Social and political philosophy Books

Book SynopsisHow can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement in our uncertain post-foundational world? This book takes up the challenge by calling on 20th-century existentialism, in particular the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt.

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Book SynopsisUsing Schelling's philosophy, Ben Woodard examines how an expanded form of naturalism changes how we conceive of the division between thought and world, mathematics and motion, sense and dynamics, experiment and materiality, as well as speculation and pragmatism.

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Book SynopsisLooking mainly at Derrida's early work and the philosophy of speculative realists Karen Barad, Catherine Malabou and Quentin Meillassoux, Deborah Goldgaber opens the conversation between deconstruction and speculative realism.

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Book SynopsisThis collection explores Ranciere's thought along a number of music-historical trajectories, including Italian and German opera, Romantic and modernist music, Latin American and South African music, jazz, and contemporary popular music, and sets him in dialogue with key thinkers including Adorno, Althusser, Badiou andDeleuze.

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Book SynopsisEngaging with the voices of students and educators and the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Eve Mayes crafts an account of what voice can and must do in education.

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Book SynopsisIntroduces the key aspects of a theoretical debate on prefigurative politics and contemporary protest movementsTrade Review"What do Occupy" and other such protests really accomplish? This eloquent book disarms that question, terming them "prefigurative" direct action that affords participants an immediate experience of freedom and unsettles prevailing social identities and alliances. Prefigurative Democracy both honors activism and engages scholars, by unexpectedly pairing Hannah Arendt with Ernesto Laclau."" -Lisa Disch, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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Book SynopsisGiorgio Agamben's form-of-life discloses the possibility of a new understanding of political and legal life. This book places 'form-of-life' in the context of contemporary philosophy, re-imagining some of the basic categories of human socialities- such as work, rights, obligation, property and use.Trade Review"This is one of the best books on Agamben in recent years and essential reading for any Agamben scholar. More than it is an original and wide-raging book that is immensely useful in its consideration of our understanding of sovereignty and form of life in critical jurisprudence. It is fascinating reading for anyone interested in Agamben's biopolitics in the context of Schmitt's decisionism, Wittgenstein's form of life, law and, crucially, the essential recent body work of Agamben published in the last two decades. This will be a book we return to again and again in the years to come." -William Watkin, Brunel University

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Book SynopsisExploring the question of human agency amidst a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences, Jane Bennett draws upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers to link a non-anthropocentric model of self to a democratic pluralism and a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live.Trade Review“Jane Bennett has always been interested in reading the ecological from a political point of view and articulating an ecological politics. But this book will be a new moment in how we think about ecology and democracy. For it explains to us not only the possibility of ‘ecological democracy’ but also why a truly democratic personality must be ecological: open and attentive, susceptible to otherness, and welcoming influences. Influx & efflux is a wonderful achievement.” -- Branka Arsic, author of * Bird Relics: Grief and Vitalism in Thoreau *“In this remarkable book Jane Bennett shows us just why a capacious sense of influence matters so much to our efforts to shape the circumstances we find ourselves in. Generous, surprising, and beautifully illustrated, influx & efflux resounds as a compelling affirmation of the value of drawing diverse elements and agencies into new lines of thinking and feeling. This book does nothing less than shift the tone and terms of political theory, offering us a vital poetic vocabulary for making more of the world's participation in the political and ecological stances we take.” -- Derek P. McCormack, author of * Atmospheric Things: On the Allure of Elemental Envelopment *"Arguing for an aspirational rather than a polemical Whitman, Bennett charts a body of work generous, egalitarian, and democratic 'wherein the forces of nonhuman agencies and the ubiquity of stupendous, ethereal influences are acknowledged' (p. 116). Ultimately, she concludes that Whitman’s 'I is creative in that it alters and inflects what is taken in, taken on, taken up' (p. 117). Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty." -- J. N. Barron * Choice *"Theorists who figure prominently in Bennett’s argument include Gilles Deleuze, Alfred North Whitehead, Harold Bloom, and Michel Serres. This amalgam of influences gives rise to a hybrid style of theorising that blends conventional literary analysis with philosophical and political argument. The result is an exciting and rich intervention in several fields at once." -- Sean Seeger * Green Letters *“Influx and Efflux is a welcome contribution to political theory, and the thoughtful, challenging, and charming approach to things here is one that will be of benefit to any reader.” -- Michael Epp * Political Theory *“Influx & Efflux is an excellent follow-up to Vibrant Matter.... Influx & Efflux manages no easy task: bringing out the vibrancy of Whitman’s poetry as a living political force that needs to be reckoned with in the present.” -- Christian P. Haines * ALH Online Review *“[Influx and Efflux] calls the reader to respond with distinctly spiritual and artistic gestures. . . . Bennett effectively exemplifies that democracy does not come from political policies alone, but from a community that prioritizes a porosity, that allows for an influx of the world into the self, and is committed to the efflux of speaking back out and into the world of human, animal, and vibrant matter.” -- Karah Lain * Religion and the Arts *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Prologue.Influx and efflux ix 1. Position and Disposition 1 2. Circuits of Sympathy 27 3. Solar Judgment 46 Refrain. The Alchemy of Affects 63 4. Bad Influence 75 5. Thoreau Experiments with Natural Influences 92 Epilogue. A Peculiar Efficacy 113 Notes 119 Bibliography 173 Index 189

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Book SynopsisThe concept of disobedient consciousness and the rebellious Socratic mind that grows out of this book is, above all, a product of Ramin Jahanbegloo's life meetings with the two apparently contradictory worlds of philosophy and politics. More precisely, it is the result of approaching the public realm in terms of a philosophical quest for truth and justice. This restless quest for truth and justice has a history that continues to bear upon us, however much we choose to ignore it. We can think about the current situation of philosophy by exploring that history. The image of Socrates represents a mid-point between politics and philosophy; the Socratic mind, exemplified by the presence of the public gadfly in history, finds itself at the beginning of a new struggle for truth. The journey to this struggle started with the trial of Socrates, followed by the experiences of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Albert Camus. But the forging of the rebellious mind and the sustaining of the civic task of philosophy are goals which impose themselves to each of us whenever we are reminded by the urgency of critical thinking in our own dark times. The future of humankind necessarily requires convictions and commitments, but it also requires Socratic rebels, of the mind and of action, who have the courage to swim against the tide. Examining dissent in the history of philosophy, this book will appeal to scholars of political theory and political philosophy and to scholars and students of political and intellectual history.Table of ContentsForeword by Fred Dallmayr Introduction Chapter I: Gadfly on Trial: Socrates as Philosopher- Citizen Chapter II: Mahatma Gandhi: A Nonviolent Gadfly Chapter III: Henry David Thoreau: An American Gadfly Chapter IV: Martin Luther King Jr.: A Gadfly in Montgomery Chapter V: Albert Camus: A Gadfly in Purgatory Conclusion: Gadflies Against the Tide

