Structuralism and Post-structuralism Books
Columbia University Press Social Acceleration
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWhen I first picked up this book, I was looking forward to a leisurely reading on obscurantist Heideggerian bullshit. I was wrong. But once I got over my deep disappointment that the book was, in fact, intelligible and not littered with ramblings about Dasein, I began to appreciate the book for what it was. Critical Theory BlogTable of ContentsTranslator's Introduction In Place of a Preface Introduction Part 1. The Categorial Framework of a Systematic Theory of Social Acceleration 1. From the Love of Movement to the Law of Acceleration: Observations of Modernity 2. What Is Social Acceleration? Part 2. Mechanisms and Manifestations: A Phenomenology of Social Acceleration 3. Technical Acceleration and the Revolutionizing of the Space-Time Regime 4. Slipping Slopes: The Acceleration of Social Change and the Increase of Contingency 5. The Acceleration of the "Pace of Life" and Paradoxes in the Experience of Time Part 3. Causes 6. The Speeding Up of Society as a Self-Propelling Process: The Circle of Acceleration 7. Acceleration and Growth: External Drivers of Social Acceleration 8. Power Part 4. Consequences 9. Acceleration 10. Situational Identity: Of Drifters and Players 11. Situational Politics: Paradoxical Time Horizons Between Desynchronization and Disintegration 12. Acceleration and Rigidity: Attempt at a Redefinition of Modernity Conclusion: Frenetic Standstill? The End of History Bibliography Index
£25.20
Oxford University Press Poststructuralism
Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, InspiringPoststructuralism challenges traditional ways of thinking about human beings and our relation to the world. Language, meaning, and culture are all reappraised, and with them assumptions about what it''s possible for us to know. More interested in posing sharply focused questions than in reassuring with certainties, its theorists tend to clarify the options, while leaving them open to debate. At once sceptical towards inherited authority and positive about future possibilities, poststructuralism asks above all that we reflect on its findings.In this Very Short Introduction, Catherine Belsey traces the key arguments that have led poststructuralists to challenge traditional theories of language and culture. In this new edition, such well-known figures as Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida are joined by less famous theorists, and examples are drawn from both high art and popular culture. Shakespeare features alongside advertising and Christmas cards, as well as Lewis Carroll, Marcel Duchamp, Toni Morrison, and the tantalizing lithographs of M. C. Escher.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewA wonderfully clear account * Guardian *Table of ContentsPreface by Neil Badmington 1: Creatures of difference 2: Difference and culture 3: The differed subject 4: Difference or truth? 5: Difference in the world 6: Dissent References Further reading Glossary Index
£9.49
Verso Books On Extinction
Book SynopsisOn Extinction takes us on a breathtaking philosophical journey through desperate territory. As we face ‘the end of all things’, Ben Ware argues we must face our apocalyptic future without flinching. In fact, extinction is the very lens through which we should examine our current reality.Radical politics today should not be concerned with merely averting the worst but rather with beginning again at the end. To think about the future in this way is itself a form of liberation that might incubate the necessary radical solutions we need.Combining lessons from Kant, Hegel, Adorno, and Lacan, as well as drawing on popular culture and ecology, Ware recasts the most urgent issue of our times and resolves that we can only consider our collective end by treating it as a starting point.
£14.24
Verso Books Modern Times: Temporality in Art and Politics
Book SynopsisIn this book Jacques Rancière radicalises his critique of modernism and its postmodern appendix. He contrasts their unilinear and exclusive time with the interweaving of temporalities at play in modern processes of emancipation and artistic revolutions, showing how this plurality itself refers to the double dimension of time. Time is more than a line drawn from the past to the future. It is a form of life, marked by the ancient hierarchy between those who have time and those who do not. This hierarchy, continued in the Marxist notion of the vanguard and nakedly exhibited in Clement Greenberg's modernism, still governs a present which clings to the fable of historical necessity and its experts. In opposition to this, Rancière shows how the break with the hierarchical conception of time, formulated by Emerson in his vision of the new poet, implies a completely different idea of the modern. He sees the fulfilment of this in the two arts of movement, cinema and dance, which at the beginning of the twentieth century abolished the opposition between free and mechanical people, at the price of exposing the rift between the revolution of artists and that of strategists.Trade ReviewOne of our most stimulating thinkers * Paris Match *Ranciere's writings offer one of the few conceptualizations of how we are to continue to resist. -- Slavoj ZizekIt's clear that Jacques Rancière is relighting the flame that was extinguished for many-that is why he serves as such a signal reference today. -- Thomas HirschhornHis art lies in the rigor of his argument-its careful, precise unfolding -and at the same time not treating his reader, whether university professor or unemployed actress, as an imbecile. -- Kristin RossFrench philosopher Jacques Ranciere is a refreshing read for anyone concerned with what art has to do with politics and society. * Art Review *
£10.44
Verso Books Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory
Book SynopsisCapitalism, by the twenty-first century, has brought us an era of escalating, overlapping crisis - ecological, political, social - which we may not survive. In this brilliant, wide-ranging conversation, political philosophers Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi identify capitalism as the source of the devastation and examine its in-built tendency to crisis. In an exchange that ranges across history, critical theory, ecology, feminism and political theory, Fraser and Jaeggi find that capitalism's tendency to separate what is connected - human from non-human nature, commodity production and social reproduction - is at the heart of its crisis tendency. These "boundary struggles," Fraser and Jaeggi conclude, constitute capitalism's most destructive power but are also the sites where a fighting left movement might be able to halt the destruction and build the non-capitalist future we so desperately need.A crucial text for students of political theory, economic theory, and social change, Capitalism offers an invigorated critique of twenty-first century capitalism and an incisive study of our current conjuncture.Trade ReviewAs the world is caught up in a whirlwind of multiple crises - social, ecological, political, civilizational - we desperately need to get our hands on and shut down the source. In this book, two of the most acute minds in critical theory point their fingers towards capitalism. This is the sort of sober and passionate thinking we need in a world careening out of control. -- Andreas MalmAn eloquent, well-reasoned, and thorough account of the key institution of our time - capitalism. For them, capitalism is not only a mode of production but also an institutional order or form of life. Those who have followed Fraser's discussion of recognition or justice, or read Jaeggi on the actuality of alienation, will cherish this brilliant contribution to understanding the world in which we live. -- Robin BlackburnIn their search for a more expansive definition of capitalism, Fraser and Jaeggi maneuver through different prisms: historically, morally, ethically and functionally. In doing this, they point out the weakness of each and the necessity of combining the views each of these prisms in order to come up with an expansive, inclusive and more honest understanding. -- Ron Jacobs * Counterpunch *Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction1. Conceptualizing Capitalism2. Historicizing Capitalism3. Criticizing Capitalism4. Contesting Capitalism
£14.24
Verso Books Communism and Strategy: Rethinking Political
Book SynopsisIf the question of communism is making a comeback today, this renewed interest is often accompanied by an abandonment of any concrete political perspective. Critical philosophies are flourishing and proliferating, but, folded into the academic terrain, they often remain disconnected from the global issues associated with the present crisis of capitalism, contributing, in turn, to the fragmentation of the resistances that are opposed to it.Instead of locking the perspective of emancipation into the registers of utopia, or relegating it to the side of an empty populism, Isabelle Garo studies in this book the conditions of a contemporary revival of the alternative as a collective construction, anchored in real aspirations and struggles and inseparable from a rethinking of the theoretical work. By addressing the impasses faced by many of the most fashionable radical theorists - Badiou, Laclau, the theorists of the commons, and revisiting them in relation to Marx and Gramsci also allows us to re-read the latter from the point of view of contemporary questions of the state and the party, of work and property, of conflict and hegemony. Thus, to rethink strategy is above all to re-explore the question of mediations, whether they be forms of organisation or existing mobilisations, as sites par excellence of political invention.Trade ReviewOverall, Isabelle Garo's Communisme et stratégie is a book that gives hope for the possibility of radical change. Rejecting the pessimism of the Frankfurt School and denouncing theory's fetishism for doomsday narratives, her work stands out in capturing a crucial moment that is demanding a better future. Grounding her positive outlook in a thorough analysis of Marx's political thought, she does not seek to affirm that we simply need to take his word as law, but that his political vision is valuable exactly because it takes into account the historical conjuncture it is inscribed in. -- Solange Manche * Marx and Philosophy Review of Books *Isabelle Garo's book deserves to be read for its polemical originality and the force of its proposals. -- Michael Löwy * Le Monde Diplomatique *Garo's theoretical work combines philological rigour with a reflection on the challenges facing Marxism and an emphasis on the need to re-fuse Marxism with the activity of the working class, social movements and the people. -- Juan Dal Maso * Révolution Permanente *Isabelle Garo's book does not propose ready-made solutions, but it does open up a major project that should be tackled by all those who intend to make the convergence of different struggles into something more than simply an abstract watchword. -- Jean Quétier * Cause Commune *In this brilliant essay, Isabelle Garo restores critical and political power to the communist proposal. Rereading Marx, she understands communism as being, above all, a strategy, a vigorous counter-offensive against capitalism, thanks to the emancipatory convergence of the struggles led by the oppressed. This book is an outstanding contribution to critical and political radicalism in our times. -- Michael LöwyThis book offers a new perspective in the debate on communism relaunched in the 2000s. Garo turns the problem upside down and revisits key contemporary interventions in the light of a scrupulous and contextualized study of Marx's theory. Communism appears thus not as an abstract idea but as the strategic question that can open up new perspectives for the revolutionary struggles of our time. -- Stathis Kouvelakis, author of Philosophy and Revolution. From Kant to Marx
£17.99
Columbia University Press Anatheism
