Structuralism and Post-structuralism Books

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Book SynopsisDifference is one of the most influential critical concepts of recent decades. Mark Currie offers a comprehensive account of the history of the term and its place in some of the most influential schools of theory of the past four decades, including post-structuralism, deconstruction, new historicism, psychoanalysis, French feminism and postcolonialism. Employing literary case studies throughout, Difference provides an accessible introduction to a term at the heart of today's critical idiom.Table of ContentsSeries Editor’s Preface, Acknowledgements, 1 Introduction: Identity and difference, 2 Difference and reference, 3 Difference, 4 Different histories, 5 Cultural difference, 6 Difference and equivalence, GLOSSARY, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX

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Book SynopsisOn 26 August 1974, Michel Foucault completed work on Discipline and Punish, and on that very same day began writing the first volume of The History of Sexuality. A little under ten years later, on 25 June 1984, shortly after the second and third volumes were published, he was dead.This decade is one of the most fascinating of his career. It begins with the initiation of the sexuality project, and ends with its enforced and premature closure. Yet in 1974 he had something very different in mind for The History of Sexuality than the way things were left in 1984. Foucault originally planned a thematically organised series of six volumes, but wrote little of what he promised and published none of them. Instead over the course of the next decade he took his work in very different directions, studying, lecturing and writing about historical periods stretching back to antiquity.This book offers a detailed intellectual history of both the abandoned tTrade Review'Stuart Elden's analytic portrait of Michel Foucault's final years dramatically testifies to the developing strength and power of critical observation that defined his writing and reflection after the "turn" to sexuality. Elden integrates, brilliantly, the new Foucauldian topics - governmentality, a concern with neoliberalism and contemporary economic thought - with persistent intellectual principles of speaking truth to power. Elden's own thinking sensitively embodies the best critical resources of our period in this elegant consideration, which belongs on the shelves of serious scholars and students alike.' Paul A. Bové, University of Pittsburgh and Editor, boundary 2'Elden has produced a masterful text that reconstructs how a "thinker" thinks between failure and success, between the possible and the as-yet unimaginable. This is philosophical inspiration at its most poetic height. Elden teaches us to read Foucault in a new way.' Eduardo Mendieta, Penn State University"fascinating"The NationTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1. Pervert, Hysteric, Child 2. The War of Races and Population 3. The Will to Know and the Power of Confession 4. From Infrastructures to Governmentality 5. Return to Confession 6. The Pleasures of Antiquity 7. The Two Historical Plans of the History of Sexuality 8. Speaking Truth to Power Notes

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Book SynopsisFocusing on the philosophical registers of literary texts, Adam Meehan traces the development of modernist attitudes toward subjectivity, particularly in relation to issues of ideology, spatiality, and violence. His analysis explores a selection of works published between 1904 and 1941.

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Book SynopsisThe Being and Event trilogy is the philosophical basis of Alain Badiou''s entire oeuvre. It is formed of three major texts, which constitute a kind of metaphysical saga: Being and Event (1988). ), Logics of the Worlds (2006) and finally The Immanence of Truths, which he has been working on for 15 years. The new volume reverses the perspective adopted in Logics of Worlds. Where in that book, Badiou saw fit to analyze how truths, qua events, appear from the perspective of particular worlds that by definition exclude them, in The Immanence of Truths Badiou asks instead how the irruption of truths transforms the worlds within which they by necessity must arise. An emphasis on regularity and continuity has given way to an attempt, one unquestionable in its philosophical power and implications, to formalize rupture and reconfiguration.The Being and Event trilogy is a unique and ambitious work that reveals how truths can be at once context-specTrade ReviewAlain Badiou is that rare thing: a true Philosopher. In an age of cynicism, nihilism, relativism, and the deadening suspicion of thought, Badiou remains true to the courage that characterises Philosophy from the very beginning. Casting his rational and patient eye over developments in thought, religion and mathematics, Badiou continues to grapple with the infinite in this admirably clear work. Everyone is already capable of thought, Badiou suggests, the point is to realise it. * Nina Power, Philosopher, UK *The Immanence of Truths completes Alain Badiou’s philosophical trilogy that began with Being and Event. It is a grand summa of years of conceptual creativity, mathematical research, political militancy in the quest for a new form of communism, and fidelity to the infinite power of art and the amorous encounter. * Bruno Bosteels, Professor of Comparative Literature and Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University, USA *Table of ContentsList of Symbols Introduction, Kenneth Reinhard (UCLA, USA) Prologue Section I: The Classic Forms Of Finitude Section II: The Modernity Of Finitude: Covering-Over Section III: The Supremacy Of Infinity Section IV: On The Edge Of The Absolute Section V: Conditions For Defeating Covering-Over Section VI: Parmenides’ Revenge. Section VII: The General Theory Of Works-In-Truth Section VIII: Works Based On The Object: Art, Science Section IX: Works Based On Becoming: Love, Politics General Conclusion Appendices

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisOffers a new systematic account of the philosophical potential of Saint Paul's letters.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisAn analysis of Derrida''s early work engaging Plato, Hegel, and the life sciences.Germs of Death explores the idea of genesis, or dissemination, in the early work of Jacques Derrida. Looking at Derrida''s published and unpublished work from "Force and Signification" in 1963 to Glas in 1974, Mauro Senatore traces the development of Derrida''s understanding of genesis both linguistically and biologically, and argues that this topic is an overlooked thread that draws together Derrida''s readings of Plato and Hegel. Demonstrating how Derrida''s analysis liberates the understanding of genesis from Platonic and Hegelian presupposition, Senatore also highlights Derrida''s engagement with the biological thought of his day. Senatore also shows that the implications of Derrida''s insights extend into contemporary ethical and political questions relating to postgenomic conceptions of life.