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Book SynopsisProfessor John Douglas Macready offers a post-foundational account of human dignity by way of a reconstructive reading of Hannah Arendt. He argues that Arendt's experience of political violence and genocide in the twentieth century, as well as her experience as a stateless person, led her to rethink human dignity as an intersubjective event of political experience. By tracing the contours of Arendt's thoughts on human dignity, Professor Macready offers convincing evidence that Arendt was engaged in retrieving the political experience that gave rise to the concept of human dignity in order to move beyond the traditional accounts of human dignity that relied principally on the status and stature of human beings. This allowed Arendt to retrofit the concept for a new political landscape and reconceive human dignity in terms of stancehow human beings stand in relationship to one another. Professor Macready elucidates Arendt's latent political ontology as a resource for developing strictly pTable of ContentsContents Foreword by Kathleen B. Jones Acknowledgments Sigla Introduction Chapter 1: The Quest for a Political Measure of Human Dignity Chapter 2: Rethinking Human Dignity in Dark Times Chapter 3: The Worldliness of Human Dignity Chapter 4: Conditional Dignity and Political Personhood Chapter 5: The Right to a Place in the World Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisIn Phase Media, James Ash theorizes how smart objects, understood as Internet-connected and sensor-enabled devices, are altering users' experience of their environment. Rather than networks connected by lines of transmission, smart objects generate phases, understood as space-times that modulate the spatio-temporal intelligibility of both humans and non-humans. Examining a range of objects and services from the Apple Watch to Nest Cam to Uber, Ash suggests that the modulation of spatio-temporal intelligibility is partly shaped by the commercial logics of the industries that design and manufacture smart objects, but can also exceed them. Drawing upon the work of Martin Heidegger, Gilbert Simondon and Bruno Latour, Ash argues that smart objects have their own phase politics, which offer opportunities for new forms of public to emerge. Phase Media develops a conceptual vocabulary to contend that smart objects do more than just enabling a world of increased corporate controlTrade ReviewChallenges conventional thinking and offers an interesting framework for evaluating the importance of smart objects with a view towards the future. * European Journal of Communication *James Ash’s Phase Media offers a new way to conceptualize how smart objects are becoming part of and active in our lives, environments and the processes of change that characterize the contemporary world. Providing a welcome alternative to network and new materialist approaches, Ash invites us to consider how smart objects themselves are implicated and active in constituting everyday worlds and change processes. In doing so it provokes new theoretical imaginaries of what smart objects are, how they might impact on our lives, and the implications of this for ethical technological futures. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how smart technologies are emerging as part of our contemporary and near future worlds. * Sarah Pink, Distinguished Professor of Design and Media Ethnography, RMIT University, Australia *With Ash’s Phase Media, the fallibility of the autonomous system comes sharply into view. A compelling account of the perturbations of apparently ‘smart’ devices. * Louise Amoore, Professor of Political Geography, Durham University, UK *Phase Media avoids the common misrecognition of critical academic thinking as an act of judgment or condemnation. It is 'critical' instead in its clarity, patient explanation, examples, helpful signposting and above all, inquisitiveness. * The AAG Review of Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1: Phase Media Networks Smart Objects Smart Objects, Space and Time Exploring Phases 2: Objects Technical Objects Smart Objects A Quintuplet model of Smart Objects 3: Spaces Phase Space Modulating Phase Spaces Diffusion, Partition, Envelopment The Multiple Logics of Modulation 4: Times Phase Time Gradation, Dispersion, Dilation Spatio-Temporal Phases 5: Politics Smart Politics Object Politics Endo and Exo Politics Phase Politics 6: Involution Involution Struction and Dis-struction Structive Involution Dis-Structive Involution Phase Activism 7: Ethics Ethics and Smart Vehicles Phases and Accidents Phase Ethics Practicing Phase Ethics Phase Ethic Futures 8: After Networks Networks and Phases Closing Remarks Bibliography

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Book SynopsisEdward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning are key figures in the struggles playing out in our democracies over internet use, state secrets, and mass surveillance in the age of terror. When not decried as traitors, they are seen as whistle-blowers whose crucial revelations are meant to denounce a problem or correct an injustice. Yet, for Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, they are much more than that. Snowden, Assange, and Manning are exemplars who have reinvented an art of revolt. Consciously or not, they have inaugurated a new form of political action and a new identity for the political subject. Anonymity as practiced by WikiLeaks and the flight and requests for asylum of Snowden and Assange break with traditional forms of democratic protest. Yet we can hardly dismiss them as acts of cowardice. Rather, as Lagasnerie suggests, such solitary choices challenge us to question classic modes of collective action, calling old conceptions of the state and citizenship into question and inviting us to reformulate the language of critical philosophy. In the process, he pays homage to the actions and lives of these three figures.Trade Review"This short, lucid book makes the case that the new security state's use of pervasive techniques of surveillance and data mining has engendered new forms of digital resistance. A manifesto of sorts, The Art of Revolt makes an argument friendly to specialists and non-specialists alike and offers a challenge for everyone concerned with today's new forms of political protest and alliance."—Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley"Geoffroy de Lagasnerie is arguably one of the most talented of the new wave of French theory. In this incisive and unflinching book, he compellingly exposes the hardened skin of the perverse forms of power that endanger our liberties in this age of mass surveillance."—Achille Mbembe, author of The Critique of Black Reason"The Art of Revolt offers a striking and radical new perspective on truth-tellers in the Internet age: how they leak, wield anonymity, and find asylum in ways that break radically with established practices to effect change. Lagasnerie brings ideas to the table that even I, an insider, had never considered. Whether you agree or disagree with the actions of his protagonists, this book is a must-read for grasping the significance and innovation of their work. Its compelling ideas will inspire all readers to reflect on how they can engage productively in the betterment of our societies."—Sarah Harrison, Director of the Courage Foundation and WikiLeaks Associate"Lagasnerie discusses Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning as developers of a new political art, a "different way of understanding what it means to resist"....This volume is of most interest to scholars of civil liberties and international communication....Recommended."—W.C. Johnson, CHOICE"Whether Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden are traitors or heroes is one of those 'debates' that is yet to be settled... Geoffroy de Lagasnerie's The Art of Revolt is not an account of these whistleblowers' deeds, but rather an interrogation of the categories and assumptions implicit in such questions."—Dzmitry Tsapkou, Cultural Critique

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Book SynopsisSediments of Time features the most important essays by renowned German historian Reinhart Koselleck not previously available in English, several of them essential to his theory of history. The volume sheds new light on Koselleck's crucial concerns, including his theory of sediments of time; his theory of historical repetition, duration, and acceleration; his encounters with philosophical hermeneutics and political and legal thought; his concern with the limits of historical meaning; and his views on historical commemoration, including that of the Second World War and the Holocaust. A critical introduction addresses some of the challenges and potentials of Koselleck's reception in the Anglophone world.Trade Review"The definitive collection in English of Reinhart Koselleck's major essays on time, the history of concepts, and memory, Sediments of Time reaches well beyond the scope of existing anthologies, substantiating the immense achievement of his work. The volume also serves as a brilliant introduction to the celebrated historian's thought at a time when interest in temporality, political iconology, and the relationship between concepts and society continues to grow." —Stefanos Geroulanos, New York University"In the Anglophone world, Reinhart Koselleck's story is that of an unfulfilled reception. Remarkably put together, this collection is a rectification that promises him a new career. Having trained as a historian in post-1945 Germany, Koselleck put the concepts of experience, waiting, and repetition at the center of his thought. In the midst of today's intellectual confusion, his work presents a major benchmark."—François Hartog, author of Regimes of Historicity"[I]t is the ambition to deconstruct, and not to underpin, the foundations of historical philosophy that runs like a red thread through the essays, which all display an immense erudition, an intellectual curiosity, and a remarkably wide range of thematic concerns that can be taken in many different directions...Sediments of Time provides an excellent (re)introduction to Koselleck, which can hopefully spur a more nuanced and comprehensive discussion and reception of his work in this part of the world."––Niklas Olsen, American Historical Review"Franzel and Hoffmann have created a volume that reads with both clarity and elegance in English....This volume will be [a] valuable resource for both practitioners and theorists of history who wish to undertake a deeper excavation of Koselleck's thought. It also promises to embed Koselleck more firmly among the layers of Anglophone historiography."—Jennifer Allen, German History"[These] texts address a wide range of philosophers and scientists alike, offering highly innovative 'food for thought.' One also finds therein signs of the important influence these Essays have already exerted, in new concepts such as 'mapping' and in the necessity for studies of History as Time to combine with geopolitics."—Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard, Kronoscope"Sediments of Time, in short, offers literary historians the opportunity to reconsider the relation between history and fiction, bodily and linguistic experience, preverbal knowledge and discourse, singularity and repetition. With scholars across the humanities currently recovering ontological and materialist perspectives in order to move beyond the limitations of the linguistic turn, Koselleck's emphasis on the pre- and extralinguistic ought to become newly relevant at the present intellectual juncture."—Johannes Voelz, American Literary HistoryTable of Contents1. Sediments of Time 2. Fiction and Historical Reality 3. Space and History 4. Historik and Hermeneutics 5. Goethe's Untimely History 6. Does History Accelerate? 7. Constancy and Change of All Contemporary Histories 8. History, Law, and Justice 9. Linguistic Change and the History of Events 10. Structures of Repetition in Language and History 11. On the Meaning and Absurdity in History 12. Concepts of the Enemy 13. Sluices of Memory and Sediments of Experiences 14. Behind the Deadly Line: The Age of Totality 15. Some Forms and Traditions of Negative Memory 16. Histories in the Plural and the Theory of History. An Interview with Carsten Dutt