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA heartfelt, pragmatic, and eminently realistic argument about how one might continue to think about--and even dedicate one's life to--God after the 'death' or 'disappearance' of God over the last hundred years or so... Richard Kearney wants to see what is left of God, in the time after God, and he does so superbly well. The New Yorker provides a thought-provoking exchange between the religious and contemporary continental philosophy. -- Robert W.M. Kennedy Symposium As always, Kearney's work is poetic and thoughtful. -- Forrest Clingerman Religious Studies Review This book is the outcome of a rich philosophical journey... I highly recommend this book to readers who wish to move beyond well-trodden paths in the debate between theism and atheism. -- M. Moyaert Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses A heartfelt, pragmatic, and eminently realistic argument about how one might continue to think about-and even dedicate one's life to-God after the 'death' or 'disappearance' of God over the last hundred years or so. -- James Wood Page-Turner blog, The New YorkerTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments One. Prelude Introduction: God After God 1. In the Moment: The Uninvited Guest 2. In the Wager: The Fivefold Motion 3. In the Name: After Auschwitz Who Can Say God? Two. Interlude 4. In the Flesh: Sacramental Imagination 5. In the Text: Joyce, Proust, Woolf Three. Postlude 6. In the World: Between Secular and Sacred 7. In the Act: Between Word and Flesh Conclusion: Welcoming Strange Gods Epilogue Notes Index
£22.50
Columbia University Press Alienation
Book SynopsisA bold defense of a neglected concept and its relevance for critical social theory.Trade ReviewThrough a compelling combination of acute analysis and rich phenomenological description, Rahel Jaeggi brings alienation back to the center of political philosophy. She argues alienation concerns a failure to appropriate oneself in the right way, a problem with how one comes to be what one is, rather than an inability to realize some pregiven identity. Jaeggi is not only thoroughly learned in both the continental and analytic traditions. She does what is quite rare: she brings these traditions into a highly productive synthesis. A very impressive achievement. -- Daniel Brudney, University of Chicago With this masterful reconstruction of the concept of alienation, Jaeggi opens fruitful new avenues for critical theory. She also claims her place as a powerful exponent of social philosophy and a thinker of the first rank. Her book is a tour de force of cogent argumentation and rich phenomenological description. -- Nancy Fraser, The New School Alienation, the concept Hegel and Marx made so central to European political and social thought, has receded in importance in recent political philosophy. Like self-deception and weakness of will, it is extremely resistant to analysis even though it continues to be a major theme of modern life and accounts for the features of contemporary life. Jaeggi's great accomplishment is to provide the outlines of a new theory of an old term and thereby show its linkage to major ethical and political concerns. With this book, an entire tradition of political and social philosophy receives a new lease on life. -- Terry Pinkard, Georgetown University Jaeggi's scholarship and writing in this book is excellent, and the resuscitation of the concept of alienation in critical social theory is a welcome event in the literature. -- Matthias Fritsch, Concordia University Alienation is one of the most exciting books to have appeared on the German philosophical scene in the last decade. It not only rejuvenates a lagging discourse on the topic of alienation; it also shows how an account of subjectivity elaborated two centuries ago can be employed in the service of new philosophical insights. -- Frederick Neuhouser, Barnard College This insightful and learned book will appeal to anyone interested in social philosophy. Library Journal Rahel Jaeggi's Alienation is an important contribution to - and rejuvenation of - the philosophical literature on the phenomenon of alienation. Marx & Philosophy Review of Books [A]n excellent representative of the work of a new generation of German philosophers who...seem well positioned to reanimate Western philosophy. -- Frederick Neuhouser Review of MetaphysicsTable of ContentsForeword, by Axel Honneth Translator's Introduction, by Frederick Neuhouser Preface and Acknowledgments Part 1. The Relation of Relationlessness: Reconstructing a Concept of Social Philosophy 1. "A Stranger in the World That He Himself Has Made": The Concept and Phenomenon of Alienation 2. Marx and Heidegger: Two Versions of Alienation Critique 3. The Structure and Problems of Alienation Critique 4. Having Oneself at One's Command: Reconstructing the Concept of Alienation Part 2. Living One's Life as an Alien Life: Four Cases 5. Seinesgleichen Geschieht or "The Like of It Now Happens": The Feeling of Powerlessness and the Independent Existence of One's Own Actions 6. "A Pale, Incomplete, Strange, Artificial Man": Social Roles and the Loss of Authenticity 7. "She but Not Herself": Self-Alienation as Internal Division 8. "As If Through a Wall of Glass": Indifference and Self-Alienation Part 3. Alienation as a Disturbed Appropriation of Self and World 9. "Like a Structure of Cotton Candy": Being Oneself as Self-Appropriation 10. "Living One's Own Life": Self-Determination, Self-Realization, and Authenticity Conclusion: The Sociality of the Self, the Sociality of Freedom Notes Works Cited Index
£20.90
Columbia University Press This Incredible Need to Believe
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewNowhere else does Julia Kristeva provide such a sustained treatment of her views on religion. Kristeva scholars and students will find this book an indispensable text. -- Noelle McAfee, George Mason University A focused and insightful discussion of religious belief... compelling and remarkable. Publishers Weekly In this book, Julia Kristeva analyzes various pressing issues of our time, including the crisis in the Middle East, terrorism, depression, anorexia, and addiction, along with a general crisis of meaning. With her customary brilliance, she argues that belief and faith make it possible to speak but also to question. Provocatively, she describes a vein of Christianity and Catholicism that open up rather than close down that infinite questioning, which she maintains is necessary to delay the death drive. Here, Kristeva uses her incisive psychoanalytic acumen to diagnose the 'culture wars' and the 'clash of religions' that threaten world peace. -- Kelly Oliver, Vanderbilt University, and editor of The Portable Kristeva A helpful commentary and introduction to Kristeva's major work over the last two decades... recommended. Choice Readers... will be exposed to an impressive... crystallization of [Kristeva's] religious and psychoanalytic thought. -- Elaine P. Zicker Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative LiteratureTable of ContentsThe Big Question Mark (in Guise of a Preface) This Incredible Need to Believe: Interview with Carmine Donzelli From Jesus to Mozart: Christianity's Difference? "Suffering": Lenten Lectures, March 19, 2006 The Genius of Catholicism Don't Be Afraid of European Culture Index
£12.34
Taylor & Francis The Political Unconscious
Book SynopsisIn this ground-breaking and influential study Fredric Jameson explores the complex place and function of literature within culture. At the time Jameson was actually writing the book, in the mid to late seventies, there was a major reaction against deconstruction and poststructuralism. As one of the most significant literary theorists, Jameson found himself in the unenviable position of wanting to defend his intellectual past yet keep an eye on the future. With this book he carried it off beautifully. A landmark publication, The Political Unconscious takes its place as one of the most meaningful works of the twentieth century.century.Trade Review'Every now and then a book appears which is literally ahead of its time ...The Political Unconscious is such a book ... it sets new standards of what a classic work is.' - Slavoj Zizek
£19.70
Verso Books Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We
Book SynopsisBut where do these ideas come from and how have they impacted on the world? In his brilliant history of a dangerous idea, Stuart Jeffries tells a narrative that starts in the early 1970s and continue to today. He tells this history through a riotous gallery that includes, amongst others: David Bowie * the Ipod * Frederic Jameson * the demolition of Pruit-Igoe * Madonna * Post-Fordism * Jeff Koon's 'Rabbit' * Deleuze and Guattari * the Nixon Shock * The Bowery series * Judith Butler * Las Vegas * Margaret Thatcher * Grand Master Flash * I Love Dick * the RAND Corporation * the Sex Pistols * Princess Diana * the Musee D'Orsay * Grand Theft Auto* Perry Anderson * Netflix * 9/11We are today scarcely capable of conceiving politics as a communal activity because we have become habituated to being consumers rather than citizens. Politicians treat us as consumers to whom they must deliver. Can we do anything else than suffer from buyer's remorse?Trade ReviewMarvellously entertaining, exciting and informative. -- John Banville * Guardian Books of the Year [For Grand Hotel Abyss] *This seemingly daunting book turned out to be an exhilarating page-turner.Grand Hotel Abyss is an outstanding critical introduction to some of the most fertile, and still relevant, thinkers of the 20th century. -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post [For Grand Hotel Abyss] *Attempts something rather daring . An easily accessible, funny history of one of the more formidable intellectual movements of the 20th century . an easy, witty, pacy read -- Owen Hatherley * [for Grand Hotel Abyss] *Throughout the book, Jeffries demonstrates that he is comfortable and conversant with the often thorny philosophical ideas of his subjects. A rich, intellectually meaty history. * Kirkus [for Grand Hotel Abyss] *Stuart Jeffries has produced a compelling and politically pressing group portrait of the philosophers associated with the Frankfurt School. Their thinking has never seemed less forbidding and more inspiring -- Matthew Beaumont * [for Grand Hotel Abyss] *An engaging and accessible history of the lives and main ideas of the leading thinkers of the Frankfurt School * New York Review of Books [for Grand Hotel Abyss] *
£11.39
Verso Books Self-Defense: A Philosophy of Violence
Book SynopsisIs violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies "worthy of defending" and those who have been disarmed and rendered defenseless. In 1685, for example, France's infamous "Code Noir" forbade slaves from carrying weapons, under penalty of the whip. In nineteenth-century Algeria, the colonial state outlawed the use of arms by Algerians, but granted French settlers the right to bear arms. Today, some lives are seen to be worth so little that Black teenagers can be shot in the back for appearing "threatening" while their killers are understood, by the state, to be justified. That those subject to the most violence have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, the question of using violence in the interest of self-defense.Here, philosopher Elsa Dorlin looks across the global history of the left - from slave revolts to the knitting women of the French Revolution and British suffragists' training in ju-jitsu, from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the Black Panther Party, from queer neighborhood patrols to Black Lives Matter - to trace the politics, philosophy, and ethics of self defense. In this history she finds a "martial ethics of the self": a practice in which violent self defense is the only means for the oppressed to ensure survival and to build a liveable future. In this sparkling and provocative book, drawing on theorists from Thomas Hobbes to Fred Hampton, Frantz Fanon to Judith Butler, Michel Foucault to June Jordan, Dorlin has reworked the very idea of modern governance and political subjectivity.Translated from the French by Kieran Aarons.