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Book SynopsisAnalyzes international and cultural relationships informed by "China," a category that is becoming ever more indispensable and yet unstable in everyday narratives.There have been few efforts to overcome the binary of China versus the West. The recent global political environment, with a deepening confrontation between China and the West, strengthens this binary image. Post-Chineseness boldly challenges the essentialized notion of Chineseness in existing scholarship through the revelation of the multiplicity and complexity of the uses of Chineseness by strategically conceived insiders, outsiders, and those in-between. Combining the fields of international relations, cultural politics, and intellectual history, Chih-yu Shih investigates how the global audience perceives (and essentializes) Chineseness. Shih engages with major Chinese international relations theories, investigates the works of sinologists in Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other academics in East Asia, and explores individual scholars'' life stories and academic careers to delineate how Chineseness is constantly negotiated and reproduced. Shih''s theory of the "balance of relationships" expands the concept of Chineseness and effectively challenges existing theories of realism, liberalism, and conventional constructivism in international relations. The highly original delineation of multiple layers and diverse dimensions of "Chineseness" opens an intellectual channel between the social sciences and humanities in China studies.

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Book SynopsisAnalyzes international and cultural relationships informed by "China," a category that is becoming ever more indispensable and yet unstable in everyday narratives.There have been few efforts to overcome the binary of China versus the West. The recent global political environment, with a deepening confrontation between China and the West, strengthens this binary image. Post-Chineseness boldly challenges the essentialized notion of Chineseness in existing scholarship through the revelation of the multiplicity and complexity of the uses of Chineseness by strategically conceived insiders, outsiders, and those in-between. Combining the fields of international relations, cultural politics, and intellectual history, Chih-yu Shih investigates how the global audience perceives (and essentializes) Chineseness. Shih engages with major Chinese international relations theories, investigates the works of sinologists in Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other academics in East Asia, and explores individual scholars'' life stories and academic careers to delineate how Chineseness is constantly negotiated and reproduced. Shih''s theory of the "balance of relationships" expands the concept of Chineseness and effectively challenges existing theories of realism, liberalism, and conventional constructivism in international relations. The highly original delineation of multiple layers and diverse dimensions of "Chineseness" opens an intellectual channel between the social sciences and humanities in China studies.

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Book SynopsisInvestigates, by way of Derrida''s engagements with Kant, how the foundations of modern constitutionalism can be differently conceived to address some of the challenges of the twenty-first century.Deconstructive Constitutionalism explores the relationship between the thinking of Immanuel Kant and Jacques Derrida concerning modern constitutionalism. Kant is widely recognized as one of the philosophical forebears of modern constitutionalism; that is, the notion that state powers should be defined and limited through a constitution. Kant laid the foundation of constitutionalism through his exposition of freedom, practical reason, and moral law. However, constitutionalism is under severe strain due to the challenges posed by inter alia climate change, global health, global conflict, authoritarianism, authoritarian populism, religious fundamentalism, migration, and inequality. Deconstructive Constitutionalism investigates, by way of Derrida''s engagements with Kant, how the foundations of constitutionalism can be conceived differently to address some of these twenty-first-century challenges. The book examines the possible implications of such a re-reading of Kant for democracy, the human-animal relation, criminal law and punishment, as well as for a global constitutional order.

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Book SynopsisThis collection of essays from a range of philosophers and art practitioners offers tools through which we can action change across art and philosophy, across a range of media and across the theory/practice divide.

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Book SynopsisGavin Rae shows that the problematic status of agency caused by the poststructuralist decentring of the subject is a central concern for poststructuralist thinkers. He shows how this plays out in the thinking of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault, and find the best explanation of agency for the founded subject in the work of Castoriadis.

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Book SynopsisThis collection brings togethr the work of leading international scholars to provide a multi-disciplinary analysis of Deleuze's theory of temporality.Trade Review"A magnificent book. Deleuze and Time is a compendium of outstanding essays from some of Deleuze's best readers, each addressing, from a different perspective, the fundamental problematic of Deleuze's thought: the being of time itself." -Joe Hughes, University of Melbourne

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Book SynopsisProvides an account of 'practising', its mechanisms and implications, in conversation with Deleuze's Difference and Repetition.

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Book SynopsisDemonstrates the embodied foundation of figurative, poetic and literary language and form.