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Book SynopsisThe Subject of Human Rights is the first book to systematically address the "human" part of "human rights." Drawing on the finest thinking in political theory, cultural studies, history, law, anthropology, and literary studies, this volume examines how human rights—as discourse, law, and practice—shape how we understand humanity and human beings. It asks how the humanness that the human rights idea seeks to protect and promote is experienced. The essays in this volume consider how human rights norms and practices affect the way we relate to ourselves, to other people, and to the nonhuman world. They investigate what kinds of institutions and actors are subjected to human rights and are charged with respecting their demands and realizing their aspirations. And they explore how human rights shape and even create the very subjects they seek to protect. Through critical reflection on these issues, The Subject of Human Rights suggests ways in which we might reimagine the relationship between human rights and subjectivity with a view to benefiting human rights and subjects alike.Trade Review"Returning the 'human' to human rights, The Subject of Human Rights is a path-breaking, multi-disciplinary exploration of selfhood and subjecthood. An indispensable rethinking of the field of contemporary human rights studies."—James Loeffler, University of Virginia"This book challenges familiar paradigms for theorizing and contesting the universality of the subject of human rights. The authors extend our critical gaze to the subjectivities shaped by human rights values, to those who implement them, and to us all as addressees of the call to live our lives accordingly."—Dianne Otto, Melbourne Law School"Celermajer and Lefebvre bring together an impressive interdisciplinary cast of cutting-edge thinkers to interrogate the subject of human rights. This thoughtful book offers refreshing perspectives on current human rights debates and points to numerous intriguing alternative futures for the human rights project."—William Paul Simmons, University of Arizona"In The Subject of Human Rights, a diverse group of outstanding scholars reflect on the meaning of the "human" in human rights, shedding light on the current status and direction of the field. An essential contribution to the literature."—Ruti Teitel, New York Law SchoolTable of ContentsIntroduction: Bringing the Subject of Human Rights into Focus —Danielle Celermajer and Alexandre Lefebvre 1. The Relational Self As the Subject of Human Rights —Jennifer Nedelsky 2. The Misbegotten Monad: Anthropology, Human Rights, Belonging —Mark Goodale 3. "Are Women Animals?": The Rise and Rise of (Animal) Rights —Joanna Bourke 4. Indigenous Peoples As the Subject of Human Rights —Danielle Celermajer and Michael Dodson 5. "Escaped": Gendered Precarity and Human Rights Recognition —Wendy S. Hesford 6. Training Subjects for Human Rights —Danielle Celermajer 7. Who Deserves Inalienable Rights?: The Subjectivity of Violent State Officials and the Implications for Human Rights Protection —Rachel Wahl 8. Human Rights As Therapy: The Healing Paradigms of Transitional Justice —Ronald Niezen 9. Cinematic Aesthetics and the Subjects of Human Rights: On Eliane Caffé's Era o Hotel Cambridge —Andrew C. Rajca 10. Human Rights As Spiritual Exercises —Alexandre Lefebvre 11. The Child Subject of Human Rights —Linde Lindkvist 12. The Secular Subject of Human Rights —Jenna Reinbold 13. The Subject of Human Rights: An Interview with Samuel Moyn —Samuel Moyn and Alexandre Lefebvre

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Book SynopsisWith this nuanced and interdisciplinary work, political theorist Mihaela Mihai tackles several interrelated questions: How do societies remember histories of systemic violence? Who is excluded from such histories' cast of characters? And what are the political costs of selective remembering in the present? Building on insights from political theory, social epistemology, and feminist and critical race theory, Mihai argues that a double erasure often structures hegemonic narratives of complex violence: of widespread, heterogeneous complicity and of "impure" resistances, not easily subsumed to exceptionalist heroic models. In dialogue with care ethicists and philosophers of art, she then suggests that such narrative reductionism can be disrupted aesthetically through practices of "mnemonic care," that is, through the hermeneutical labor that critical artists deliver—thematically and formally—within communities' space of meaning. Empirically, the book examines both consecrated and marginalized artists who tackled the memory of Vichy France, communist Romania, and apartheid South Africa. Despite their specificities, these contexts present us with an opportunity to analyze similar mnemonic dynamics and to recognize the political impact of dissenting artistic production. Crossing disciplinary boundaries, the book intervenes in debates over collective responsibility, historical injustice, and the aesthetics of violence within political theory, memory studies, social epistemology, and transitional justice.Trade Review"Elegantly written and masterfully argued, Mihai's book contributes to debates about the critical role of art in resisting systemic violence and its political oblivion. With outstanding theoretical sophistication, exceptional interdisciplinary breadth, and remarkable empirical depth,it theorizes critical artistic practices as forms of mnemonic care for healthy hermeneutical climates. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the difficult work of resisting the mystification of the past and working toward social justice."—José Medina, Northwestern University"An eloquent and pathbreaking work of political theory that is deeply engaged with history and culture. Resolutely interdisciplinary and comparative, it provides stunningly illuminating insights into the everyday forms of complicity that prop up unjust regimes and the ordinary forms of resistance through which citizens contest domination."—Michael Rothberg, University of California, Los Angeles"Mihai once again challenges received wisdoms about the right way for nations to deal with histories of systemic violence. She makes a compelling case for messier, less triumphalist narratives of the past in favour of the ethical ambiguity of how resistance and complicity actually unfold."—Danielle Celermajer, University of Sydney"Mihaela Mihai has written a daring book that transcends disciplinary, linguistic, and national boundaries."—Catherine Guisan, Contemporary Political Theory"Mihai's book shows us how to understand action differently. In the present moment, as we struggle against the writing of political memory within enclosed perceptual experiences and hermeneutics, we might draw from Mihai's theorization of mnemonic care."—Sue Shon, Krisis: A Journal for Contemporary Philosophy"With Political Memory and the Aesthetics of Care... Mihai not only offers a rich resource for scholars working on questions of complicity and implication across different fields and disciplines – from history, to sociology, to political theory and philosophy, to memory studies, and to comparative literature among others. She also lays the foundation for new and deeper critical inquiries into the ethical demands and political stakes of studying complex involvement in violence."—Sofía Forchieri, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture"In an argumentative tour de force, Mihai manages to dislocate petrified demarcation lines 'between the good and the bad, to reveal the relationality that underpins even the most exemplary practices of resistance'."—Maria Alina Asavei, The Review of PoliticsTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Tracing the Double Erasure 2. The Aesthetics of Care 3. France's "Dark Years" 4. Romania's Horizons of Hope and Despair 5. The Spectrum of Apartheid in South Africa Conclusion: Heretic Visions, Responsible Futures