£17.99
Verso Books The Destruction of Reason
Book SynopsisA classic of Western Marxism, The Destruction of Reason is Georg Lukács's trenchant criticism of German philosophy after Marx and the role it played in the rise of National Socialism. Originally published in 1952, the book is a sustained and detailed polemic against post-Hegelian German philosophy and sociology from Kierkegaard to Heidegger. The Destruction of Reason is unsparing in its contention that with almost no exceptions, the post-Hegelian tradition prepared the ground fascist thought. In this, the main culprits are Friedrich Nietzsche and Martín Heidegger who are accused, in turn, of introducing irrationalism into social and philosophical thought, pronounced antagonism to the idea of progress in history, an aristocratic view of the "masses," and, consequently, hostility to socialism, which in its classic expressions are movements for popular democracy-especially, but not exclusively, the expropriation of most private property in terms of material production.The Destruction of Reason remains one of Lukács's most controversial, albeit little read, books. This new edition, featuring an historical introduction by Enzo Traverso, will finally see this classic come back in to print.Trade Review[Lukacs possessed] a very specific and important kind of mind, raised to an extraordinary degree of interest by its quite exceptional ability. -- Raymond Williams
£27.00
Verso Books They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life
Book SynopsisComforting a family member or friend, soothing children, providing company for the elderly, ensuring that people feel well enough to work; this is all essential labour. Without it, capitalism would cease to function. They Call It Love investigates the work that makes a haven in a heartless world, examining who performs this labour, how it is organised, and how it might change. In this groundbreaking book, Alva Gotby calls this work 'emotional reproduction', unveiling its inherently political nature. It not only ensures people's well-being but creates sentimental attachments to social hierarchy and the status quo. Drawing on the thought of the feminist movement Wages for Housework, Gotby demonstrates that emotion is a key element of capitalist reproduction. To improve the way we relate to one another will require a radical restructuring of society.Trade ReviewA fascinating and exhaustive explanation as to why emotions are a political issue. -- Brit Dawson * AnOther Magazine *They Call It Love shines a light on the invisible labour involved in love, examining who is responsible for performing it, how it can blossom, and why we do it. -- Adele Walton * Dazed *Gotby makes clear our emotional lives are inherently political. Her analysis of the politics of reproductive labour is a cogent criticism of the bourgeois capitalist logics of feeling, of the free labour of intimacy and of normative femininity. -- Adèle Cassigneul * MAI Journal *They Call It Love is a very fine book - one that balances polemical force with careful and rigorous research. In advancing its account of emotional reproduction, it brings together existing bodies of work on unwaged social reproduction and remunerated emotional labour to great effect, shining a light upon a too often overlooked (and heavily gendered) form of work. It is sharp, thoughtful, and well-written, and represents a substantial scholarly achievement. Alva Gotby is a writer and thinker to watch out for. -- Helen Hester, author of Xenofeminism, co-author of After WorkThis thorough book sheds new light on the critics of the political economy on emotional life. It is a welcome addition to the studies on the social meaning of the immaterial production that takes place in the domestic sphere. They Call It Love is a fascinating insider's account of the hidden, economic dimension of our emotional lives whose subject matter will make for passionate arguments and conversations among feminists and scholars in general. -- Leopoldina Fortunati, author of The Arcane of ReproductionGotby's book importantly attempts to underscore and theorise the role of emotions within social reproduction theory. Her concept of 'emotional reproduction' is a reminder that fife-making work is not devoid of affect. -- Sara Farris, author of In the Name of Women’s RightsThey Call It Love is a call to attention: Alva Gotby astutely maps the work of emotional support and care that is done day in and day out and across everyday life. Gotby not only insists that more value be attributed to emotional reproduction, but makes a sophisticated and compelling case for a radical repurposing of emotions, needs, and desires in the struggle for change - a struggle that is necessarily also a struggle for new ways of being together. -- Emma Dowling, author of The Care CrisisGotby powerfully, and persuasively, argues that the labour of love is at the heart of the anti-capitalist struggle . a beautifully written and engaging book that introduces complex ideas and explains them incredibly well. -- Patrycja Sosnowska-Buxton * Sociological Review *
£14.24
Icon Books Introducing Levi-Strauss: A Graphic Guide
Book SynopsisIntroducing Lévi-Strauss is a guide to the work of the great French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009). The book brilliantly traces the development and influence of Lévi-Strauss' thought, from his early work on the function of the incest taboo to initiate an exchange of women between groups, to his identification of a timeless "wild" or "primitive" mode of thinking - a pensée sauvage - behind the processes of human culture. Accessibly written by Boris Wiseman and beautifully illustrated by Judy Groves, Introducing Lévi-Strauss also explores the major contribution that Lévi-Strauss made to contemporary aesthetic history - his work on American-Indian mythology provides a key insight into the way in which art itself comes into being.This is an essential introduction to a key thinker.
£7.99
MIT Press Intelligence and Spirit UrbanomicSequence Press
Book SynopsisA critique of both classical humanism and dominant trends in posthumanism that formulates the ultimate form of intelligence as a theoretical and practical thought unfettered by the temporal order of things.In Intelligence and Spirit Reza Negarestani formulates the ultimate form of intelligence as a theoretical and practical thought unfettered by the temporal order of things, a real movement capable of overcoming any state of affairs that, from the perspective of the present, may appear to be the complete totality of history. Intelligence pierces through what seems to be the totality or the inevitable outcome of its history, be it the manifest portrait of the human or technocapitalism as the alleged pilot of history.Building on Hegel's account of Geist as a multiagent conception of mind and on Kant's transcendental psychology as a functional analysis of the conditions of possibility of mind, Negarestani provides a critique of both classical human
£25.60
Fordham University Press In Defense of Secrets
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsPreamble | ix I. Memories of the Secret Origins | 3 In the Crypt | 6 Etymology | 8 When the Secret Appears | 10 Occult Force | 14 II. The Secret’s Passions Lifting the Veil | 19 The Unavowable | 22 A Treasure, a Poison | 25 Genesis | 27 Storia I | 29 III. Being or Having The Last Secret | 39 The Body au secret | 41 Eroticism | 44 Storia II | 47 Storia III | 53 IV. Transparency and Truth Violations | 59 Dissimulations | 63 Surveillances | 65 Adaptations | 67 Mirages | 69 Big Data, Hyperconnection, Speed: The Spiral | 72 Archives | 74 Secret Societies | 77 The Unifying Secret | 81 V. An Ethics of the Secret Panopticum: Bentham, Kant, Constant | 85 Inappropriable | 88 Creative Power | 90 The Secret of Dreams | 92 Sex and Prayer | 95 Secret Sideration | 97 Jealousies | 102 The Conspiracy Theory | 105 VI. Toward Mystery Secret Nature | 109 Veils | 111 Legacies | 114 Aside | 117 A Part of One’s Own | 123 Secret of the Prophetic Voice | 125 Sacrifice | 129 Mystery’s Share | 133 Notes | 139 Bibliography | 141
£21.59
Transition Resource Circle Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in
Book Synopsis
£36.54
Verso Books Henri Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production
Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2023This book presents an encompassing, detailed and thorough overview and reconstruction of Lefebvre's theory of space and of the urban. Henri Lefebvre belongs to the generation of the great French intellectuals and philosophers, together with his contemporaries Michel Foucault and Jean-Paul Sartre. His theory has experienced a remarkable revival over the last two decades, and is discussed and applied today in many disciplines in humanities and social sciences, particularly in urban studies, geography, urban sociology, urban anthropology, architecture and planning. Lefebvre, together with David Harvey, is one of the leading and most read theoreticians in these fields. This book explains in an accessible way the theoretical and epistemological context of this work in French philosophy and in the German dialectic (Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche), and reconstructs in detail the historical development of its different elements. It also gives an overview on the receptions of Lefebvre and discusses a wide range of applications of this theory in many research fields, such as urban and regional development, urbanization, urbanity, social space, and everyday life.Trade ReviewChristian Schmid's reception and interpretation of Lefebvre's oeuvre refers strictly to the French originals and represents the first comprehensive epistemological reconstruction of the theory of the production of space. On that basis many of the previous confusions in the development of a critical spatial theory are clarified. This is where I see the highest significance of this path-breaking publication. -- Prof. Dr. Benno Werlen, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, GermanySchmid's publication is a superb theoretical treatise on Lefebvre, clarifying many common misunderstandings. It is particularly timely for those urban China researchers who are keen to avoid past mistakes of randomly indigenising and appropriating Western concepts and develop locally relevant theories in fruitful conversation with critical urban research. -- Prof. Dr. Wing-Shing Tang, Hong Kong Baptist UniversityChristian Schmid provides us with a wonderfully lucid guide through the complexity and richness of Henri Lefebvre's oeuvre. Among the many contributions of the book is the powerful new light it sheds on Lefebvre's spatio-historical and dialectical theory of society. Without question, it opens up vital new possibilities for a renewal of social theory, empirical research and political practice. -- Gillian HartChristian Schmid's carefully translated and strategically updated volume offers the most comprehensive reconstruction of Henri Lefebvre's theory of the production of space available in the English language today. On the basis of an unusually methodical discussion of the various intellectual currents that converge in Henri Lefebvre's vast life work, Schmid gives us crucial insights about the deeply dynamic and richly multidimensional ways in which space is produced. Henri Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production of Space constitutes mandatory reading for a wide audience ranging from specialists of 20th century social theory to thoughtful political organizers and practitioners of urban research. -- Stefan Kipfer, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York UniversityIn this authoritative book, Christian Schmid systematically reconstructs Henri Lefebvre's theory of space production as a general theory of the urban society. By critically expanding the German-language original, this volume shows both the basis and the outcome of four decades of Schmid's thinking and studying cities with Lefebvre. -- Lukasz Stanek, University of Michigan, Ann ArborChristian Schmid has written the most meticulous, comprehensive and lucid interpretation of French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre's incomparable oeuvre on space. Henri Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production of Space is distinguished above all by Schmid's imaginative grasp of Lefebvre's dialectical method, especially in exploring spatial mediations of everyday life, state and capital. This book will be essential and exhilarating reading for anyone interested in how space is political. -- Kanishka Goonewardena, Geography and Planning, University of TorontoIn an age of planetary urban transformation, crisis and insurgency, Henri Lefebvre's ideas continue to inspire radical urban research and practice around the world. In this long-awaited translation and elaboration of a work originally published in German over two decades ago, Christian Schmid offers a comprehensive reconstruction and systematic interpretation of Lefebvre's philosophy of space, framed in direct relation to the challenges of deciphering ongoing patterns and pathways of urban restructuring, their contradictions and their potentialities. In so doing, makes a path-breaking contribution to radical urban theory. -- Neil Brenner