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Book Synopsis"Ten times, an elderly grey-haired man gets up on the stage. Ten times puffing and sighing. Ten times slowly tracing out strange multi-coloured arabesques that interweave, curling with the meanders of his speech, by turns fluid and uneasy. A whole crowd looks on, transfixed by this enigma-made-man, absorbing the ipse dixit and anticipating some illumination that is taking its time to appear.Non lucet. It’s shady in here, and the Théodores go hunting for their matches. Still, they say, cuicumque in sua arte perito credendum est, whosoever is expert in his art is to be lent credence. At what point is a person mad? The master himself poses the question.That was back in the day. Those were the mysteries of Paris forty years hence.A Dante clasping Virgil’s hand to be led through the circles of the Inferno, Lacan took the hand of James Joyce, the unreadable Irishman, and, in the wake of this slender Commander of the Faithless, made with heavy and faltering step onto the incandescent zone where symptomatic women and ravaging men burn and writhe.An equivocal troupe was in the struggling audience: his son-in-law; a dishevelled writer, young and just as unreadable back then; two dialoguing mathematicians; and a professor from Lyon vouching for the seriousness of the whole affair. A discreet Pasiphaë was being put to work backstage.Smirk then, my good fellows! Be my guest. Make fun of it all! That’s what our comic illusion is for. That way, you shall know nothing of what is happening right before your very eyes: the most carefully considered, the most lucid, and the most intrepid calling into question of the art that Freud invented, better known under its pseudonym: psychoanalysis."—Jacques-Alain MillerTable of ContentsTHE SPIRIT OF THE NODES I. On the logical use of the sinthome, or Freud with Joyce II. On what makes a hole in the real III. On the knot as the subject’s support THE JOYCE TRAIL IV. Joyce and the fox riddle V. Was Joyce mad? VI. Joyce and imposed words THE INVENTION OF THE REAL VII. On a fallace that vouches for the real VIII. On sens, sex and the real IX. From the unconscious to the real BY WAY OF CONCLUSION X. The writing of the Ego Note APPENDICES Joyce the Symptom, by Jacques Lacan Presentation at Lacan’s Seminar, by Jacques Aubert Reading notes, by Jacques Aubert A note threaded stitch by stitch, by Jacques-Alain Miller Translator’s endnotes Index

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Book Synopsis“There is always an atheism to be extracted from a religion,” Deleuze and Guattari write in their final collaboration, What Is Philosophy? Their claim that Christianity “secretes” atheism “more than any other religion,” however, reflects the limits of their archive. Theological projects seeking to engage Deleuze remain embedded within Christian theologies and intellectual histories; whether they embrace, resist, or negotiate with Deleuze’s atheism, the atheism in question remains one extracted from Christian theology, a Christian atheism. In Sufi Deleuze, Michael Muhammad Knight offers an intervention, engaging Deleuzian questions and themes from within Islamic tradition. Even if Deleuze did not think of himself as a theologian, Knight argues, to place Deleuze in conversation with Islam is a project of comparative theology and faces the challenge of any comparative theology: It seemingly demands that complex, internally diverse traditions can speak as coherent, monolithic wholes. To start from such a place would not only defy Islam’s historical multiplicity but also betray Deleuze’s model of the assemblage, which requires attention to not only the organizing and stabilizing tendencies within a structure but also the points at which a structure resists organization, its internal heterogeneity, and unpredictable “lines of flight.” A Deleuzian approach to Islamic theology would first have to affirm that there is no such thing as a universal “Islamic theology” that can speak for all Muslims in all historical settings, but rather a multiplicity of power struggles between major and minor forces that contest each other over authenticity, authority, and the making of “orthodoxy.” The discussions in Sufi Deleuze thus highlight Islam’s extraordinary range of possibilities, not only making use of canonically privileged materials such as the Qur’an and major hadith collections, but also exploring a variety of marginalized resources found throughout Islam that challenge the notion of a singular “mainstream” interpretive tradition. To say it in Deleuze’s vocabulary, Islam is a rhizome.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Secrets and Secretions | 1 1 Deleuze and Tafsir: Th e Rhizomatic Qur’an | 25 2 People of the Sunna and the Assemblage: Deleuzian Hadith Theory | 61 3 Beyond Theology: Sufism as Arrangement and Affect | 84 4 The Immanence of Baraka: Bodies and Territory | 104 5 Arm Leg Leg Arm Head: Five Percenter Theologies of Immanence | 119 Conclusion: The Seal of Muslim Pseudo | 144 Acknowledgments | 155 Notes | 157 Bibliography | 171 Index | 181

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Book SynopsisThey 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. Drawing on the thought of the feminist movement Wages for Housework, Gotby demonstrates that emotion is a key element in the reproduction of society and its norms. Addressing the problem of love's labour requires nothing less than a radical restructuring of society.Trade ReviewIntellectually nourished my thinking and language on gender. -- Raymond Antrobus, Best Books of 2023 * Granta *A 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. -- Adele Cassigneul * Mai *Gotby's narrative masterfully outlines how emotions, feelings and their manifestations tend to be portrayed, and understood, as a feminine domain of expertise ... Gotby brilliantly dismantles the silences and abuses surrounding this invisible work by naming it and showing its societal (and capital) worth -- Patrycja Sosnowska-Buxton * Sociological Review *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. The 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 CrisisTable of ContentsIntroductionChapter 1: Emotional ReproductionChapter 2: The Political Economy of LoveChapter 3: Gendering WorkChapter 4: Feminist EmotionsChapter 5: A Different FeelingNotes