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Book SynopsisRecent thinking has resuscitated civility as an important paradigm for engaging with a violence that must be deemed endemic to our lives. But, while it is widely acknowledged that civility works against violence, and that literature generates or accompanies civility and engenders tolerance, civility has also been understood as violence in disguise, and literature, which has only rarely sought to claim the power of violence, has often been accused of inciting it. This book sets out to describe the ways in which these words—violence, literature and civility—and the concepts they evoke are mutually entangled, and the uses to which these entanglements have been put. Simpson's argument follows a broadly historical trajectory through the long modern period from the Renaissance to the present, drawing on the work of historians, political scientists, literary scholars and philosophers. The result is a distinctly new argument about the complex and often mystified entanglements between literature, civility and violence in the anglophone Atlantic sphere. What now are our expectations of civility and literature, separately and together? How do these long-familiar but residually imprecise concepts stand up to the demands of the modern world? Simpson's argument is that, despite and perhaps because of their imperfect conceptualization, both persist as important protocols for the critique of violence.Trade Review"Among the most important literary historical considerations of violence and civility to emerge in recent decades, this remarkable, challenging book sustains the question of how—and at what cost—civility has been opposed to violence, and literature allied with civility."—Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley"This timely, erudite work is not polemical, not a defense, but reflective—essayistic rather than thesis-driven. In these ways and more, the book enacts a form of civility that it characterizes and appreciates without idealizing."—Jonathan Arac, University of Pittsburgh"Engaging Violence is dialectical criticism at its best. It follows the overlapping histories of civility and literary pedagogy over time as both engage with different forms of violence, and it renders the complex historical process by which each term shifts as it moves between contexts but never admits of monolithic conclusions."—Kevis Goodman, Critical InquiryTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Civility and Literature and Their Discontents 2. Civil Beginnings 3. Philosophy Polite and Politic 4. The Displacement of Civility: Violence in a Widening World 5. Civility after 1989: Romancing Small Groups 6. The Reach of Literature

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Book SynopsisThe Sociology of Literature is a pithy primer on the history, affordances, and potential futures of this growing field of study, which finds its origins in the French Enlightenment, and its most salient expression as a sociological pursuit in the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Addressing the epistemological premises of the field at present, the book also refutes the common criticism that the sociology of literature does not take the text to be the central object of study. From this rebuttal, Gisèle Sapiro, the field's leading theorist, is able to demonstrate convincingly one of the greatest affordances of the discipline: its in-built methods for accounting for the roles and behaviors of agents and institutions (publishing houses, prize committees, etc.) in the circulation and reception of texts. While Sapiro emphasizes the rich interdisciplinary nature of the approach on display, articulating the way in which it draws on literary history, sociology, postcolonial studies, book history, gender studies, and media studies, among others, the book also stands as a defense of the sociology of literature as a discipline in its own right.Trade Review"This erudite, yet accessible book has no equal. The quality and breadth of Sapiro's scholarship is excellent. We would have to go back to a thinker like Adorno for a scholar as proficient in both literary research and sociological theory."—Bridget Fowler, University of Glasgow"Sapiro's clear survey of the sociology of literature synthesizes Bourdieu's field theory with other approaches, adding subtle, provocative twists of her own. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of literary theory and the sociology of culture."—Andrew Goldstone, Rutgers University"The Sociology of Literature is distinguished by unusual breadth of scope, both international and interdisciplinary. This book will be of great interest not only to sociologists but to literary scholars, historians, and anyone else interested in the systematic study of written culture."—Ted Underwood, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"a concise but comprehensive handbook... which showcases a wide range of approaches and research problems in literary sociology."—Lee Konstantinou, Chronicle of Higher EducationTable of ContentsIntroduction I: Sociological Theories and Approaches to Literature II: The Social Conditions for the Production of Literary Works III: The Sociology of Literary Works IV: Sociology of Reception Conclusion

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Book SynopsisMichel Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge was published in March 1969; Discipline and Punish in February 1975. Although only six years apart, the difference in tone is stark: the former is a methodological treatise, the latter a call to arms. What accounts for the radical shift in Foucault's approach? Foucault's time in Tunisia had been a political awakening for him, and he returned to a France much changed by the turmoil of 1968. He taught at the experimental University of Vincennes and then moved to a prestigious position at the Collège de France. He quickly became involved in activist work concerning prisons and health issues such as abortion rights, and in his seminars he built research teams to conduct collaborative work, often around issues related to his lectures and activism. Foucault: The Birth of Power makes use of a range of archival material, including newly available documents at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, to provide a detailed intellectual history of Foucault as writer, researcher, lecturer and activist. Through a careful reconstruction of Foucault's work and preoccupations, Elden shows that, while Discipline and Punish may be the major published output of this period, it rests on a much wider range of concerns and projects.Trade Review"Foucault: The Birth of Power opens an illuminating window into the process of political awakening and philosophical transformation as intellectual history. Drawing on lectures, talks and unpublished as well as published material, Stuart Elden has marshalled the contents of a massive archive to substantiate this pivotal period in the development of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century." Caren Kaplan, University of California, Davis "This is a brilliant prequel to Elden’s masterful book, Foucault’s Last Decade. Here, Elden offers a meticulous, erudite reading of the thinker’s early years at the Collège de France – a critical time in the arc of his research, which included seminars and conferences on disciplinary power, with deep political engagement and activism on behalf of prisoners. With his unmatched knowledge of Foucault, Elden unearths key intellectual moments and carefully traces Foucault’s intellectual journey to the mid-1970s, the publication of Discipline and Punish and the lectures on psychiatric power. Foucault: The Birth of Power is the perfect reading companion to Foucault’s “power-knowledge” period." Bernard Harcourt, Columbia University"fascinating"The NationTable of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Out of the 1960s 1. Measure: Greece, Nietzsche, Oedipus 2. Inquiry: Revolt, Ordeal, Proof 3. Examination: Punishment, War, Economy 4. Madness: Power, Psychiatry and the Asylum 5. Discipline: Surveillance, Punishment and the Prison 6. Illness: Medicine, Disease and Health Conclusion: Towards Foucault�s Last Decade Notes Index

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Book SynopsisG. A. Cohen was one of the towering political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His intellectual career was unusually wide-ranging, and he was celebrated internationally not only for his penetrating ideas about liberty, justice and equality, but also for his method, a highly original and influential combination of analytical philosophy and Marxism. Christine Sypnowich guides readers through the rich body of Cohen's work. By identifying five paradoxes in his thought, she explores the origins of his interest in analytical philosophy, his engagement with the ideas of right-wing libertarianism, his critique of John Rawls's work, his late-career turn to conservatism, and the tension between his preoccupation with individual responsibility and the idea of a socialist ethos. Sypnowich acknowledges the strengths of Cohen's positions as well as their tensions and flaws, and presents him as a thinker of startling insight. This compelling introduction is a

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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

