselves: How can you care for something that is truly not yours?The answer lies in the unrepresentable comic self. Campbell and Farred range across philosophy, literature, and contemporary comedy—engaging with Socrates, Burke, Hume, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, and Levinas; Shakespeare, Cervantes, Woolf, Kafka, and Pasolini; and Stephen Colbert, David Chappelle, and the cast of Saturday Night Live. They uncover spaces where the dispossession of self and, with it, the dismantling of the regime of self-care are possible. Arguing that the comic self always keeps a precarious closeness to the tragic self, while opposing the machinations of capital endemic to the logic of self-possession, they provide a powerful and provocative antidote to the tragic self that so dominates the tenor of our times.Trade Review"You can’t reassure the frightened child. Your letter must add to the child’s terror. Welcome to the world of racism in America. Brilliantly original, mixing Heidegger and Chappelle, Grant Farred proves that Baldwin’s genre has not exhausted its magical potential to provoke and instruct. By a mysterious dialectical legerdemain, he bestows on his son an unlikely endowment: a sort of Afro-optimism, both outraged and salvific."—Bruce Robbins, author of The Beneficiary"Phrased as an epistle to his young son, Grant Farred's An Essay for Ezra grapples with difficult loci of racial violence in U.S. culture and in various philosophical traditions, from the Black exile of Baldwin to Heideggerian questionability of self. He proposes new genealogies and new problems for struggles of becoming and judgment amid the perpetual crisis that is the American racial order."—Rei Terada, University of California, IrvineTable of ContentsContentsPreface: The Art of Self-DispossessionIntroduction: The Fallacy of Self-Possession1. The Sunset of the Self2. Renunciation and Refusal = Rupture and Rapture3. Elide Tragedy4. The Comic Self Is Not Comic5. “I Think”6. David Hume: The Master Critic of Identity7. Temporality contra Cogito Ergo Sum8. From a Terminal Walk to a Tightrope Walker9. Don Quijote’s Comic Selves10. The Unequal11. Tragic RepetitionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press The Comic Self: Toward Dispossession
Book SynopsisA provocative and unconventional call to dispossess the self of itself Challenging the contemporary notion of “self-care” and the Western mania for “self-possession,” The Comic Self deploys philosophical discourse and literary expression to propose an alternate and less toxic model for human aspiration: a comic self. Timothy Campbell and Grant Farred argue that the problem with the “care of the self,” from Foucault onward, is that it reinforces identity, strengthening the relation between I and mine. This assertion of self-possession raises a question vital for understanding how we are to live with each other and ourselves: How can you care for something that is truly not yours?The answer lies in the unrepresentable comic self. Campbell and Farred range across philosophy, literature, and contemporary comedy—engaging with Socrates, Burke, Hume, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, and Levinas; Shakespeare, Cervantes, Woolf, Kafka, and Pasolini; and Stephen Colbert, David Chappelle, and the cast of Saturday Night Live. They uncover spaces where the dispossession of self and, with it, the dismantling of the regime of self-care are possible. Arguing that the comic self always keeps a precarious closeness to the tragic self, while opposing the machinations of capital endemic to the logic of self-possession, they provide a powerful and provocative antidote to the tragic self that so dominates the tenor of our times.Trade Review"You can’t reassure the frightened child. Your letter must add to the child’s terror. Welcome to the world of racism in America. Brilliantly original, mixing Heidegger and Chappelle, Grant Farred proves that Baldwin’s genre has not exhausted its magical potential to provoke and instruct. By a mysterious dialectical legerdemain, he bestows on his son an unlikely endowment: a sort of Afro-optimism, both outraged and salvific."—Bruce Robbins, author of The Beneficiary"Phrased as an epistle to his young son, Grant Farred's An Essay for Ezra grapples with difficult loci of racial violence in U.S. culture and in various philosophical traditions, from the Black exile of Baldwin to Heideggerian questionability of self. He proposes new genealogies and new problems for struggles of becoming and judgment amid the perpetual crisis that is the American racial order."—Rei Terada, University of California, IrvineTable of ContentsContentsPreface: The Art of Self-DispossessionIntroduction: The Fallacy of Self-Possession1. The Sunset of the Self2. Renunciation and Refusal = Rupture and Rapture3. Elide Tragedy4. The Comic Self Is Not Comic5. “I Think”6. David Hume: The Master Critic of Identity7. Temporality contra Cogito Ergo Sum8. From a Terminal Walk to a Tightrope Walker9. Don Quijote’s Comic Selves10. The Unequal11. Tragic RepetitionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£19.79
University of Minnesota Press Everything is Police
Book SynopsisHow institutional and interpersonal policing have been central to worldmaking Policing is constitutive of colonial modernity: normalizing, internalizing, and legalizing anti-Black violence as the ongoing condition for white life and freedom. The result, Tia Trafford argues here, is a situation where we cannot practically experience or even imagine worlds free from policing. From the plantation to the prison, global apartheid, and pandemic control, this book examines why and how policing has become the most ingrained, commonsense—and insidious—way of managing our world.