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWhat makes this book an excellent introduction to metaphysics is its lucid and subtle account of the different versions of 'metaphysics' we encounter within our tradition. In other words, it is an excellent introduction not only to metaphysics in general but also to Parmenides, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Descartes, Schelling, Heidegger, and more. -- Michael King, University of Reading I know of no other book that gives such a subtle and often original reading of the major moments in the history of metaphysics and does so with the aim of elucidating the nature, scope, and future of metaphysics. -- Francisco J. Gonzalez, University of Ottawa We have no modern historical and reliable introduction to the history and paradoxes of metaphysics: either we have old-fashioned, neo-scholastic handbooks; partial, un-historical essays in the analytical style; or brilliant yet enigmatic 'deconstructionist' essays. We desperately need a sound, scholarly, up-to-date, and lucid approach to this subject: a historical and, at the same time, speculative description of the doctrines and living questions in this field. Jean Grondin's Introduction to Metaphysics is the perfect match for those challenges. -- Jean-Luc Marion This book is directed toward those analytic and continental philosophers who still believe it is possible to think independently of our metaphysical tradition, that is, of Being. Heidegger, Rorty, and Vattimo show us that metaphysics is impossible to overcome yet can only be surpassed, that is, weakened and incorporated into the event of our own thoughts. Given this new task for philosophy, Jean Grondin's text must be studied carefully by anyone who wants to become a philosopher in the twenty-first century. -- Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona Knowledgeable and thought-provoking-Grondin tells us, from a Continental point of view, a compelling story of metaphysics. -- Vittorio G. Hosle, University of Notre Dame Grondin is the best expert on Gadamer and hermeneutic philosophy, and a leading scholar on Kant and Heidegger. For some ten years, he has been publishing on broad issues like religion and the meaning of life. He has now produced a masterly synthesis on metaphysics that makes a powerful case for its present relevance. -- Remi Brague, University of Paris 1-Pantheon-Sorbonne The very first thoroughgoing historical introduction to metaphysics in all of its major permutations over the centuries from the eminent scholar Jean Grondin. Journal of the History of PhilosophyTable of ContentsPreface Introduction 1. Parmenides: The Evidence of Being 2. Plato: The Hypothesis of the Idea 3. Aristotle: The Horizons of First Philosophy 4. The Last Summit of Classical Metaphysics: The Neoplatonic Eruption 5. Metaphysics and Theology in the Middle Ages 6. Descartes: First Philosophy According to the Cogito 7. Spinoza and Leibniz: The Metaphysics of Simplicity and Integral Rationality 8. Kant: Metaphysics Turned Critical 9. Metaphysics After Kant? 10. Heidegger: The Resurrection of the Question of Being in the Name of Overcoming Metaphysics 11. On Metaphysics Since Heidegger Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Further Reading

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewI am delighted that Wade Baskin's classic translation is back in print, especially since Saussy and Meisel's judicious updating and summary of recent scholarly discoveries make this an invaluable resource for English readers.Table of ContentsEditors' Preface and Acknowledgments Textual Note Introduction: Saussure and His Contexts Course in General Linguistics Translator's Introduction Preface to the First Edition Introduction Chapter I. A Glance at the History of Linguistics Chapter II. Subject Matter and Scope of Linguistics; Its Relations with Other Sciences Chapter III. The Object of Linguistics Chapter IV. Linguistics of Language and Linguists of Speaking Chapter V. Internal and External Elements of Language Chapter VI. Graphic Representation of Language Chapter VII. Phonology Appendix: Principles of Phonology Chapter I. Phonological Species Chapter II. Phonemes in the Spoken Chain Part One: General Principles Chapter I. Nature of the Linguistic Sign Chapter II. Immutability and Mutability of the Sign Chapter III. Static and Evolutionary Linguistics Part Two: Synchronic Linguistics Chapter I. Generalities Chapter II. The Concrete Entities of Language Chapter III. Identities, Realities, Values Chapter IV. Linguistic Value Chapter V. Syntagmatic and Associative Relations Chapter VI. Mechanism of Language Chapter VII. Grammar and Its Subdivisions Chapter VIII. Role of Abstract Entities in Grammar Part Three: Diachronic Linguistics Chapter I. Generalities Chapter II. Phonetic Changes Chapter III. Grammatical Consequences of Phonetic Evolution Chapter IV. Analogy Chapter V. Analogy and Evolution Chapter VI. Folk Etymology Chapter VII. Agglutination Chapter VIII. Diachronic Unites, Identities, and Realities Appendices to Parts Three and Four Part Four: Geographical Linguistics Chapter I. Concerning the Diversity of Languages Chapter II. Complication of Geographical Diversity Chapter III. Causes of Geographical Diversity Chapter IV. Spread of Linguistic Waves Part Five: Concerning Retrospective Linguistics Chapter I. The Two Perspectives of Diachronic Linguistics Chapter II. The Oldest Language at the Prototype Chapter III. Reconstructions Chapter IV. The Contribution of Language to Anthropology and Prehistory Chapter V. Language Families and Linguistic Types Errata Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisA secret history of philosophy grafting theory onto science, combining art and storytelling to bring Western thought back to its roots.Trade ReviewFrom the conversation of Socrates and Phaedrus in the shade of the plane tree to Irigaray's meditation on the water lily, The Philosopher's Plant takes us outside city walls, across gardens of letters and vegetables, grassy slopes and vineyards, to the dimly lit sources of philosophy's vitality. With distinctive depth and clarity, Marder reminds us that, far from walled in, the human community communes with nature and is itself inhabited by nature. -- Claudia Baracchi, Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca The Philosopher's Plant is an original contribution to a concept which for too long has been marginalized. As the only contemporary philosopher working on plants from a deconstructive and weak-thought perspective, Marder provides not only another contribution to the philosophical concept of plants in general, but also adds onto his own work. -- Santiago Zabala, ICREA/University of Barcelona The Philosopher's Plant is a genuine pleasure to read and one of the most innovative books I have encountered in some time. Marder's argument is that contemporary scientific research into how plants communicate, interact with, and possibly even perceive the environment should be enriched by an engagement with how the Western philosophical tradition has already thought and continues thinking the problem of plant life for human being-in-the-world. -- William Egginton, Johns Hopkins University The Philosopher's Plant is an alluring immersion in phytophilia, exploring the thought of philosophers from Plato to Irigaray by way of their intimate reflections on plant life. Not only do we learn much that is subtle and profound about plants but we come to see the work of these thinkers in refreshing new lights. Humor and wit alternate with penetrating philosophical insight in this bouquet of delights. -- Edward S. Casey, SUNY at Stony Brook, author of The World at a Glance and The World on Edge One must give Michael Marder credit for combining the deconstruction of our traditional metaphysics with a focus on the plant world. He invites us to perceive and consider again the presence and the potential of our living environment, the thoughtless use of which has damaged both our life and our culture. -- Luce Irigaray All who get a taste of this succulent study will find much food for thought. Library Journal (starred review) [The Philosopher's Plant] provides provocative insight into the significance of plant life in the evolution of philosophical thought... Recommended. ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue: Herbarium Philosophicum Part I: Ancient Plant-Souls 1. Plato's Plane Tree 2. Aristotle's Wheat 3. Plotinus' Anonymous "Great Plant" Part II. Medieval Plant-Instruments 4. Augustine's Pears 5. Avicenna's Celery 6. Maimonides' Palm Tree Part III. Modern Plant-Images 7. Leibniz's Blades of Grass 8. Kant's Tulip 9. Hegel's Grapes Part IV: Postmodern Plant-Subjects 10. Heidegger's Apple Tree 11. Derrida's Sunflowers 12. Irigaray's Water Lily Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book investigates what Bataille, in The Pineal Eye, calls mythological representation: the mythological anthropology with which this unusual thinker wished to outflank and undo scientific (and philosophical) anthropology. Gasché probes that anthropology by situating Bataille''s thought with respect to the quatrumvirate of Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud. He begins by showing what Bataille''s understanding of the mythological owes to Schelling. Drawing on Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud, he then explores the notion of image that constitutes the sort of representation that Bataille''s innovative approach entails. Gasché concludes that Bataille''s mythological anthropology takes on Hegel''s phenomenology in a systematic fashion. By reading it backwards, he not only dismantles its architecture, he also ties each level to the preceding one, replacing the idealities of philosophy with the phantasmatic representations of what he dubs low materialism. Phenomenology, Gasché argues, tTrade Review"A splendid introduction to a revolutionary thinker, still not as known in this country as he ought to be, written by a renowned commentator on twentieth-century French thought. An important book!"—Arkady Plotnitksy, Purdue University