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Book SynopsisWhat is it like to live in an illiberal regime? Ethical life in totalitarian regimes is easy to critique because it deviates from everything we think morally acceptable. But illiberal regimes are similar enough to liberal democracies to make addressing the experience of living there strikingly difficult.Political ethics in illiberal regimes argues that the common language of normative political theory is simply not up to the task of capturing this experience. On the one hand, we do not really need political theory to know why illiberal regimes are dangerous and undesirable. On the other, we do need political theory – at least of a certain realist kind – to understand why millions of reasonable people come to terms with living in such regimes.The book presents a novel theoretical language – Williamsian, liberal and realist – to articulate this experience. Part I lays out the theoretical framework, while Part II examines how politicians, experts and citizens in illiberal regimes are confronted with role-specific, political-ethical challenges and how the various normative contexts of their roles shape their agency.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I: In theory1 The case for a liberal political realism2 A neo-Aristotelian regime theory to the rescue3 The political-ethical experience of living in illiberal regimesPart II: In practice4 The politics of illiberal ambition5 Independence in an illiberal regime6 Illiberal citizenshipConclusionReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisIn the neoliberal world of the twenty-first century, the progressive academy urgently needs a vehicle for normative social research. Critical theory once answered this call, but today its programme is in crisis. The ‘pathologies of recognition’ approach, popular among contemporary critical theorists, aids neoliberalism rather than challenging it, in part because it is unable to grasp the structural nature of power.To offer an alternative, this book returns to the work of Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, using it as the basis for a revivified social theoretical foundation. As the first generation of critical theorists knew, thought itself can be reified, our imaginations debased, and our desires artificially induced. We need to think beyond recognition and embrace a more potent and aggressive form of social critique, true to the founding spirit of the Frankfurt School.Trade Review'Critical theory and social pathology provides a necessary recapturing of social pathology, unseating it from its position as a ‘second order’ phenomenon to the process of recognition. Harris recognises the important contribution of recent critiques of Critical Theory, but sets them aside, proposing a new way forward. Here, social pathology is regarded as an important platform for a renewed programme of social research. By engaging with this new synthesis of Fromm and Marcuse’s work, Harris allows critical theorists to, once again, step beyond recognition.'Owen Brown, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books‘Critical theory and social pathology makes a major contribution to the field. Harris shows how Erich Fromm’s work offers profound and timely insights into the nature of societal pathologies. As such, the book points beyond the recognition approach to social research and offers the foundations for a critical theory of society which reconnects with the founding aspirations of the Frankfurt School.’Gerard Delanty, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University Of Sussex‘This timely and lucid study makes an important contribution to the growing chorus of voices that claim that Frankfurt School Critical theory is in crisis. Its thinkers have abandoned their animating commitment to radical and uncompromising criticism of the pathologies of capitalism and adopted instead a defanged, reformist political stance. In his scholarly and engaging work, Neal Harris identifies the roots of this domestication in the work of Axel Honneth and other theorists of recognition who have substituted the deep critique of power with superficial epistemological concerns. Through a distinctive rereading of the work of Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, Harris demonstrates how the radical thrust of Frankfurt School critique might yet be restored in a revivified diagnosis of the pathologies of neoliberal societies. Thought provoking and essential reading for anyone interested in the state of contemporary critical theory and possible pathways for the renewal of its original emancipatory aims.’Lois McNay, Professor of Political Theory, University of Oxford'Critical theory, once the purview of thinkers that were independent, iconoclastic and engaged, has sadly become academic and pedantic, flitting from one intellectual fad to the next. Neal Harris is a welcome exception to this trend. With original and committed intelligence, he reveals the pretensions of academic critical theory and exposes the pedantry that dominates the field. Above the deafening bleats of what now passes for critical theory, Harris's book renews the faith that critique can once again be fused with emancipatory political purpose and the best traditions of modern reason.'Michael J. Thompson, Professor of Political Theory, William Paterson University -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: on the battle for critical theoryPart I: Social pathology and the crisis of critical theory1 Social pathology: the ‘explosive charge’ of critical theory2 Distorted by recognition3 Pathologies of recognitionPart II: Foundations of pathology diagnosing critique4 Rousseau and the foundations of pathology diagnosing social criticism5 Hegelian-Marxism: pathologies of reason, pathologies of productionPart III: A Fromm-Marcuse synthesis6 Erich Fromm and pathological normalcy7 The pathological normalcy of what? Towards a Fromm-Marcuse synthesisConclusion: the Frankfurt School beyond recognitionIndex

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Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to be ‘vulnerable’? Exploring the rise of ‘vulnerability’ as an organising concept in migration detention, integration, public health, national security and social policy, this volume reveals the blurring of welfare state logics with national security ends. Governments and international agencies use the language of vulnerability to identify needy constituents and communities, but also to frame that need as potentially dangerous. Using international case studies this book shows how vulnerability governance permeates policy sectors – transforming the methods used to govern, problematise and resolve – bringing questions of risk management and security into social policy, but simultaneously brings social policy sectors into counterterrorism delivery. The combination of welfare state and security logics brings interventions deeper into societies, securitising communities and individuals on account of their needs, governing the social through security politics.Table of ContentsAn introduction to vulnerability: merging social policy with the national security state – Charlotte Heath-KellyPart I: From care to risk assessment and national security1 Shifting notions of vulnerability and learning in Swedish prevention policy – Randi Gressgård and Vanja Lozic2 Anti-immigrant politics and vulnerability’s conceptual multiplicity – Andrew C. Fletcher and Ali Fuat Birol3 Governing vulnerability: mental distress, neoliberalism and COVID-19 - Jana Fey4 Who is vulnerable, the worker or the state? Psychiatric debates on trauma and welfare in Germany, 1871–1914 – Laura Jung5 Counterterrorism and psychiatry: re-bordering vulnerability and securitisation in UK public protection – Charlotte Heath-KellyPart II: The reframing of national security around careIntroducing Part II – Barbara Gruber6 Governing vulnerability through case management: from crime to radicalization prevention in the Netherlands – Barbara Gruber7 Local rationalizations of radicalization: an analysis of Danish and Swedish municipal policies – Robin Andersson Malmros and Jennie Sivenbring8 The 'vulnerability' of Lebanon: reimagining the ‘failing state’ problem through the international PVE agenda – Jan Daniel9 Prevention politics in non-western contexts: training imams in post-revolutionary Tunisia – Fabrizio Leonardo Cuccu10 ‘Ontological’ (in)security under postcolonial conditions: countering violent extremism in Nigeria – Akinyemi Oyawale11 When democracy is deemed vulnerable: preventing far-right extremism by curbing Roma ‘criminality and social pathologies’ in the Czech Republic – Sadi ShanaahEpilogue: from security to ‘care’, vulnerability to resistance – Hil AkedIndex