£22.50
The University of Chicago Press Heidegger
Book SynopsisFew philosophers held greater fascination for Jacques Derrida than Martin Heidegger, and in this book we get an extended look at Derrida's first real encounters with him. Delivered over nine sessions in 1964 and 1965 at the cole Normale Sup rieure, these lectures offer a glimpse of the young Derrida first coming to terms with the German philosopher and his magnum opus, Being and Time. They provide not only crucial insight into the gestation of some of Derrida's primary conceptual concerns--indeed, it is here that he first uses, with some hesitation, the word deconstruction--but an analysis of Being and Time that is of extraordinary value to readers of Heidegger or anyone interested in modern philosophy. Derrida performs an almost surgical reading of the notoriously difficult text, marrying pedagogical clarity with patient rigor and acting as a lucid guide through the thickets of Heidegger's prose. At this time in intellectual history, Heidegger was still somewhat unfamiliar to FreTrade Review"Heidegger: The Question of Being and History certainly (re)familiarizes Anglophone readers with the essentially historical orientation of Derrida's philosophical project. Given at the start of his remarkable career, at the age of thirty-four, and originally delivered over the course of nine sessions during the 1964- 1965 academic year at the cole Normale Sup rieure (ENS), Derrida's seminar offers a wealth of insights into the ways his published views on history fundamentally emerged out of a critical engagement with the introduction and the final sections of Martin Heidegger's 1927 Being and Time."--H-France Review "The publication of Derrida's 1964-65 seminar on Martin Heidegger's Being and Time is a philosophical event of great significance. Despite dozens of detailed analyses, Being and Time remains one of the most misread books of the twentieth century. Humanist, anthropological, analytic, and transcendental-mystical readings have occluded the profoundly atheistic, 'ek-sistent' thing that is Dasein. Derrida's penetrating reconstruction of Heidegger's revolutionary 'aporetic style' illuminates Being and Time and the entirety of Derrida's own oeuvre. Although Derrida did not publish this seminar, its traces pervade the issues that dominated his thinking. Derrida's greatest insights into Heidegger's thinking are announced here: being is neither a 'cosmic ground' nor 'the highest being, ' the metaphors for being can never be stabilized by a logic, the 'mystery of Geschehen [originary movement]' marks an absolute temporal concealment, the 'destruction of ontology' is the work of ontology itself, the history of being is history itself. Derrida's focus is on the opening and closing sections of Being and Time, Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, his 'Letter on Humanism', and texts by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Husserl. This brilliantly translated seminar is required reading for students of Heidegger and Derrida. . . . Summing up: Essential." --Choice "For those who are prepared, this text makes for absorbing reading. . . . Because it dates from the early years of Derrida's career and because it is a series of classroom lectures, this book serves as a helpful preparation for reading the more intricate and playful texts that he published in the late 1960s and beyond. It also shows just how indebted Derrida is to Heidegger." --Los Angeles Review of Books
£27.85
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Metamorphoses
Book Synopsis* Major new work in feminist theory, cultural theory and gender studies * Author is well known in the fields of feminism and post--structuralism and for her work on problems of identity and difference.Trade Review"Wonderfully thought provoking, highly stylized, and imaginatively written." Kevin Pelletier, Cultural Critique "Replete with situated, embedded figurations, Metamorphoses is a book to grow with. Emergences, transformations, and materialist becomings of all kinds are the subject of this rich philosophical work. Insects, women, philosophers, cyborgs – promising monsters all, and all are enlisted in drawing up a cartography of becoming. Braidotti writes with enormous energy and style. Never forgetting the subject structured in sexual difference, she searches for figurations that can guide us to emergences more attuned to justice, pleasure, and historical specificity. This book warms my biophilic heart, as it informs my feminist soul and gives pleasure to my embodied mind." Donna J. Haraway, University of California at Santa CruzTable of ContentsAcknowledgements. Prologue. 1. Becoming Woman or Sexual Difference Revisited. 2. Zig-Zagging Through Deleuze And Feminism. 3. Metamorphoses: Becoming Woman/Animal/Insect. 4. Cyber-Teratologies. 5. Metamorphoses: The Becoming-Machine. Epilogue. Bibliography. Notes. Index.
£21.84
Edinburgh University Press The Ethics of Deconstruction
Book SynopsisSimon Critchley's first book, The Ethics of Deconstruction, was originally published to great acclaim in 1992. This edition contains three new appendices and a new preface where Critchley reflects upon the origins, motivation and reception of The Ethics of Deconstruction.
£22.79
Edinburgh University Press Jean Baudrillard From Hyperreality to
Book SynopsisJean Baudrillard (1929-2007) was one of the world's most influential, celebrated and controversial thinkers. This collection gathers 23 insightful yet previously difficult to find interviews, ranging over topics as diverse as art, war, technology, globalisation, terrorism and the fate of humanity.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Introduction: Not Forgetting Baudrillard; Interview 1: Too Bad about Patagonia; Interview 2: Disappearance beyond Disappearance; Interview 3: After Utopia: The Primitive Society of the Future; Interview 4: The Possibility of Another Game; Interview 5: Politics of Performance: Montand, Coluche = Le Pen?; Interview 6: A Time of Promiscuity; Interview 7: Forgetting Critiques; Interview 8: Cover Story; Interview 9: Symbolic Exchange: Taking Theory Seriously; Interview 10: Vivisecting the 90s; Interview 11: Things Surpass Themselves; Interview 12: On the New Technologies; Interview 13: I'm Not a Prophet; Interview 14: Endangered Species?; Interview 15: Hate: A Last Sign of Life; Interview 16: Europe, Globalisation and the Destiny of Culture; Interview 17: Between Difference and Singularity; Interview 18: The Catastrophe of Paradox; Interview 19: This is the Fourth World War; Interview 20: The Matrix Decoded; Interview 21: Continental Drift; Interview 22: The Art of Disappearing; Interview 23: The Antidote to the Global Lies in the Singular; Select Interviews and Dialogues; Books by Jean Baudrillard in English; Name index; Subject index.
£22.79
Taylor & Francis Ltd Technocracy and the Epistemology of Human
Book SynopsisIn Power Without Knowledge: A Critique of Technocracy (2019), Jeffrey Friedman presented a sweeping reinterpretation of modern politics and government as technocratic, even in many of its democratic dimensions. Building on a new definition of technocracy as governance aimed at solving social and economic problems, Friedman showed that the epistemic demands that such governance places on political elites and ordinary people alike may be overwhelming if technocrats fail to attend to the ideational heterogeneity of the human beings whose control is the object of technocratic power. Yet a recognition of ideational heterogeneity considerably complicates the task of predicting behavior, which is essential to technocratic controlas Friedman demonstrated with pathbreaking critiques of the homogenizing strategies of neoclassical economics, positivist social science, behavioral economics, and populist democratic politics.In Technocracy and the Epistemology of Human Behavior
£39.99
Edinburgh University Press Posthuman Convergences
Book Synopsis
£85.00
Edinburgh University Press Deleuze Digital Media and Thought
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£22.49
Edinburgh University Press Matter and Motion
Book SynopsisThomas Nail traces an alternative history of ancient and modern thinkers from the Bronze Age to quantum physics who share a radically different understanding of the nature of matter and motion compared to the rest of the Euro-Western tradition.
£14.24
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Dissemination
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe English version of Dissemination [is] an able translation by Barbara Johnson . . . . Derrida's central contention is that language is haunted by dispersal, absence, loss, the risk of unmeaning, a risk which is starkly embodied in all writing. The distinction between philosophy and literature therefore becomes of secondary importance. Philosophy vainly attempts to control the irrecoverable dissemination of its own meaning, it strives—against the grain of language—to offer a sober revelation of truth. Literature—on the other hand—flaunts its own meretriciousness, abandons itself to the Dionysiac play of language. In Dissemination—more than any previous work—Derrida joins in the revelry, weaving a complex pattern of puns, verbal echoes and allusions, intended to 'deconstruct' both the pretension of criticism to tell the truth about literature, and the pretension of philosophy to the literature of truth. * Peter Dews, New Statesman *Table of ContentsTranslator’s Introduction Outwork, prefacing Plato’s Pharmacy I 1 Pharmacia 2 The Father of Logos 3 The Filial Inscription: Theuth, Hermes, Thoth, Nabu, Nebo 4 The Pharmakon 5 The Pharmakeus II 6 The Pharmakos 7 The Ingredients: Phantasms, Festivals, and Paints 8 The Heritage of the Pharmakon: Family Scene 9 Play: From the Pharmakon to the Letter and from Blindness to the Supplement The Double Session I II Dissemination I 1 The Trigger 2 The Apparatus or Frame 3 The Scission 4 The Double Bottom of the Plupresent 5 wriTing, encAsIng, screeNing 6 The Attending Discourse II 7 The Time before First 8 The Column 9 The Crossroads of the “Est” 10 Grafts, a return to Overcasting XI The Supernumerary
£22.79
Edinburgh University Press The Principles of Deleuzian Philosophy
Book SynopsisKoichiro Kokubun focuses on Deleuze's method of 'free indirect discourse' to locate and explicate Deleuze's philosophy of transcendental empiricism and its constitutive limits. He works through Deleuze's confrontations with Hume, Kant, Bergson, Freud, Lacan, Foucault and Guattari, and the influence of structuralism and psychoanalysis.