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive presentation of, and engagement with, the philosophy of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), against the backdrop of the political, cultural, and intellectual currents of his times.Trade Review"Lüdemann's book is a clearly written and remarkably well-researched analysis of Derrida's work. The author presents her views with clarity and at a welcome pace." -- Analysis & Metaphysics"Susanne Lüdemann's introduction to the thought of Jacques Derrida is a praiseworthy model of lucidity and evenhandedness. Her skillful interweaving of close readings of Derrida's texts with broader systematic concerns will not only meet the needs of students coming to the beauty and rigor of Derrida's corpus for the very first time, but also will serve more seasoned scholars seeking innovative engagements with a broad spectrum of Derridean questions. The book embodies much of what is best in German and American styles of scholarship." -- Gerhard Richter * Brown University *

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Book SynopsisPublished in 1967, when Derrida is 37 years old, Voice and Phenomenon appears at the same moment as Of Grammatology and Writing and Difference. All three books announce the new philosophical project called ""deconstruction"".

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"By the sheer force of its sophistication and range, this book demands that we engage anew with poststructuralist theory's evolving potentialities-in particular, with its intimate ties to the politics and ethics of wounding."-Rey Chow, Duke University -- -Rey Chow Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature, Duke UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: At the Scene of Inscription 1. Savage Marks: Subjection and the Specters of Anthropology 2. Impact Erasure: Psychoanalysis and the Multiplication of Trauma 3. Stings of Visibility: Picture Theories and Visual Contact 4. Out of the Groove: Aural Traces and the Mediation of Sound Conclusion: Against Inscription? Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisThis essay collection further familiarizes the English-speaking world with the work of late German media scholar Friedrich Kittler. It features well-established and emergent scholars who present investigations that traverse all of Kittler’s major phases, from early studies of German romanticism to his recent volumes on ancient Greece.Trade Review"Spearheaded by New York philosophy icon Avital Ronell, this book pays tribute to Germany's most controversial yet most original media theorist, who completely changed the German academic landscape by following his declared goal to drive the human out of the humanities. In completely new and exciting ways, the essays collected in this important volume introduce Friedrich Kittler's radical and challenging approach to the study of Western culture, literature, and philosophy to an American audience." -- -Arne Hocker University of Colorado Boulder "The Technological Introject marks a major contribution to the work of the late Friedrich Kittler, whose defining impact on the fields of discourse analysis, media studies, and the archaeology of technology is increasingly recognized. Featuring essays by well-established and emergent scholars and engaging all the major phases of Kittler's rich academic life-from his early studies of German literature to his late volumes on music and mathematics, including his recent work on the history of sound-the contributors position Kittler's work in relation to French poststructuralism, the German literary and philosophical tradition he reacted against, and the theories and practices of media discourse analysis which he significantly redefined and enlarged. Erudite and avant-garde, The Technological Introject is among the first volumes to offer a posthumous assessment of Kittler's reach and to map the considerable legacy of a major theorist on the way we think (all things) 'media.'" -- -Michael Wutz Weber State University