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Book SynopsisThat the United States is currently in the midst of a serious crisis, even an ideological civil war, which is part of the general and prolonged crisis of Western civilization is obvious to any thoughtful observer. One of the most perceptive observers of the development of this crisis was Gerhart Niemeyer. As a fugitive from Nazi Germany, a devout Christian, and a political theorist who had mastered the philosophical tradition and the Communist worldview, he was particularly well equipped to discern the ways in which the various modern ideologies insidiously erode the substance of truth and order in contemporary society and to seek remedies in the return to the ontological and spiritual roots of order in the Western tradition. The writings collected in this volume, many of which were previously unpublished, are chosen from Gerhart Niemeyer’s essays, conference talks, and letters. The first part, intended to introduce the reader to Niemeyer on a more personal level, includes an unpublished essay describing his experiences in Nazi Germany and in the America that he encountered on his arrival in 1937. Several letters and other short works provide a sense of his character and his deeply Christian view of human life, both of which were essential to his grasp of truth. The second part, “The Loss of Truth,” consists of thirty-seven essays that focus on the destructive effects of ideologies and other manifestations of disorder in the modern world. Several essays provide a sampling of his expert analysis of Communism and the ideological world-view of the American Left, while others discuss the spiritually stifling effects of the modern bureaucratic state and the ideological disorders that have crept into contemporary culture and the understanding of Christianity. Many of these essays are taken from Niemeyer’s National Review column “Days and Works.” The character of Niemeyer’s search for “The Recovery of Truth” appears in the subdivision of the thirty-four essays of the third part under the topics of political theory, education, Conservatism, and Christian faith. Although these essays also consider the loss of truth, they are concerned primarily with the quest for its recovery through faith, divine grace, and a clear-eyed understanding of reality. This section begins with his 1950 work “A Reappraisal of the Doctrine of Free Speech” in which he lucidly analyzes the pitfalls of free speech in an ideological age. Among the other essays included here are works that attest to Niemeyer’s concern for a spiritual renewal in education and his profound respect and admiration for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and, perhaps above all, St. Augustine. The book includes a bibliography of Niemeyer’s previously published books, pamphlets, essays, and reviews. Table of ContentsIntroductionAcknowledgmentsPart I. Niemeyer, the Man 1. From Europe, With Love 2. Letters 3. What, to a Christian, is the Meaning of a “Changing, Technologically Oriented, Frustrated, and Fragmented World”? 4. The Hospice Movement and the Problem of Death (excerpts) 5. How to Talk to Mature People About Death Part II. The Loss of Truth 6. This Terrible Century 7. Forces that Shape the Twentieth Century 8. Loss of Reality: Gnosticism and Modern Nihilism 9. Variations on a Theme 10. Ideologies, Political Theories, and Societies 11. The Communist Mind (excerpts) 12. Will the Soviet Reality Please Stand Up? (excerpt) 13. The Tourist’s Soviet Russia 14. Ethics and Politics in Communism (excerpts) 15. The “Autonomous” Man 16. Confrontation of Opinions or Dialectic Discussion? 17. E Nobilissima Visione Regna Inferna 18. Beyond “Democratic Disorder” 19. Two Socialisms 20. Anti-Communism Old Hat? 21. Common Sense 22. Counterculture? 23. Moral Dishonesty? 24. Rulers Without Power 25. See No Evil 26. The Reality of Totalitarian Despotism 27. What Happened to Morality? 28. Language and Action 29. Modern Politics 30. Of Human Dignity 31. States Without Citizens 32. The State and the Citizen 33. The Evil Society 34. Aliens In Their Own Nations 35. Toward Totalitarian Simplicity? 36. Public Interest and Private Utility 37. Structures, Revolutions and Christianity 38. Systems of History and Public Policy Goals (excerpts) 39. The Church and the Ideological Temptation 40. A “Church” Without a Name? (excerpts) 41. Beyond Institutions of Power and Patterns of Profit (excerpts) 42. On Authority and Alienation: A Meditation Part III. The Recovery of TruthPolitical Theory 43. A Reappraisal of the Doctrine of Free Speech 44. Stewardship—Theory and Practice 45. What Price Politics? 46. Humanism, Positivism, Immorality 47. What Price “Natural Law”? 48. The Loss and Recovery of History 49. Foreign Policy and Morality: A Contemporary Perspective (excerpts) 50. Risk or Betrayal? The Crossroads of Western Policy 51. National Self-Defense and Political Existence 52. Nations, Myths, and Mores 53. Ideas Have Also Roots 54. Limits of the Law Education 55. The Commitments of Political Education 56. Crisis and Renewal 57. The New Need for the Catholic University 58. Christian Studies and the Liberal Arts College 59. Letter to Rev. James T. Burtchaell, C.S.C. 60. The Glory and Misery of Education Conservatism 61. Russell Kirk and Ideology (excerpts) 62. The Prophetic Calling of Solzhenitsyn 63. Conservatism and the Modern Age 64. Conservatism and the New Political Theory 65. The Burkean View of Politics 66. Review of Conservatism in America by Clinton Rossiter 67. Is There a Conservative Mission? 68. Too Early and Too Much Faith 69. Two Commencement Addresses 70. The Recovery of “The Sacred”? 71. The Church, the Shepherds, and the Spirit of Our Time 72. Christianity in Public Life: Real vs. Counterfeit Hope 73. The Politics of Hope 74. Guilt and History 75. Reason and Faith: The Fallacious Antithesis 76. History and CivilizationEndnotesPublications by Gerhart NiemeyerIndex

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Book SynopsisThe Western inheritance is under sustained theoretical and practical assault. Legitimate self-criticism has given way to nihilistic self-loathing and cultural, moral, and political repudiation is the order of the day. Yet, as Daniel J. Mahoney shows in this learned, eloquent, and provocative set of essays, two contemporary philosophic thinkers, Roger Scruton and Pierre Manent, have––separately and together––traced a path for the renewal of politics and practical reason, our civilized inheritance, the natural moral law, and the soul as the enduring site of self-conscious reflection, moral and civic agency, and mutual accountability. Both Scruton and Manent have repudiated the fashionable nihilism associated with the “thought of 1968” and the “Parisian nonsense machine,” and have shown that gratitude is the proper response of the human person to the “givenness of things.” Both defend the self-governing nation against reckless nationalism and the even more reckless temptation of supranational governance and post-political democracy, what Manent suggestively calls a “kratos” without a “demos.” Both defend the secular state while taking aim at a radical secularism that rejects “the Christian mark” that is at the heart of our inheritance and that sustains the rich and necessary interpenetration of truth and liberty. Scruton’s more “cultural” perspective is indebted to Burke and Kant; Manent’s more political perspective draws on Aristotle, St. Thomas, Tocqueville, and Raymond Aron, among others. By highlighting their affinities, and reflecting on their instructive differences, Mahoney shows how, together, the English man of letters Scruton, and the French political philosopher Manent, guide us to the recovery of a horizon of thought and action animated by practical reason and the wellsprings of the human soul. They show us the humanizing path forward, but first we must make the necessary spiritual decision to repudiate repudiation once and for all. “With sophisticated and profound scholarship, Daniel Mahoney deploys his elegant style to defend the soul of civilization. Through the writings of Pierre Manent and Roger Scruton, he charts a course through the political and philosophical turmoil of the present age, providing hope and light amid the prevailing darkness.” — Mark Dooley, Irish philosopher, writer and journalist. Author of Conversations with Roger Scruton and Sir Roger's literary executor. “Mahoney's collection of essays does a marvelous job of contextualizing and explaining the vital work of these two philosophers. He's also an engaging and elegant writer.” — Daniel DiSalvo, City Journal “A series of reflective essays by Mahoney on the philosophical, theological, and political thinking of our best conservative theorists: Pierre Manent and the late Roger Scruton. Recovering Politics, Civilization, and the Soul expresses well what we need.” — Richard M. Reinsch II, National Review