£19.94
Edinburgh University Press Deleuze and Derrida
Book SynopsisFor the first time, Vernon W. Cisney brings you a scholarly analysis of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze's contrasting concepts of difference. He distinguishes their responses to Hegel and Nietzsche. He finds that Deleuze formulates an affirmative conception of difference, while Derrida's differance amounts to an irresolvable negativity.
£26.09
Edinburgh University Press Objective Fictions
Book SynopsisThis collection rethinks the relationship between objectivity and fiction beyond the realism nominalism divide through a series of 'objective fictions', such as fetishes, semblances, lies, rumours, sophistry, fantasies and conspiracy theories. The contributors include Slavoj i ek, Mladen Dolar, Frank Ruda and Samo Tom i?.Trade Review"An impressive and even exciting collection by a formidable group of scholars, and very topical as well. With essays on conspiracy theories, money, capital, rumors, and the very notion of objectivity all of the essays show how the intersection of psychoanalysis and Marxism leads to rich and surprising insights." -Ed Pluth, California State University
£23.74
Manchester University Press Constructing Foucault's Ethics: A
Book SynopsisIn popularising the term ‘speaking truth to power’, Michel Foucault established the basis upon which a new ethics can be constructed. This is the thesis that Mark Olssen advances in Constructing Foucault’s ethics. Olssen not only ‘speaks truth’ to existing moral and ethical theories that have dominated western philosophy since Plato, but also shows how an alternative ethical and moral theory can be established that avoids the pitfalls of postmodern relativism while grounding ethical, moral and political discourse for the present age. Taking the late ‘ethical turn’ in the philosopher’s thought as its starting point, this ambitious study seeks to construct an ethics beyond anything Foucault ever attempted while remaining consistent with his core postulates. It advances the concept of ‘life continuance’, which expresses a normative orientation to the future in terms of the quest for survival and well-being, giving rise to irreducible normative values as part of the discursive order of events. This approach is explored in contrast with a range of other, established systems, from the Kantian to the Marxist, contract ethics and utilitarianism.Trade Review'Fascinating... one of the best books on Foucault.'Professor Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy at the Universities of Westminster and Hull and winner of the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for Political Philosophy in 2002'Mark Olssen’s book is both sympathetic and adventurous. It remains true to Foucault’s attitude and style but also moves beyond him to think about and explore what a set of foucauldian normative concepts might look like and how they might be made use of. This is very much the direction Foucault might have moved if he had lived longer. The book is a major contribution to foucauldian scholarship.'Stephen J. Ball, Emeritus Professor of Sociology of Education, University College London'This is a truly impressive and timely book that takes Foucault’s work as a starting point to develop an ethics founded on a "continuance" of life. There are clear implications for our age, especially in understanding how we should think about climate change. The book emphasises that Foucault was not a relativist in any crude sense. It builds on Mark Olssen’s previous work to make an important contribution.'Hugh Lauder, Professor of Education and Political Economy, University of Bath -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Foucault and normativity2 Life and error: Foucault, Canguilhem, Jacob3 Nietzsche’s life philosophy: naturalism, will to power, normativity4 Continuance ethics, objectivity, Kant5 Foucault, Hegel, Marx6 Hobbes, God, and modern social contract theory7 A politics of pluralism8 Democracy, education, global ethics9 Ethical comportmentIndex
£63.75
Verso Books Splinters in Your Eye: Frankfurt School
Book SynopsisAlthough successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding members continues in the twenty-first century to unsettle conventional wisdom about culture, society and politics. Exploring unexamined episodes in the school's history and reading its work in unexpected ways, these essays provide ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Löwenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. Without forcing a unified argument, they range over a wide variety of topics, from the uncertain founding of the School to its mixed reception of psychoanalysis, from Benjamin's ruminations on stamp collecting to the ironies in the reception of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, from Löwenthal's role in Weimar's Jewish Renaissance to Horkheimer's involvement in the writing of the first history of the Frankfurt School. Of special note are their responses to visual issues such as the emancipation of colour in modern art, the Jewish prohibition on images, the relationship between cinema and the public sphere, and the implications of a celebrated Family of Man photographic exhibition. The collection ends with an essay tracing the still metastasising demonisation of the Frankfurt School by the so-called Alt Right as the source of "cultural Marxism" and "political correctness," which has gained alarming international resonance and led to violence by radical right-wing fanatics.Trade ReviewIn this sizzling collection of essays, Martin Jay demonstrates again that he is the unsurpassed reader of the group of thinkers known as the "Frankfurt School." In fact, he challenges the false unity and coherence of ideas and views often imposed upon them, including his own earlier writings on the subject. Practicing episodic and fragmentary historiography, he uncovers astonishingly novel angles of interpretation as well as demonstrating brilliant re-readings of known texts. An absolute pleasure to read -- Professor Seyla BenhabibWith this collection of brilliant and insightful essays Martin Jay has returned to the topic that defined his early career: Critical Theory, i.e. the lives and works of theorists such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Kracauer, and Marcuse. Based on deep historical knowledge and endowed with great sensitivity for theoretical nuances, Jay traces the unfolding of what is commonly called the Frankfurt School. He succeeds in this endeavor by his refusal to treat their thought as the expression of a unified school. For this difficult task one could not have found a more suitable critic than Martin Jay. This book is a precious gift to America in these troubled times. -- Peter Uwe HohendahlSplinters in Your Eye provides ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Löwenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. -- Ryan Tripp * New Books Network *In elegant essays on subjects ranging from Benjamin's stamp collecting to the [Frankfurt School's] engagement with emerging psychoanalytic thought, Jay shows that its writings are not only historical curios, but indispensable for understanding our own age. -- Stuart Jeffries * New Statesman *
£18.99
Collective Ink Graham Harman Reader, The - Including previously
Book SynopsisThe Graham Harman Reader is the essential compendium of shorter works by one of the most influential philosophers of the twenty-first century. The writings in this volume are split into seven chapters. The first concerns Harman's resistance to both downward and upward reductionism. The second chapter contains works that develop the specific fourfold structure of Object-Oriented Ontology. In the third, we find Harman's novel arguments for why causal relations between two entities can only be indirect. The fourth chapter discusses why aesthetics deserves to be called first philosophy. The fifth chapter contains Harman's underrated contributions to ethics and politics, and the sixth deals with epistemology, mind, and science. A concluding seventh chapter contains several previously unpublished writings not available anywhere else. Written in Harman's typical clear and witty style, the /Reader/ is an essential resource for veteran readers of Harman and newcomers alike.