£9.00
University of Minnesota Press Trans Philosophy
Book SynopsisEstablishing trans philosophy as a unique field of inquiry, offering tools for our quest toward a more just and equitable worldTrans Philosophy defines this burgeoning and polymorphous discipline as philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of cross-cultural and global trans experiences, histories, and cultural productions. Across language and politics, feminism and phenomenology, and decolonial theory, it addresses trans worldmaking in all its beauty and mundanity. Critically, the editors center the contributions of trans and gender-nonconforming philosophers from around the globe. Showcasing work from a range of emerging and established voices, Trans Philosophy addresses discrimination, embodiment, identity, language, and law, utilizing diverse philosophical methods to attend to significant intersections between trans experience and class, disability, race, nationality, and sexuality. At a time when trans-exclusionary views are gaining traction in politics as well as philosophy, this volume urgently redraws the contours of trans discourse, centering the wisdom already generated in trans and other gender-disruptive communities. Contributors: Megan Burke, Sonoma State U; Robin Dembroff, Yale U; Marie Draz, San Diego State U; Che Gossett, U of Pennsylvania; Ryan Gustafsson, U of Melbourne; Stephanie Kapusta, Dalhousie U; Tamsin Kimoto, Washington U, St. Louis; Hil Malatino, Pennsylvania State U and Rock Ethics Institute; Amy Marvin, Lafayette U; Marlene Wayar. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly.
£84.15
University of Minnesota Press Trans Philosophy
Book SynopsisEstablishing trans philosophy as a unique field of inquiry, offering tools for our quest toward a more just and equitable worldTrans Philosophy defines this burgeoning and polymorphous discipline as philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of cross-cultural and global trans experiences, histories, and cultural productions. Across language and politics, feminism and phenomenology, and decolonial theory, it addresses trans worldmaking in all its beauty and mundanity. Critically, the editors center the contributions of trans and gender-nonconforming philosophers from around the globe. Showcasing work from a range of emerging and established voices, Trans Philosophy addresses discrimination, embodiment, identity, language, and law, utilizing diverse philosophical methods to attend to significant intersections between trans experience and class, disability, race, nationality, and sexuality. At a time when trans-exclusionary views are gaining traction in politics as well as philosophy, this volume urgently redraws the contours of trans discourse, centering the wisdom already generated in trans and other gender-disruptive communities. Contributors: Megan Burke, Sonoma State U; Robin Dembroff, Yale U; Marie Draz, San Diego State U; Che Gossett, U of Pennsylvania; Ryan Gustafsson, U of Melbourne; Stephanie Kapusta, Dalhousie U; Tamsin Kimoto, Washington U, St. Louis; Hil Malatino, Pennsylvania State U and Rock Ethics Institute; Amy Marvin, Lafayette U; Marlene Wayar. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly.