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction: Humanisms, Posthumanisms, and their Discontents Chapter 1: Market Humans: Homo Oeconomicus, Entrepreneurs, and Beings of Risk Chapter 2: Utilitarian Humanism: Culture in the Service of Regulating “We Other Humans” Chapter 3: The Hedge Fund of Reality: Ontology and Financial Derivatives Chapter 4: Human Rights and States of Emergency: Humanitarians and Governmentality Chapter 5: Translating Rights: The International Criminal Court, Translation and the Human Status Chapter 6: Speculative Fictions and Other Cartographies of Life with Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story Chapter 7: Between Words, Numbers, and Things: Transgenics and Other Objects of Life in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddams Chapter 9: Reification of the Human: Global Organ Harvesting and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go Conclusion: Ahumans: A Guide to Non-Market Living

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Book SynopsisSystems of Life offers a wide-ranging revaluation of the emergence of biopolitics in Europe from the mid eighteenth to the midnineteenth century. In staging an encounter among literature, political economy, and the still emergent sciences of life in that historical moment, the essays collected here reopen the question of how concepts of animal, vegetable, and human life, among other biological registers, had an impact on the Enlightenment project of thinking politics and economics as a joint enterprise. The volume's contributors consider politics, economics, and the biological as distinct, semi-autonomous spheres whose various combinations required inventive, sometimes incomplete, acts of conceptual mediation, philosophical negotiation, disciplinary intervention, or aesthetic representation.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Systems of Life, or Bioeconomic Politics Richard A. Barney and Warren Montag 1 1. Looking for (Economic) Growth in the Eighteenth Century Christian Marouby 35 2. An African Diasporic Critique of Violence James Edward Ford III 56 3. Rousseau: Vital Instinct and Pity Pierre Macherey 82 4. System and Subject in Adam Smith’s Political Economy: Nature, Vitalism, and Bioeconomic Life Catherine Packham 93 5. Vitalism’s Revolution: John Thelwall, Life, and the Economy of Radical Politics Richard A. Barney 114 6. Writing Generation: Revolutionary Bodies and the Poetics of Political Economy Annika Mann 135 7. William Blake and the Time of Ontogeny Amanda Jo Goldstein 162 8. Concerning Hunger: Empire Aesthetics in the Present Moment Mrinalini Chakravorty 201 9. The Hero Takes a Fall: Gravity, Comedy, and Darwin’s Entangled Bank Timothy C. Campbell 236 List of Contributors 257 Index 261

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Book SynopsisThis book draws the work of Slavoj Žižek into conversation with the Christian mystical theological tradition in order to propose a materialist account of Christian identity as constituted by failure.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Failing | 1 1 Ontology and Desire in Dionysius the Areopagite | 15 2 Apophatic Theology and Its Vicissitudes | 29 3 The Death Drive: From Freud to Žižek | 56 4 The Gift and Violence | 86 5 Divine Violence as Trauma | 119 6 Mystical Theology and the Four Discourses | 150 Conclusion: Theology as Failure | 175 Acknowledgments | 183 Notes | 185 Bibliography | 235 Index | 251

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Book SynopsisSophistry has long been philosophy’s bad other, yet in many ways, its emphasis on words and performativity remain more important than philosophical Truth. This book celebrates an underground survival of the sophistical tradition in the work of work of psychoanalysis, and its determination to take seriously equivocations, jokes, and unfinishable projects of interpretation.Table of ContentsPrologue: “How Kind of You to Recognize Me” | 1 1. Doxography and Psychoanalysis, or Relegating Truth to the Lowly Status It Deserves | 5 2. The Presence of the Sophist in Our Time | 23 3. Logos-Pharmakon | 39 4. Sense and Nonsense, or Lacan’s Anti-Aristotelianism | 59 5. The Jouissance of Language, or Lacan’s Ab-Aristotelianism | 93 Epilogue: The Drowning of a Fish | 127 Acknowledgments | 133 Translator’s Note: Performing Untranslatability | 135 Notes | 141 Index | 171

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Book SynopsisReading philosophy through the lens of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Andrea Cavalletti shows why, for two centuries, major philosophers have come to think of vertigo as intrinsically part of philosophy itself. In doing so, Cavalletti brings out the vertiginous nature of identity.Table of ContentsForeword by Daniel Heller-Roazen | vii Incipit | 1 1 Vertigo Effect | 3 2 We Are Not Here | 34 3 Habit, Mask | 79 4 A Singular Rapture | 106 5 Chasm | 113 6 Surface | 130 Explicit | 147 Notes | 151 Bibliography | 177 Index | 197