£27.00
Verso Books The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing:
Book SynopsisFor several years after 1968, Herbert Marcuse was one of the most famous philosophers in the world. He became the face of Frankfurt School Critical Theory for a generation in turmoil. His fame rested on two remarkable books, Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man. These two books represent the utopian hopes and dystopian fears of the time. In the 1960s and 70s, young people seeking a theoretical basis for their revolution found it in his work. Marcuse not only supported their struggles against imperialism and race and gender discrimination, he foresaw the far-reaching implications of the destruction of the natural environment. Marcuse's Marxism was influenced by Husserl and Heidegger, Hegel and Freud. These eclectic sources grounded an original critique of advanced capitalism focused on the social construction of subjectivity and technology. Marcuse contrasted the "one-dimensionality" of conformist experience with the "new sensibility" of the New Left. The movement challenged a society that "delivered the goods" but devastated the planet with its destructive science and technology. A socialist revolution would fail if it did not transform these instruments into means of liberation, both of nature and human beings. This aspiration is alive today in the radical struggle over climate change. Marcuse offers theoretical resources for understanding that struggle.Trade ReviewA student and friend of Herbert Marcuse in the late 1960s, Andrew Fenberg gives in this new book an outstanding contribution not only to the knowledge of his philosophy, but also to the "ruthless criticism" of advanced capitalism. Feenberg shows, with great insight, how Marcuse's Marxism, rooted in Phenomenology, Hegelian dialectics, and Freudian Eros, was able to combine rationality and imagination, producing a radical version of Critical Theory which won the hearts and souls of the rebellious youth of the 1960's. And which is still very much relevant in our times, because, as Feenberg concludes, climate change validates his revolutionary call for a new society, based on life-affirmative values. -- Michael Löwy, author of On Changing the Word: Essays in Political Philosophy, from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin (Haymarket Books).For a half century, Andrew Feenberg has tirelessly explicated, interrogated and applied the lessons of his controversial mentor, Herbert Marcuse. The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing is the culmination of these efforts, building on the strengths of Marcuse's thought, while candidly confronting its weaknesses, in the hope of convincing a new generation of readers of its abiding relevance. -- Martin JayAndrew Feenberg's new book is a tour de force. With detailed yet crystal-clear analyses of Marcuse's major writings in their historical context, it reconstructs the implicit ontology of meaning that sustains Marcuse's unique version of critical theory. Arguing that Marcuse's embrace of phenomenology far outlived his break with Heidegger, Feenberg demonstrates its importance in chapters devoted to Marcuse's reading of Marx, Hegel, and Freud, engaging unflinchingly, yet constructively, with the more controversial aspects of those readings and the famous debates they provoked. Two final chapters - on techno-science and on the environmental crisis - concretize the potential contained in Marcuse's idea of "libidinous reason" for tackling the ideological and structural impasses of our own desperate times. -- Steven Crowell (Rice University)The title of Feenberg's book is to be taken literally: the ruthless critique of everything existing is today needed more than ever, and this critique has to denounce ruthlessly also the limitations of today's forms of Leftist critiques of the establishment which de facto help the establishment to reproduce itself. Is Political Correctness the right way to undermine sexism and racism? Is the elevation of nature into Mother Earth the right way to prevent the destruction of our environment? In short, what we need is to repeat today what Marcuse, in his critique of traditional Marxism, did in the 1960s, and Feenberg does this at the highest possible level. -- Slavoj Zizek
£17.09
Verso Books The Last Man Takes LSD: Foucault and the End of
Book SynopsisHow Michel Foucault, drugs, California and the rise of neoliberal politics in 1970s France are all connectedIn May 1975, Michel Foucault took LSD in the desert in southern California. He described it as the most important event of his life, one which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality. His focus now would not be on power relations but on the experiments of subjectivity and the care of the self. Through this lens, he would reinterpret the social movements of May '68 and position himself politically in France in relation to the emergent anti- totalitarian and anti-welfare state currents. He would also come to appreciate the possibilities of autonomy offered by a new force on the French political scene that was neither of the Left nor the Right: neoliberalism.For this paperback edition, the authors have written an afterword responding to the debate occasioned by the book's first publication.Trade ReviewThe contribution of this important essay is to place Foucault's thought on neoliberalism in its political context of the time. This is the whole point of this essay, all the more fascinating since it offers an overview of the work on Foucault, in particular on its relation to neoliberalism. -- Olivier Doubre * Politis *In The Last Man Takes LSD, the sociologists Mitchell Dean and Daniel Zamora meticulously examine the turning point of the seventies to take a critical look at Foucault's political heritage, and to revive the debate on his relationship to the neoliberal school of thought. -- Mathieu Dejean * Les Inrocks *A volume that offers us an overview of the political field that gave rise to Foucault's ideas. The two authors enrich the debate by proposing to consider the alleged Foucaultian sympathy for neoliberalism as a moment where power seemed to criticize himself, making possible, on the one hand, a policy finally free from the conquest of the State and institutions, and on the other, the idea of an autonomous constitution of oneself - or, what would today be inexorably described as an entrepreneur of the self. -- Carlo Crosato * Il Manifesto *Michel Foucault saw neoliberalism as an opportunity to think about the revitalization of the left in civil society. The authors Daniel Zamora and Mitchell Dean explain why he lost sight of its authoritarian dimension. -- Pascal Jurt * Woz *Michel Foucault was among the most prescient analysts of neoliberalism but his own relation to it is now a topic of fierce intellectual dispute. In this brilliant and incisive book, Mitchell Dean and Daniel Zamora show that neoliberalism appeared to Foucault to offer a break with the normalization of the welfare state and a space for new political experiments and individual freedoms. Looking back from our context of generalised precarity, deep inequality and economic and environmental crises, they challenge us to break with this tattered utopia and move beyond Foucault's fascination with the aesthetics of the self to re-invent politics for our time. -- Jessica WhyteDean and Zamora use Foucault's thesis of the dissolution of the Author as the key to understanding his later shift to issues of governmentality, neoliberalism, and his turn to subjectivity. By so doing, they violate his own injunction of resorting to the author's life to comprehend any work, and consequently produce the best account of his work I have ever encountered. -- Philip Mirowski, University of Notre DameBy locating Foucault's later work in the social and political context of the 1970s and 80s, in France, California, and elsewhere, Dean and Zamora have performed a double service. We finish their study better understanding the roots of Foucault's ideas, and the motivation for his dalliance with a nascent neoliberalism. But we also perceive the limited shelf-life of his idiosyncratic notion of freedom; in our time, it would be folly to carry on revering him as - in Sartre's phrase - the 'unsurpassable horizon' of radical thought. -- Peter Dews, University of Essex"When I say something," Foucault claimed, "I am speaking to the present." How ironic that so little of the discussion around Foucault, particularly in the United States, has focused on his present. In their riveting study, Dean and Zamora do just that, putting Foucault in dialogue not only with the anti-Marxist New Philosophers of the 1970s but also with a neoliberalism emerging from within French socialist circles after 1968. The result is a completely unexpected Foucault, more rooted in the struggles of his own time, yet still speaking, as a cautionary tale, to our own. One would be hard pressed to find a better book on such a complex thinker or a more compulsively readable introduction to the contradictory politics of the left in our current moment. * Corey Robin *The Last Man Takes LSD is the best account of Foucault's engagement with neoliberalism. The book raises a number of intriguing questions, not the least of which is: What is left? -- John Foster * The Battleground *Dean and Zamora do an excellent job contextualizing Foucault's research and ideas in his final years. They methodically trace the nuances of the era's prickly political climate, creating a sympathetic portrait of Foucault's promotion of a damaging and - for a thinker who fruitfully explored power and exploitation - self-defeating philosophical turn. -- Jonathan Russell Clark * Los Angeles Times *Not just a brilliant and well-timed exploration of Foucault's intellectual trajectory ... it is also a necessary addition to the literature that has emerged over the past five years on the intellectual history of neoliberalism. -- Gavin Jacobson * New Statesman *The Last Man Takes LSD questions the lingering significance of Foucault's work today, highlighting a greater gap in Foucauldian thought: the absence of a well-developed theory of the state. -- Samuel Clowes Huneke * The Point *A fascinating study of Foucault's American years. -- Stuart Jeffries * Spectator *Compelling. -- Jasper Friedrich * Foucault Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Last Man Takes LSD1. The Birth of a ControversyFoucault and the liberal arts of governmentFoucault in his presentNeoliberalismThe intellectual2. Searching for a Left GovernmentalityFoucault against the post-war LeftNeoliberalism beyond Right and LeftTowards a 'new political culture'3. Beyond the Sovereign Subject: Against InterpretationAgainst the sovereignty of the authorTh e rise and fall of the modern subject4. Ordeals: Personal and PoliticalVeridiction and forms of truthExperimentation and knowledge through the ordealA 'political spirituality' against the sovereign5. The Revolution BeheadedTh e self as a battlefieldResistance as 'desubjectification'Proliferation against powerNeoliberalism: a framework for pluralismAn 'intelligent use' of neoliberalism6. Foucault's NormativitySexuality and moralityTh e revolutionInequality and neoliberal governmentalityThe California Foucault7. Rogue Neoliberalism and Liturgical PowerThe 1970s: coming downTowards a left governmentalityConfessional civil warEpilogueAfterwordIndex
£12.34
Verso Books Crisis as Form
Book SynopsisCriticism of contemporary art is split by an opposition between activism and the critical function of form. Yet the deeper, more subterranean terms of art-judgment are largely neglected on both sides. These essays combine a re-examination of the terms of judgement of contemporary art with critical interpretations of individual works and exhibitions by Luis Camnitzer, Marcel Duchamp, Matias Faldbakken, Anne Imhof and Cady Noland. The book moves from philosophical issues, via the lingering shadows of medium-specificity (in photography and art music), and the changing states of museums, to analyses of the peculiar ways that works of art relate to time.To give artistic form to crisis, it is suggested, one needs to understand contemporary art's own constitutive crisis of form.Trade ReviewSpritely -- David Beer * The Critic *Praise for Anywhere or Not At All * : *An important achievement. This is the first book known to me that brings contemporary art as a whole to philosophical consideration. One of the orienting points for future work. -- John Rapko * Notre Dame, Philosophical Reviews *A brilliant book -- Blake Stimson * Philosophy of Photography *Osborne's capacity to synthesise the impact of new geopolitical realities on art practices make this book an important one not just for philosophers, art historians and critics, but new media theorists as well. -- Lisa Trhair * Critical Enquiry *An inestimably significant intervention into a range of debates in the history, theory, criticism, and philosophy of contemporary art and its various genealogies and lineages. For the range of thought-provoking and suggestive insights offered, it has few competitors in the field. -- James Lavender * Goodreads *Praise for The Postconceptual Condition * : *Compelling -- Max L. Feldman * Afterimage *Peter Osborne offers a fundamental reflection on the critical potential of art today, but also on its lacunas, an element that gives more value to the work. * Critique d’art *Very little philosophical writing is inspiring enough to catalyse art and bring it into being. Peter Osborne's writing is consistently in this category. -- Hito SteyerlIt is essential reading for anyone serious about contemporary art - or its philosophy. -- Ruth Noack, Curator of documeta 12