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Book SynopsisBakhtin and Voloshinov argued that dialogue is the intersubjective basis of consciousness, and of the creativity which makes historical changes in consciousness possible. The multiple dialogical relationships give every subject, who has developed through internalising them, the potential to distance him or herself from them. Consciousness is therefore an "unfinalised" process, always open to a possible future which would not merely reiterate the past. But this book explores its corollary: The relative openness is a field of conflict where rival discourses struggle for hegemony, by subordinating or eliminating their rivals. That is how the unconscious is created out of socio-historical conflicts. Hegemony is always incomplete, because there is always the possibility of a return of its repressed rivals in new combinations.Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Dialogism: the Potential for Change and for Resistance to Change The Fissured Modern Subject: Paradox versus “Becoming” in Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground Rethinking Ideology as a Field of Dialogical Conflict A Contradictory Symbiosis is Born: the Rival Ideologies of the Market and the State under Capitalism Captivating the Unruly Subject: Ideology in Early Modern Europe Repairing the Universe: Mysticism as Loss and Longing Baroque Incompletion, the Captivated Subject, and the Humour of Don Quijote The Dialectics of Laughter and Anxiety Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste, John Asimakopoulos analyzes the political economy of the society of the spectacle, a philosophical concept developed by Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard. Using the analytical tools of social science and historical research, Asimakopoulos reveals that all societies in every epoch have been and continue to be caste systems legitimized by various ideologies. He concludes that there is no such thing as capitalism (or socialism)—only a caste system hidden behind capitalist ideology. Asimakopoulos's approach is broad, interdisciplinary, and draws on both quantitative and qualitative data to weave a narrative that is clear, well written, and offers much to both specialists and general readers.Table of ContentsForeword Greg PalastAcknowledgementsIllustrationsIntroduction: Busting out of Plato 's Cave1 The Symbolic Institution of Society1Symbolic Interactionism2Interaction Exchange and Collective Norms3Critical Theory and Post-Structuralism/Postmodernism3.1 Cornelius Castoriadis3.2 Michel Foucault3.3 Guy Debord3.4 Jean Baudrillard4Beyond Post-Structuralism/Postmodernism2The Spectacle1Audience Segmentation1.1 Sociocultural and Spatial Segmentation1.2 Educational Segmentation1.3 Economic Segmentation1.4 Political Segmentation2Total Propaganda3Symbolic Institutions3.1 Educational Institutions3.2 Economic Institutions3.3 Political Institutions3.4 Legal Institutions3.5 Protective Institutions3 It 's All Spectacular1Spectacular History2Postmodern Spectacles2.1 Doubleplusgood: Spectacular Capitalism2.2 Plusgood: Spectacular Socialism/Communism3Spectacular Class4The Quantum Mechanics of Value and Capital4.1 The Relativity of Value4.2 There Is No Spoon: Capital(ism)4 The Monetization of Everything1Life, Flesh, and Death2Food, Water, and the Environment3Cities, Nations, and Culture4Time and Space5The Global Spectacle5.1 Finance5.2 Trade5.3 Segmented Labor5 The Structure of Postmodern Caste1Social Order1.1 Privileges and Disabilities Based on Ascription1.2 Who Pays the Piper?1.3 Extreme Structural Inequality2Caste Groups2.1 Ruling Caste2.2 Nobles2.3 Privileged Labor2.4 Required Labor2.5 Precarious Labor2.6 Institutional Slaves3Legitimizing Twenty-First-Century Serfdom3.1 Mr. Baptist Has Been Too Harsh on the SlaversConclusion: Bakunin 's Conundrum Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIntimate access to the mind of Francis Fukuyama and his reflections on world politics, his life and career, and the evolution of his thought In his 1992 best-selling book The End of History and the Last Man, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that the dominance of liberal democracy marked the end of humanity’s political and ideological development. Thirty years later, with populism on the rise and the number of liberal democracies decreasing worldwide, Fukuyama revisits his classic thesis. A series of in-depth interviews between Fukuyama and editor Mathilde Fasting, After the End of History offers a wide-ranging analysis of liberal democracy today. Drawing on Fukuyama’s work on identity, biotechnology, and political order, the book provides essential insight into the rise of authoritarianism and the greatest threats faced by democracy in our present world. Diving into topics like the surprise election of Donald Trump, the destruction of social and political norms, and the rise of China, Fukuyama deftly explains the plight of liberal democracy and explores how we might prevent its further decline. He also covers personal topics, reflects on his life and career, the evolution of his thinking, and some of his most important books. Insightful and important, After the End of History grants unprecedented access to one of the greatest political minds of our time.Trade ReviewStudents of geopolitics and world history will find Fukuyama’s thoughts both provocative and inspiring. * Kirkus Reviews *After the End of History offers unmatched insights into Francis Fukuyama’s biography and scholarship and combines them with wide-ranging reflections on liberal democracies and global politics. * Review of Democracy *Indeed, for anyone who lacks the time to absorbhis numerous books and essays, this volume offers a useful introduction to thecore ideas of one of America’s most consequential (and often misunderstood) contemporary thinkers. * National Review *...Fukuyama provides an interesting counterpoint to the current pessimism about the future of democracy. * MoneyWeek *The book is a horn of plenty. Every page presents a novel idea, a new fact, or an unexpected perspective. * Journal of Peace Research *This extended conversation between Fasting and the famed political scientist Francis Fukuyama takes readers on an engaging intellectual journey in which Fukuyama reflects on the global crises and transformations that have unfolded in the three decades since his famous essay on “the end of history.” * Foreign Affairs *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments 1. What Has Happened after the End of History? 2. How Have World Politics Changed? 3. How Do Illiberal Attacks Threaten Democracy? 4. Will the US Cease to Be the Beacon of the Liberal Order? 5. Will Orwell’s 1984 Dystopia Come True? 6. Is Fukuyama a Classical European Liberal? 7. What Led Fukuyama to International Politics? 8. What Is the End of History? 9. Why Do We Go to Denmark? 10. How Do We Build Liberal Democracies? 11. How Can We Understand How Societies Work? 12. Is Identity Politics a Question of Thymos? 13. How Do Society and Capitalism Interact? 14. How Does Human Nature Shape Society? 15. Is China a Serious Contender to Liberal Democracy? 16. Are We Experiencing a Clash of Civilizations? 17. How Can We Make Liberal Democracies Thrive? 18. The Future of History Epilogue Literature

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Book SynopsisIn this daring new study, the renowned Turkish sociologist and public intellectual Suheyb Öğüt seeks a new explanation of political sovereignty demystified from traditional descriptions of the political process.Boldly focusing on sexuality as a crucial definer of social order, Being and Symptom argues that there is an “M theory” – a master theory of theories — not only in Quantum Physics, but also in Continental Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Sociology, disclosing how the ontological structure of the “fantastic four” ingredients of metaphysics (potentiality, impotentiality, actuality, completion) has recurred through time. Ö?üt also seeks to turn Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy into a social theory within the fields of sexuality and sovereignty and to locate parallels among Aristotle, Ibn Khaldun, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan, Agamben, Nash, Derrida, Girard, Kristeva, and Žižek, with a special emphasis on how Žižek has adapted Lacanian psychoanalysis into social theory. Ö?üt conveys a highly original analysis of the unconscious of our social (sexual) relations, subjectivities, and politics.

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Book SynopsisEverything Must Change! brings together prominent commentators from around the world to present a rich and nuanced weighing of progressive possibilities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In these pages you’ll encounter influential voices across the left, ranging from Roger Waters to Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Žižek to Saskia Sassen. Gael García Bernal, Brian Eno, and Larry Charles examine the pandemic’s more cultural and artistic consequences, touching on topics of love, play, comedy, dreaming, and time. Their words sit alongside analyses of the paradoxes and possibilities of debt, internationalism, and solidarity by Astra Taylor, David Graeber, Vijay Prashad, and Stephanie Kelton. Burgeoning surveillance and control measures in the name of public health are a concern for many of the contributors here, including Shoshana Zuboff and Evgeny Morozov, as are the opportunities presented by the crisis for exploitation by financiers, technocrats, and the far right. Against a return to the normal and, indeed, the notion that there ever was such a thing, these conversations insist that urgent, systemic change is needed to tackle not only the pandemics arising from the human destruction of nature, but also the ceaseless debilitations of contemporary global capitalism. Contributors: Tariq Ali, David Adler, Gael García Bernal, Larry Charles, Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno, Daniel Ellsberg, Kenneth Goldsmith, David Graeber, Johann Hari, Maja Kantar, Stephanie Kelton, Stefania Maurizi, Evgeny Morozov, Maja Pelević, Vijay Prashad , Angela Richter, Saskia Sassen, Saša Savanović, Jeremy Scahill, Richard Sennett, John Shipton, Astra Taylor, Ece Temelkuran, Yanis Varoufakis, Roger Waters, Slavoj Žižek, and Shoshana Zuboff.Trade Review“The left’s big beasts tackle a post-pandemic future” — featured as the Observer Book of the Day “A pick’n’mix of intellectual stimulation, provocation and inquiry.” — recommended by Matthew d’Ancona in Tortoise “An adventurous proposal to seize the Covid-19 crises as, in the words of Saskia Sassen, ‘an invitation to think.'” — reviewed in Modern Times Review “Surveillance capitalism and the role social media plays in disinformation” — contributor Shoshana Zuboff interviewed on Morning Joe “Prominent commentators from around the world weigh progressive possibilities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic” — featured on Climate & Capitalism’s Ecosocialist Bookshelf “An urgent new collection of dialogues” — reviewed by OpEd News