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Book SynopsisA Companion to Derrida is the most comprehensive single volume reference work on the thought of Jacques Derrida. Leading scholars present a summary of his most important accomplishments across a broad range of subjects, and offer new assessments of these achievements.Trade Review“Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers/faculty.” (Choice, 1 March 2015)Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations (Works by Derrida) ix Notes on Contributors xv Introduction 1 Zeynep Direk and Leonard Lawlor Part I Fundamental Themes and Concepts in Derrida’s Thought 21 1 Truth in Derrida 23 Christopher Norris 2 A Certain Truth: Derrida’s Transformation of the Kantian Heritage 42 Olivia Custer 3 Difference 57 Claire Colebrook 4 The Obscurity of “Différance” 72 Gary Gutting 5 Metaphor and Analogy in Derrida 89 Geoffrey Bennington 6 The “Slow and Differentiated” Machinations of Deconstructive Ethics 105 Kelly Oliver 7 Deconstruction 122 Leonard Lawlor 8 The Transcendental Claim of Deconstruction 132 Maxime Doyon 9 Writing the Violence of Time: Derrida Beyond the Deconstruction of Metaphysics 150 Björn Thorsteinsson 10 Derrida’s Radical Atheism 166 Martin Hägglund 11 Play and Messianicity: The Question of Time and History in Derrida’s Deconstruction 179 Françoise Dastur 12 I See Your Meaning and Raise the Stakes by a Signature: The Invention of Derrida’s Work 194 Peggy Kamuf 13 An Immemorial Remainder: The Legacy of Derrida 207 Rodolphe Gasché Part II Derrida and . . . 229 14 Derrida and Ancient Philosophy (Plato and Aristotle) 231 Michael Naas 15 There Is Neither Jew Nor Greek: The Strange Dialogue Between Levinas and Derrida 251 Robert Bernasconi 16 The Crystallization of the Impossible: Derrida and Merleau-Ponty at the Threshold of Phenomenology 269 Sabrina Aggleton 17 The Politics of Writing: Derrida and Althusser 287 Edward Baring 18 Derrida and Psychoanalysis 304 Elizabeth Rottenberg 19 Derrida and Barthes: Speculative Intrigues in Cinema, Photography, and Phenomenology 321 Louise Burchill 20 Derrida and de Man: Two Rhetorics of Deconstruction 345 J. Hillis Miller 21 Fraternal Politics and Maternal Auto-Immunity: Derrida, Feminism, and Ethnocentrism 362 Penelope Deutscher 22 Antigone as the White Fetish of Hegel and the Seductress of Derrida 378 Tina Chanter 23 Art’s Work: Derrida and Artaud and Atlan 391 Andrew Benjamin 24 Heidegger and Derrida on Responsibility 412 François Raffoul 25 On Faith and the Holy in Heidegger and Derrida 430 Ben Vedder and Gert-Jan van der Heiden 26 “Safe, Intact”: Derrida, Nancy, and the “Deconstruction of Christianity” 447 Kas Saghafi 27 Derrida and the Trace of Religion 464 John D. Caputo 28 Derrida and Islamic Mysticism: An Undecidable Relationship 480 Recep Alpyaðýl 29 Derrida and Education 490 Samir Haddad Part III Areas of Investigation 507 30 A Philosophy of Touching Between the Human and the Animal: The Animal Ethics of Jacques Derrida 509 Patrick Llored 31 Poetry, Animality, Derrida 524 Nicholas Royle 32 On Forgiveness and the Possibility of Reconciliation 537 Ann V. Murphy 33 Cosmopolitanism to Come: Derrida’s Response to Globalization 550 Fred Evans 34 The Flipside of Violence, or Beyond the Thought of Good Enough 565 Leonard Lawlor 35 Derrida/Law: A Differend 581 Pierre Legrand Bibliography of Secondary Sources on Derrida 599 Index 605

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Book Synopsis"Ten times, an elderly grey-haired man gets up on the stage. Ten times puffing and sighing. Ten times slowly tracing out strange multi-coloured arabesques that interweave, curling with the meanders of his speech, by turns fluid and uneasy. A whole crowd looks on, transfixed by this enigma-made-man, absorbing the ipse dixit and anticipating some illumination that is taking its time to appear.Non lucet. It’s shady in here, and the Théodores go hunting for their matches. Still, they say, cuicumque in sua arte perito credendum est, whosoever is expert in his art is to be lent credence. At what point is a person mad? The master himself poses the question.That was back in the day. Those were the mysteries of Paris forty years hence.A Dante clasping Virgil’s hand to be led through the circles of the Inferno, Lacan took the hand of James Joyce, the unreadable Irishman, and, in the wake of this slender Commander of the Faithless, made with heavy and faltering step onto the incandescent zone where symptomatic women and ravaging men burn and writhe.An equivocal troupe was in the struggling audience: his son-in-law; a dishevelled writer, young and just as unreadable back then; two dialoguing mathematicians; and a professor from Lyon vouching for the seriousness of the whole affair. A discreet Pasiphaë was being put to work backstage.Smirk then, my good fellows! Be my guest. Make fun of it all! That’s what our comic illusion is for. That way, you shall know nothing of what is happening right before your very eyes: the most carefully considered, the most lucid, and the most intrepid calling into question of the art that Freud invented, better known under its pseudonym: psychoanalysis."—Jacques-Alain MillerTable of ContentsTHE SPIRIT OF THE NODES I. On the logical use of the sinthome, or Freud with Joyce II. On what makes a hole in the real III. On the knot as the subject’s support THE JOYCE TRAIL IV. Joyce and the fox riddle V. Was Joyce mad? VI. Joyce and imposed words THE INVENTION OF THE REAL VII. On a fallace that vouches for the real VIII. On sens, sex and the real IX. From the unconscious to the real BY WAY OF CONCLUSION X. The writing of the Ego Note APPENDICES Joyce the Symptom, by Jacques Lacan Presentation at Lacan’s Seminar, by Jacques Aubert Reading notes, by Jacques Aubert A note threaded stitch by stitch, by Jacques-Alain Miller Translator’s endnotes Index