£18.99
Verso Books Uncomputable: Play and Politics In the Long
Book SynopsisNarrating some lesser known episodes from the deep history of digital machines, Alexander R. Galloway explains the technology that drives the world today, and the fascinating people who brought these machines to life. With an eye to both the computable and the uncomputable, Galloway shows how computation emerges or fails to emerge, how the digital thrives but also atrophies, how networks interconnect while also fray and fall apart. By re-building obsolete technology using today's software, the past comes to light in new ways, from intricate algebraic patterns woven on a hand loom, to striking artificial-life simulations, to war games and back boxes. A description of the past, this book is also an assessment of all that remains uncomputable as we continue to live in the aftermath of the long digital age.Trade ReviewGalloway's work is conceptually sharp, visually compelling and completely attuned to the political moment. * New York Times *An engaging methodological hybrid of the Frankfurt School and UNIX for Dummies. Galloway brings the uncool question of morality back into critical thinking. * Village Voice *Praise for Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture:This is contemporary media theory at its best. -- Lev Manovich, Professor of Computer Science, CUNY Graduate CenterThe Interface Effect builds on the work of Marxist critical theorists such as Fredric Jameson, new media scholars such as Wendy Chun, and Galloway's own work in earlier books such as Protocol. An interface, for him, becomes a technique for thought: an 'allegorical device' that makes the social world accessible in an age of information. The Interface Effect raises many critical questions about the ways that contemporary human beings mediate a historical present that invariably eludes us. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Employing a sustained, powerful methodology, The Interface Effect sparkles with original insights. Galloway is interested not only in the effects that interfaces have, but also in them as themselves the results of cultural, technological, economic, and political forces. This double movement provides a way to connect the historical with the political, and the technological with both. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in new media studies, contemporary theory, and digital technologies. -- N. Katherine Hayles, Professor of Literature, Duke UniversityGalloway's theorisation of the computer as a mode of mediation offers rich possibilities for the critical analysis of the digital. * Radical Philosophy *The Interface Effect fuses sophisticated contemporary theory with a detailed knowledge of the technics and techniques of digital media. Galloway is an important voice, and the book is sure to have a wide uptake among those interested in new media theory and contemporary aesthetics. -- Jodi Dean, Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith CollegesPraise for The Exploit:Essential reading for all theorists, artists, activists, techheads, and hackers of the Net. -- McKenzie Wark, Professor of Culture and Media, The New SchoolAlexander Galloway's Uncomputable is a brilliant counter-history of some of the technological worlds we are all currently inhabiting. In this enthralling genealogy of computation, we encounter a refreshingly unfamiliar constellation of marginalized or overlooked practices, theories, artifacts and individual innovators. -- Jonathan CraryHow to translate political struggle into algorithm? How to transpose material entanglement into executable operations? What is the relation between passion, heartbreak and mathematics and what are the losses incurred by moving in-between them? Alexander Galloway's intelligent and delicate treatise draws out the tensions between matter and thought, the invisible and the sharp impact of historical manifestation, the palpable and the operational and these other, unspeakable things and situations, that keep evading through the cracks, shining. -- Hito SteyerlThrough a series of wonderfully surprising hidden histories of computation, Galloway provides a radically different perspective on the digital age and computational media, illuminating its limitations and its possibilities. -- Michael HardtAt a historical moment characterized by totalizing forms of data-capture, rabid machine learning algorithms, and the colonization of everyday life by the logics of computation and capital, Galloway asks a pointed question: "What if things were otherwise?" Using case studies from across the arts, humanities, and sciences, Uncomputable shows the alternate pathways of history, and provides a glimpse towards a theory, practice, and politics of radical refusal whose timeliness could not be more relevant. -- Trevor Paglen
£16.14
Verso Books Democracy in the Political Present: A
Book Synopsis'Presentist democracy is without a people and without nation. Rather than regimes of borders and migration, its borders are sexism and racism, homo- and transphobia, colonialism and extractivism.'In the midst of the crises and threats to liberal democracy, Isabell Lorey develops a democracy in the present tense; one which breaks open political certainties and linear concepts of progress and growth. Her queer feminist political theory formulates a fundamental critique of masculinist concepts of the people, representation, institutions, and the multitude. In doing so, she unfolds an original concept of a presentist democracy based on care and interrelatedness, on the irreducibility of responsibilities-one which cannot be conceived of without social movements' past struggles and current practices.Trade ReviewThis book is an assembly - a collection of voices from Germany and Spain, Italy, England, France and every country - a colourful and strong intersection of proposals in search for a (transnational and non-identitarian) democracy of the multitude and of difference, of truth and the joy of life. -- Antonio Negri, co-author of EmpireWeaving and unweaving the political philosophy of Rousseau, Derrida, Benjamin, Foucault and Negri, Isabell Lorey assembles a constellation of debates around keywords: democracy, time, sovereignty, commune. She does so in order to systematize the discontinuous struggles that inhabit these words, the possible futures that their meanings open up, and to place them at the disposal of a queer-feminist theory that locates the strike as one of its inspirational practices. Thus an "infinitive present" opens up as a time of becoming, defined by the encounter of bodies, which expands the present through processes of indeterminate differentiation. By highlighting the non-democratic foundations of democracy one by one, the definition of a "Presentist Democracy" emerges. This is woven out of care and debt: collective care and the debts of assuming relations of interdependence. This book is a tool for continuing to nourish the desire to change everything -- Verónica GagoWith great clarity and precision, Isabell Lorey offers a series of readings of major political thinkers to delineate the mobile constellation of democratic potentials in our time. Revisiting basic concepts such as the people, the law, and sovereignty, Lorey derives an account of democracy in the present. Less a utopian manifesto than an experimentation with the means and time of politics, this work shows us in persuasive terms how enduring and persistent experimentation constitutes our present struggle. -- Judith ButlerIn careful and imaginative consideration of the brutal tensions of a liberal democratic ideal poised between imminent collapse and infinite adaptability, Isabell Lorey conceives an alternative in the present tense, broadening and deepening the now with fierce urgency. Democracy in the Political Present is feminist political theory of and for our time. -- Fred MotenInsightfully weaving together the best of European political philosophy (from Rousseau to Negri, from Benjamin to Foucault), queer-feminist thinking about care and debt, and the practices of radical democracy that occupy the streets and the squares in recurring waves, Isabell Lorey convokes a democracy in present tense that is up to the challenges of these turbulent times. Not to be missed. -- Marta Malo, member of Precarias a la derivaEngaging ... [Lorey] offers an elaborate sketch of a form of political organisation that has hitherto been neglected as well as a scathing critique of the representationalist paradigm that needs to be taken into account whenever inclusion is spoken of too frivolously. -- Julius Schwarzwälder * LSE Review of Books *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Democracy in present tense Ch 1 Rousseau: Assembly instead of representation Ch 2 Derrida: Democracy-to-come Ch 3 Benjamin: Leaps of Now-Time Ch 4 Foucault: infinite presence Ch 5 Negri: Democracy and constituting power Ch 6 Presentist Democracy: Practices of care and queer debts
£17.99
Verso Books Transclasses: A Theory of Social Non-reproduction
Book SynopsisOne is not born a worker or a boss, one becomes one from father to son... or almost. Social reproduction is not an iron law; it admits of exceptions that must be accounted for in order to measure its scope. This book aims to understand the passage from one social class to another and to forge a method of approaching these particular cases which remain a blind spot in the theory of social reproduction. It analyzes the political, economic, social, familial and singular causes that contribute to non-reproduction, and their effects on the constitution of individuals transiting from one class to another.At the crossroads of collective history and intimate history, Chantal Jaquet identifies class locations, the interplay of affects and encounters, and the role of sexual and racial differences. She invites us to break out of disciplinary isolation in order to grasp singularity at the crossroads of philosophy, sociology, psychology and literature. This requires deconstruction of the concepts of social and personal identity, in favour of a concepts like complexion and the criss-crossing determinations. Through the figure of the transclass, it is thus the whole human condition that is illuminated in a new light.Trade ReviewTransclasses sets out to fill a lacuna created by the impoverished vocabulary of class by theorizing the class identities of "exceptional" subjects who defy the predictions of social determinism and leave their formative social status behind. Terms of stigma - parvenu, careerist, déclassé, class defector - are used to socially shame such subjects, but as Jaquet demonstrates, to hew to these caricatural typologies is to miss out on the power of class transitioning at the microscales of lived experience and in an intersectional frame. If we have been used to thinking, with Althusser, in terms of the reproduction of capitalism, Jaquet goes one further, producing a model of non-reproductive modes of existence that, far from superseding class or ignoring the reproductive drive of capital, expand their conceptual parameters. An experiment in concept-work that draws on self-narration in literature and auto-ethnography (from Stendhal to Richard Wright, Pierre Bourdieu, Annie Ernaux and Didier Eribon), Transclasses will be essential reading for interdisciplinary fieldworkers committed to new lexicons of identity, class struggle and social change. -- Emily Apter, New York University, author of Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse and the Impolitic (Verso, 2018)For more than a half-century sociologists, political theorists and scholars in the humanities have addressed the question of how a social order reproduces itself, above all, the relations of exploitation and domination that characterize it. Chantal Jaquet, whose studies of Spinoza have helped transform our understanding of that difficult philosopher, asks us instead to examine the phenomenon of non-reproduction, that is, the production of those who fail to fulfil or who resist the roles and functions to them. Her path-breaking work should be read by all those interested in understanding social transformation. -- Warren Montag
£18.04
Vintage Publishing Camera Lucida
Book SynopsisRoland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980.Trade ReviewOf all his works it is the most accessible in language and the most revealing about the author. And effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader * Guardian *Roland Barthes' final book - less a critical essay than a suite of valedictory meditations - is his most beautiful, and most painful * Observer *Profoundly shaped the way the medium is regarded * Guardian *I am moved by the sense of discovery in Camera Lucida, by the glimpse of a return to a lost world * New Society *Of all his works it is the most accessible in language and the most revealing about the author. And effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader * Guardian *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing Camera Lucida: Vintage Design Edition