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press The Philosophy of Movement
Book SynopsisAn influential thinker distills years of work on the philosophy of movement into one accessible account Why are city dwellers worldwide walking on average ten percent faster than they were a decade ago? Why are newcomer immigrant groups so often maligned when migration has always constituted civilization? To analyze and understand the depth of the reasons, Thomas Nail suggests that it serves us well to turn to a philosophy of movement. Synthesizing and extending many years of his influential work, The Philosophy of Movement is a comprehensive argument for how motion is the primary force in human and natural history. Nail critiques the bias toward stasis at the core of Western thought, asking: what would a philosophy that began with the primacy of movement look like? Interrogating the consequences of movement throughout history and in daily life in the twenty-first century, he draws connections and traces patterns between scales of rea
£84.15
Bristol University Press The Imposter as Social Theory: Thinking with
Book SynopsisThe figure of the imposter can stir complicated emotions, from intrigue to suspicion and fear. But what insights can these troublesome figures provide into the social relations and cultural forms from which they emerge? Edited by leading scholars in the field, this volume explores the question through a diverse range of empirical cases, including magicians, spirit possession, fake Instagram followers, fake art and fraudulent scientists. Proposing ‘thinking with imposters’ as a valuable new tool of analysis in the social sciences and humanities, this revolutionary book shows how the figure of the imposter can help upend social theory.Table of ContentsThinking With Imposters: The Imposter As Analytic ~ Else Vogel, David Moats, Steve Woolgar and Claes-Fredrik Helgesson The Desire to Believe and Belong: Wannabes and Their Audience in a North American Cultural Context ~ Caroline Rosenthal A Menagerie of Imposters and Truth-Tellers: Diederik Stapel and the Crisis in Psychology ~ Maarten Derksen Learning From Fakes: A Relational Approach ~ Catelijne Coopmans Imitations of Celebrity ~ Mandy Merck Natural Imposters?: A Cuckoos View of Social Relations ~ Martin Abbott and Daniel Large Conjuring Imposters: The Extraordinary Illusions of Mundanity ~ Brian Rappert States of Imposture: Scroungerphobia and the Choreography of Suspicion~ James Kaufmann The Face of ‘The Other’: Biometric Facial Recognition, Imposters, and the Art of Outplaying Them ~ Kristina Grünenberg Faking Spirit Possession: Creating ‘Epistemic Murk’ in Bahian Candomblé ~ Mattijs van de Port The Guerrilla’s ID Card: Flatland Against Fatland in Colombia ~ Olga Restrepo Forero and Malcolm Ashmore Good Enough Imposters: The Market for Instagram Followers in Indonesia and Beyond ~ Johan Lindquist Thinking Beyond the Imposter: Gatecrashing Un/Welcoming Borders ~ Fredy Mora-Gamez Postscript: Thinking With Imposters – What Were They Thinking? ~ Agnes, Forrest Carter, Civet Coffee Bean, Cuckoo, Iansá and Oxum, Sarah Jane, Han Van Meegeren, David Rosenhahn, Diederik Stapel and Jorge Enrique Briceño Suárez
£79.20
Bristol University Press The Imposter as Social Theory: Thinking with
Book SynopsisThe figure of the imposter can stir complicated emotions, from intrigue to suspicion and fear. But what insights can these troublesome figures provide into the social relations and cultural forms from which they emerge? Edited by leading scholars in the field, this volume explores the question through a diverse range of empirical cases, including magicians, spirit possession, fake Instagram followers, fake art and fraudulent scientists. Proposing ‘thinking with imposters’ as a valuable new tool of analysis in the social sciences and humanities, this revolutionary book shows how the figure of the imposter can help upend social theory.Table of ContentsThinking With Imposters: The Imposter As Analytic ~ Else Vogel, David Moats, Steve Woolgar and Claes-Fredrik Helgesson The Desire to Believe and Belong: Wannabes and Their Audience in a North American Cultural Context ~ Caroline Rosenthal A Menagerie of Imposters and Truth-Tellers: Diederik Stapel and the Crisis in Psychology ~ Maarten Derksen Learning From Fakes: A Relational Approach ~ Catelijne Coopmans Imitations of Celebrity ~ Mandy Merck Natural Imposters?: A Cuckoos View of Social Relations ~ Martin Abbott and Daniel Large Conjuring Imposters: The Extraordinary Illusions of Mundanity ~ Brian Rappert States of Imposture: Scroungerphobia and the Choreography of Suspicion~ James Kaufmann The Face of ‘The Other’: Biometric Facial Recognition, Imposters, and the Art of Outplaying Them ~ Kristina Grünenberg Faking Spirit Possession: Creating ‘Epistemic Murk’ in Bahian Candomblé ~ Mattijs van de Port The Guerrilla’s ID Card: Flatland Against Fatland in Colombia ~ Olga Restrepo Forero and Malcolm Ashmore Good Enough Imposters: The Market for Instagram Followers in Indonesia and Beyond ~ Johan Lindquist Thinking Beyond the Imposter: Gatecrashing Un/Welcoming Borders ~ Fredy Mora-Gamez Postscript: Thinking With Imposters – What Were They Thinking? ~ Agnes, Forrest Carter, Civet Coffee Bean, Cuckoo, Iansá and Oxum, Sarah Jane, Han Van Meegeren, David Rosenhahn, Diederik Stapel and Jorge Enrique Briceño Suárez