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Book SynopsisThis book places two key notions up against each other to imagine a new way of conceptualizing historical time. How do the experience of déjà vu and the idea 'End of History' relate to one another? Through thinkers like Bergson, Kojève and Nietzsche, Virno explores these constructs of memory and the passage of time. In showing how the experience of time becomes historical, Virno considers two fundamental concepts from Western philosophy: Power and The Act, reinterpreting these with respect to time. Through these, he elegantly constructs a radical new theory of historical temporality.Trade ReviewPaulo Virno is one of the most radical and lucid thinkers of the postoperaist political tradition * Meditations Journal *

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Book SynopsisThe belief of many in the early sexual liberation movements was that capitalism’s investment in the norms of the heterosexual family meant that any challenge to them was invariably anti-capitalist. In recent years, however, lesbian and gay subcultures have become increasingly mainstream and commercialized — as seen, for example, in corporate backing for pride events — while the initial radicalism of sexual liberation has given way to relatively conservative goals over marriage and adoption rights. Meanwhile, queer theory has critiqued this ‘homonormativity’, or assimilation, as if some act of betrayal had occurred. In Sex, Needs and Queer Culture, David Alderson seeks to account for these shifts in both queer movements and the wider society, and argues powerfully for a distinctive theoretical framework. Through a critical reassessment of the work of Herbert Marcuse, as well as the cultural theorists Raymond Williams and Alan Sinfield, Alderson asks whether capitalism is progressive for queers, evaluates the distinctive radicalism of the counterculture as it has mutated into queer, and distinguishes between avant-garde protest and subcultural development. In doing so, the book offers new directions for thinking about sexuality and its relations to the broader project of human liberation.Trade ReviewAlderson’s overview of queer theory and its relation to resistance, as well as his reading of the work of Marcuse, is thorough, absorbing and readable for an audience beyond queer theory students and academics. * LSE Review of Books *The book is marked by an enduring faith in the positive and subversive potential of subcultures, autonomous collectives and anti-consumerist movements. * Morning Star *Alderson offers a carefully constructed, critical analysis of contemporary notions of sexual freedom in the historical context of a nascent neoliberal capitalism and era of flexible accumulation. * Red Pepper *'Honest, thoughtful and continuously insightful, Alderson’s socialist-humanist perspective and commitment to moving beyond the identity politics of recent times makes this an indispensable book’. * Jonathan Dollimore, author of Sex, Literature, and Censorship and Sexual Dissidence *Erudite, elegantly written and passionately argued, Sex, Needs and Queer Culture offers a timely and urgently needed reassessment of gay liberation. Alderson’s book will be an enriching and invaluable resource for all working in this field. * Michael G. Cronin, Maynooth University *By placing the economic so directly next to the sexual, Sex, Needs and Queer Culture is able to cut through the ideologies of both the academy and the world at large. Alderson's careful eye avoids the excesses of one-sided polemic while remaining firmly critical, and he cleverly and optimistically re-opens the questions of freedom and liberation for an often all-too-cynical age. * Nina Power, author of One Dimensional Woman *With nuance, passion and considerable lucidity, David Alderson deftly examines the myths and realities of the one-dimensional gay. Sex, Needs and Queer Culture is an astute analysis of our contemporary moment, and a potent call to both reclaim and reinvigorate subcultural queer praxis. * Richard Hornsey, University of Nottingham *‘A genuinely distinctive, highly considered, and important book. The writing is beautifully articulate, and it offers an ambitious and original contribution to queer theory. * Stephen Maddison, University of East London *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Transitions 2. Is Capitalism Progressive (For Queers)? 3. Feeling Radical: Versions of Counterculture 4. Subculture and Postgay Dynamics Postscripts

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Book SynopsisIn 1961, the prolific French intellectual Jean-Paul Sartre was invited to give a talk at the Gramsci Institute in Rome. In attendance were some of Italy's leading Marxist thinkers, such as Enzo Paci, Cesare Luporini, and Galvano Della Volpe, whose contributions to the long and remarkable discussion that followed are collected in this volume, along with the lecture itself. Sartre posed the question "What is subjectivity?" - a question of renewed importance today to contemporary debates concerning "the subject" in critical theory. This work includes a preface by Michel Kail and Raoul Kirchmayr and an afterword by Fredric Jameson, who makes a rousing case for the continued importance of Sartre's philosophy.Trade ReviewSartre, political activist, playwright, novelist, existentialist philosopher, biographer and literary critic, was considered one of the leading interpreters of the post-war generation's world view. * Guardian *Long regarded as one of France's reigning intellectuals, Sartre contributed profoundly to the social consciousness of the post-World War II generation. * New York Times *One of the most brilliant and versatile writers as well as one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century. * Times *A valuable contribution to Sartre studies and contemporary Marxism, this text warrants serious consideration as more than merely a historical artifact: it offers an important view that continues to be relevant to contemporary philosophy and social theory. -- J.A. Simmons, Furman University * Choice *

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Book SynopsisKant’s moral and political philosophy has been important in developing ethical thinking in international relations. This study argues that his theory of the state is crucially important for understanding the moral agency of the state as it is discussed in contemporary debates. For Kant, it is argued that the state has not only duties but also, controversially, inalienable rights that ground its relationship to its citizens and to other states. Most importantly, the state – regardless of its governmental form or factual behaviour – has a right to exist as a state. The Kantian account provided, therefore, explores not only the moral agency but also the moral standing of the state, examining the status of different kinds of states in world politics and expectations towards their ethical behaviour. Every state has a moral standing that must be respected in a morally imperfect world gradually transforming towards the ideal condition of perpetual peace.Trade Review"Vaha’s book offers a comprehensive Kantian theory of the moral personality of the state situated in the ongoing climate crisis that challenges widespread assumptions about Kant’s ideas of international right. Her in-depth critique of the exclusionary practices in the international society shows that the assertion of the superiority of liberal states is incompatible with a truly Kantian conception of the equal moral standing of all political communities." --Macarena Marey, University of Buenos Aires -- Macarena Marey, University of Buenos Aires"The author provides us with a valuable effort to address a key normative puzzle in international politics, what she labels the “Moral Standing Problem” in which states are assigned responsibilities without having any of the correlative rights associated with moral agency. Through a deep engagement with the practical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Vaha provides a novel account of how we might conceptualize the state as a complete moral person with a right to exist, and illustrates the value of her account by addressing the question of the international community’s obligations arising from the potential physical extinction of low-lying insular states." --Harry D. Gould, Florida International University -- Harry D. Gould, Florida International UniversityTable of ContentsNote on references and translations Introduction Chapter One: The Moral Standing Problem in the study of world politics Chapter Two: Kant and the metaethical conception of the state Chapter Three: As to what relations among human beings and states ought to be Chapter Four: Rights and duties of the state Chapter Five: Order and justice in the world of imperfect states Chapter Six: On contested continuity of states Conclusions Bibliography

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