Book SynopsisBarthes investigation into the meaning of photographs is a seminal work of twentieth-century critical theory. This is a special Vintage Design Edition, with fold-out cover and stunning photography throughout. Examining themes of presence and absence, these reflections on photography begin as an investigation into the nature of photographs – their content, their pull on the viewer, their intimacy. Then, as Barthes contemplates a photograph of his mother as a child, the book becomes an exposition of his own mind. He was grieving for his mother at the time of writing. Strikingly personal, yet one of the most important early academic works on photography, Camera Lucida remains essential reading for anyone interested in the power of images.‘Effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader’ GuardianTrade ReviewOf all his works it is the most accessible in language and the most revealing about the author. And effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader * Guardian *Roland Barthes' final book - less a critical essay than a suite of valedictory meditations - is his most beautiful, and most painful * Observer *Profoundly shaped the way the medium is regarded * Guardian *I am moved by the sense of discovery in Camera Lucida, by the glimpse of a return to a lost world * New Society *
£10.44
Verso Books The Intellectual and His People: Staging the
Book SynopsisA classic collection of essay by Jacques Ranciere, that focuses on the ways in which radical philosophers understand the people they profess to speak for. The Intellectual and His People engages in an incisive and original way with current political and cultural issues, including the "discovery" of totalitarianism by the "new philosophers," the relationship of Sartre and Foucault to popular struggles, nostalgia for the ebbing world of the factory, the slippage of the artistic avant-garde into defending corporate privilege, and the ambiguous sociological critique of Pierre Bourdieu. As ever, Rancière challenges all patterns of thought in which one-time radicalism has become empty convention.Trade ReviewIn the face of impossible attempts to proceed with progressive ideas within the terms of postmodernist discourse, Rancière shows a way out of the malaise. -- Liam GillickRancière's writings offer one of the few consistent conceptualizations of how we are to continue to resist. -- Slavoj Zizek
£11.39
Penguin Books Ltd The History of Sexuality 1
Book Synopsis''A brilliant display of fireworks, attacking the widespread and banal notion that in the beginning sexual activity was guilt-free and delicious, being repressed and blighted only by the gloom of Victorianism'' Spectator We talk about sex more and more, but are we more liberated? The first part of Michel Foucault''s landmark account of our evolving attitudes in the west shows how the nineteenth century, far from suppressing sexuality, led to an explosion of discussion about sex as a separate sphere of life for study and examination. As a result, he argues, we are making a science of sex which is devoted to the analysis of desire rather than the increase of pleasure. ''A wealth of insights, original conceptualizations and provocative ideas'' The Times Literary SupplementTrade ReviewA wealth of insights, original conceptualizations and provocative ideas -- Peter Oborne * Daily Telegraph *A brilliant display of fireworks, attacking the widespread and banal notion that 'in the beginning' sexual activity was guilt-free and delicious, being repressed and blighted only by the gloom of Victorianism -- Jasper Griffin * Spectator *Foucault is at his polemical best. He brilliantly succeeds in turning commonplaces on their heads -- Hayden White * The Times Literary Supplement *
£10.44
Verso Books On Ideology
Book SynopsisThe publication of For Marx and Reading Capital established Louis Althusser as one of the most influential figures in the Western Marxist tradition. On Ideology charts Althusser's critique of the theoretical system unveiled in his own major works, and his developing practice of philosophy as a "revolutionary weapon."Trade ReviewOne reads him with excitement. There is no mystery about his capacity to inspire the intelligent young. -- Eric HobsbawmAlthusser traversed so many lives-so many personal, historical, philosophical and political adventures; marked, inflected, influenced so many discourses, actions and existences by the radiant and provocative force of his thought-that the most diverse and contradictory accounts could never exhaust their source. -- Jacques Derrida
£11.78
Columbia University Press Cloud of the Impossible
Book SynopsisA progressive reading of the history of the unknown that projects a hopeful future.Trade ReviewA sizzling, citable line on every page, this is Catherine Keller at her poetic, theopoetic, theological best. She meditates not the fire of the apocalypse, nor the water of the deep, but the cloud-of the impossible which precipitates the possible itself, the entanglement of knowing and nonknowing, of the relational and what overflows relation, of the enfolding and the unfolding. For her, the name of God is not the name of a cause or a guarantee but the lure of something that needs to be made and done. From philosophy and theology to physics and ecology-a sensational tour de force from a major theological voice. -- John D. Caputo, Syracuse University and Villanova University At last! A negative theology that plies the complex requirements of planetary life. Long intent on crafting ways of thinking theologically that resist common and oversimplified oppositions between divine and fleshy things, Catherine Keller leads us via ancient, medieval, and recent traditions of unsaying certainties into a rich understanding of divine entanglement as a basis for communal thriving and just democracy. This is a monumental contribution to Christian theology, especially regarding its foundational claims of divine embodiment and love. -- Laurel C. Schneider, Vanderbilt University Catherine Keller is our most creative and profound theologian today, and this book is her richest to date, tracking the enfolding and unfolding relation of everything to everything with theopoetic brilliance. -- Gary Dorrien, author of Kantian Reason and Hegelian Spirit: The Idealistic Logic of Modern Theology Catherine Keller's nuanced consideration of the apophatic cloud is both true to its subject and marvelously lucid. Tracing unexpected connections in the thought of medieval theologians, process philosophers, environmental activists, quantum physicists, and more, the book enfolds and unfolds, each line of thought traced with delicate precision, each intersection marked. Out of impossibility itself, enfolded in each and every relation, a new and open possible emerges. Through folds and mirrors, holograms and entanglements, poetry and theology, trauma and joy, this possible-impossible, this luminous darkness, entice us to follow-and to be glad that we did. -- Karmen MacKendrick, Le Moyne College Facing the complex majesty of Cloud of the Impossible, one cannot help but feel like some Moses-manque before a literary Sinai. The prose is finely wrought, tracing the inter- and indeterminacies of a provisionally named 'apophatic entanglement.' This is a beautiful and important book, which traces the contours of a transfigured, queerly-theological discourse and practice--precisely where such a thing might seem impossible. -- Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Wesleyan University With this work, Catherine Keller has produced a masterpiece on the level of her Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming. There is something of James Joyce in these pages. Readers are taken through core Hebrew and Greek debates, the emergence of infinity in Patristic theology, Christian and non-Christian mysticism, quantum physics, contemporary poststructuralist philosophy, the plight of theology today, nineteenth-century poetry, the environmental crisis... and that is only a start. Many critics will say that this is her best book yet. -- Philip Clayton, Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of Theology Keller's bewildering and creatively beautiful body of work is often more poetry than prose... It is always worth the effort. Christian Century An impressive and astonishing work. Syndicate Theology This is an extraordinary book... Readers will engage an astounding sweep of resources and conversation partners in this book. InterpretationTable of ContentsBefore Part 1: Complications 1. The Dark Nuance of Beginning 2. Cloud-Writing: A Genealogy of the Luminous Dark 3. Enfolding and Unfolding God: Cusanic Complicatio Part 2: Explications 4. Spooky Entanglements: The Physics of Nonseparability 5. The Fold in Process: Deleuze and Whitehead 6. "Unfolded Out of the Folds": Walt Whitman and the Apophatic Sex of the Earth 7. Unsaying and Undoing: Judith Butler and the Ethics of Relational Ontology Part 3: Implications 8. Crusade, Capital, and Cosmopolis: Ambiguous Entanglements 9. Broken Touch: Ecology of the Im/possible 10. In Questionable Love After: Theopoetics of the Cloud Notes Acknowledments Index
£28.50
Columbia University Press Through Vegetal Being
Book SynopsisA unique collaboration to map the ontology and epistemology of the human-plant relationship.Trade ReviewThrough Vegetal Being foregrounds the relations that plants enable between humans and other living things, continuing both Michael Marder's work on plant existence and Luce Irigaray's work on sexual difference and the forgetting of the world in the constitution of individual identity. This charming and beautifully written book is a two-person meditation on the philosophy, ontology, and ethics of plant life and our fundamental dependence on it as living beings. -- Elizabeth Grosz, Jean Fox O'Barr Women's Studies Professor at Duke University Through Vegetal Being explores what the vegetal realm can offer to philosophy and the tradition of western metaphysics. The two voices in dialogue-legendary feminist thinker Luce Irigaray and acclaimed philosopher Michael Marder-engage the critique of metaphysics from a perspective that is largely without precedent, thus cross pollinating between such intellectual fields as continental philosophy, environmentalism, gardening, and botany. -- William Egginton, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder have written an admirable and singular book, where they recover two aspects of philosophy that have been otherwise forgotten. On the one hand, they return to a reflection on our condition as living beings, the context in which and thanks to which we exist. On the other hand, their method is an epistolary dialogue, a genre that has given us some of the most profound and least abstract insights along the history of philosophy. -- Daniel Innerarity, author of Governance in the New Global Disorder Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder surprise us with a moving foray into life in its barest, elemental traits. By tapping into the pulse and silent language shared by all animate beings, they unsettle received philosophical narratives and awaken modes of sensibility both subtle and expanded. The contact with the mystery of vegetal life renews the investigation into human becoming, its potentiality and cultivation. -- Claudia Baracchi, University of Milano-BicoccaTable of ContentsPreface Luce Irigaray Prologue 1. Seeking Refuge in the Vegetal World 2. A Culture Forgetful of Life 3. Sharing Universal Breathing 4. The Generative Potential of the Elements 5. Living at the Rhythm of the Seasons 6. A Recovery of the Amazing Diversity of Natural Presence 7. Cultivating Our Sensory Perceptions 8. Feeling Nostalgia for a Human Companion 9. Risking to Go Back Among Humans 10. Losing Oneself and Asking Nature for Help Again 11. Encountering Another Human in the Woods 12. Wondering How to Cultivate Our Living Energy 13. Could Gestures and Words Substitute for the Elements? 14. From Being Alone in Nature to Being Two in Love 15. Becoming Humans 16. Cultivating and Sharing Life Between All Epilogue Notes Michael Marder Prologue 1. Seeking Refuge in the Vegetal World 2. A Culture Forgetful of Life 3. Sharing Universal Breathing 4. The Generative Potential of the Elements 5. Living at the Rhythm of the Seasons 6. A Recovery of the Amazing Diversity of Natural Presence 7. Cultivating Our Sensory Perceptions 8. Feeling Nostalgia for a Human Companion 9. Risking to Go Back Among Humans 10. Losing Oneself and Asking Nature for Help Again 11. Encountering Another Human in the Woods 12. Wondering How to Cultivate Our Living Energy 13. Could Gestures and Words Substitute for the Elements? 14. From Being Alone in Nature to Being Two in Love 15. Becoming Humans 16. Cultivating and Sharing Life Between All Epilogue Notes Index
£22.50
MIT Press What IS Sex
Book Synopsis
£19.55