£25.64
Bristol University Press Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together leading figures in the study of International Relations to explore praxis as a perspective on international politics and law. With its focus on competent judgements, the praxis approach holds the promise to overcome the divide between knowing and acting that marks positivist International Relations theory. Building on the transdisciplinary work of Friedrich Kratochwil – and with a concluding chapter from him – this book reveals the scope, limits and blind spots of praxis theorizing. For anyone involved in international politics, this is an important contribution to the reconciliation of theory and practice and an inspiration for future research. EPDFs of Chapters 1, 4, 9, 13, 15 and 16 are available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics - Gunther Hellmann and Jens Steffek Part 1: Theorizing Praxis 2. Knowing, Remembering, Showing But Still Not Seeing: Critical Praxis, Slavery and the Modern ‘We’ - K.M. Fierke 3. Friedrich Kratochwil: Prophet of Doubt? - Cecelia Lynch 4. Styles of Theorizing International Practice - Christian Bueger 5. Practising Theorizing in Theorizing Praxis: Friedrich Kratochwil and Social Inquiry - Gunther Hellmann Part 2: Praxis and the Law 6. If Not Rome or The Hague, Where? Reflections on Sanctioning and Punishing - Chris Brown 7. Practical Constitutionalism - Anthony F. Lang, Jr. 8. Rules, Institutions and Decisions: Taking Distribution Seriously - Jan Klabbers Part 3: Biology, Contingency and History 9. I Think, Therefore IR? Psychology, Biology and the Notion of Praxis - James W. Davis 10. Practice, Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Contingency - Oliver Kessler 11. The Praxis of Change and Theory - Mathias Albert 12. Thinking on Time: How Scholarly Praxis Can Sustain, Subvert and Transform Social Reality - Jörg Friedrichs Part 4: Theorizing as Intervention 13. Practising Academic Intervention: An Agonistic Reading of Praxis - Antje Wiener 14. Between Science and Politics: Friedrich Kratochwil’s Praxis of ‘Going On’ - Patrick Thaddeus Jackson 15 Praxis, Humanism and the Quest for Wholeness - Jens Steffek Part 5: Conversing with Critics 16. Acting, Representing, Ruling: A Conversation with My Critics on Social Reproduction and the Logic of Social Inquiry - Friedrich Kratochwil
£43.20
Bristol University Press Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together leading figures in the study of International Relations to explore praxis as a perspective on international politics and law. With its focus on competent judgements, the praxis approach holds the promise to overcome the divide between knowing and acting that marks positivist International Relations theory. Building on the transdisciplinary work of Friedrich Kratochwil – and with a concluding chapter from him – this book reveals the scope, limits and blind spots of praxis theorizing. For anyone involved in international politics, this is an important contribution to the reconciliation of theory and practice and an inspiration for future research. EPDFs of Chapters 1, 4, 9, 13, 15 and 16 are available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics - Gunther Hellmann and Jens Steffek Part 1: Theorizing Praxis 2. Knowing, Remembering, Showing But Still Not Seeing: Critical Praxis, Slavery and the Modern ‘We’ - K.M. Fierke 3. Friedrich Kratochwil: Prophet of Doubt? - Cecelia Lynch 4. Styles of Theorizing International Practice - Christian Bueger 5. Practising Theorizing in Theorizing Praxis: Friedrich Kratochwil and Social Inquiry - Gunther Hellmann Part 2: Praxis and the Law 6. If Not Rome or The Hague, Where? Reflections on Sanctioning and Punishing - Chris Brown 7. Practical Constitutionalism - Anthony F. Lang, Jr. 8. Rules, Institutions and Decisions: Taking Distribution Seriously - Jan Klabbers Part 3: Biology, Contingency and History 9. I Think, Therefore IR? Psychology, Biology and the Notion of Praxis - James W. Davis 10. Practice, Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Contingency - Oliver Kessler 11. The Praxis of Change and Theory - Mathias Albert 12. Thinking on Time: How Scholarly Praxis Can Sustain, Subvert and Transform Social Reality - Jörg Friedrichs Part 4: Theorizing as Intervention 13. Practising Academic Intervention: An Agonistic Reading of Praxis - Antje Wiener 14. Between Science and Politics: Friedrich Kratochwil’s Praxis of ‘Going On’ - Patrick Thaddeus Jackson 15 Praxis, Humanism and the Quest for Wholeness - Jens Steffek Part 5: Conversing with Critics 16. Acting, Representing, Ruling: A Conversation with My Critics on Social Reproduction and the Logic of Social Inquiry - Friedrich Kratochwil
£18.99
Bristol University Press Reimagining the International
Book Synopsis
£72.00
Bristol University Press Love and the Market
Book Synopsis
£72.00