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Book SynopsisWinner, David Easton Award for Political Theory, 2023 In Resounding Events, one of the world’s preeminent political theorists reflects on a career as an academic hailing from the working class. From youthful experiences of McCarthyism, to the resurgence of white evangelicalism, to the advent of aspirational fascism and the acceleration of the Anthropocene, Connolly traces a career spent passionately engaged in making a more just, diverse, and equitable world. He surveys the shifting ground upon which politics can be pursued; and he discloses how to be an intellectual in universities that today do not encourage that practice. Far more than a memoir, Resounding Events probes the concerns that have animated Connolly’s work across more than a dozen books by tracing the bumpy imbrications of event, memory and thinking in intellectual life. Connolly experiments with ways to capture various voices that mark a self at any time. An event, as he elaborates it, is what disturbs or inspires thinking as it activates layered sheets of memory. A memory sheet itself assembles recollections, dispositions organized from the past, and vague remains that carry efficacies. Resounding Events shows how resonances between event and memory can help forge new concepts better adjusted to an emergent situation. Addressing tensions between working class experience and norms of the academy, his father’s coma, antiwar protests, the growing disaffection of the white working class, the neoliberalization of the university, climate denialism, and his sister’s experience with workers shifting to Trump, Connolly shows how engaged intellectuals become worthy of the events they encounter.Table of ContentsPrologue: Event, Memory, Thinking . . . | 1 1 Professionals and Intellectuals | 9 2 A Fifty-Yard Dash | 42 3 The Pioneer Valley | 73 4 The Hopkins School of Theory | 108 5 The New Fascist Revolt | 150 Epilogue: Echoes and Spiritualities | 185 Acknowledgments | 193 Notes | 197 Bibliography | 205 Index | 213

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Book SynopsisCrisis dominates the present historical moment. The economy is in crisis, politics in both its past and present forms is in crisis and our own individual lives are in crisis, made vulnerable by the fluctuations of the labor market and by the undoing of social and political ties we inherited from modernity. Yet, traditional views of crises as just temporary setbacks do not seem to hold any longer; this crisis seems permanent, with no way out and no alternatives on the horizon. Reconstructing a political genealogy of the term from the Greek world to today's neoliberalism, this book demonstrates that crisis, understood as a "choice" between revolution and conservation, is a peculiarity of the modern era that does not apply to the present day. However, since its origin, the trope of crisis has proven to be one of the most effective instruments of social discipline and administration. The analytical trajectory followed by this book - which spans from Plato to Hayek, from the juridical and medical science of antiquity to the current technocracy, passing through the "weapons of criticism" of Marx and Gramsci - finally identifies, following Benjamin and Foucault, precariousness as the "form of life" that characterizes crisis understood as an art of government. But we still need to answer the question: "How can we recreate the possibility of political alternatives?"Trade ReviewDario Gentili's book on crisis is one of the first genealogies of a concept that nowadays is crucial. In this way, through the rigorous analysis of the term, he captures an uncharted aspect of our contemporary condition -- Roberto EspositoThere is a crisis, there is no alternative. This is the rhetorical strategy through which governments across the world justify and legitimize unpopular political and economic decisions in this age, the age of precarity. Dario Gentili's illuminating genealogical reconstruction of the dispositive of crisis is an indispensable tool to understand and contrast the very specific art of government implicit in today's globally predominant neoliberal policies."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">There is a crisis, there is no alternative. This is the rhetorical strategy through which governments across the world justify and legitimize unpopular political and economic decisions in this age, the age of precarity. Dario Gentili's illuminating genealogical reconstruction of the dispositive of crisis is an indispensable tool to understand and contrast the very specific art of government implicit in today's globally predominant neoliberal policies. -- Elettra StimilliDario Gentili's superb The Age of Precarity takes a concept ubiquitous in contemporary left political and social theory, precarity, and endows it with new life and explanatory power. Deftly drawing on thinkers from Plato to Benjamin, Gramsci to Foucault, Schmitt to Hayek, Gentili diagnoses a present where crisis generates an 'art of government' of precarious life, and calls against a politics as a fight-to-the-death between forms of life, for a new politics of shared forms of life through which power is expressed in common. -- Matteo Mandarini, Queen Mary University of LondonDario Gentili's book on crisis is one of the first genealogies of a concept that nowadays is crucial. Through the rigorous analysis of the term, he captures an uncharted aspect of our contemporary condition. -- Roberto Esposito, author of Communitas"There is a crisis, there is no alternative." This is the rhetorical strategy through which governments across the world justify and legitimize unpopular political and economic decisions in this age, the age of precarity. Dario Gentili's illuminating genealogical reconstruction of the dispositive of crisis is an indispensable tool helping us to understand and contrast the very specific art of government implicit in today's globally predominant neoliberal policies -- Elettra Stimilli, author of Debt and GuiltDario Gentili's radical and rigorous work offers a magisterial analysis of the figure of crisis, which so much seems to define our current socio-political situation. By tracing an intellectual counter-history of this concept and proposing a novel theorization of it as an art of government, The Age of Precarity stands out as a benchmark text across contemporary debates in critical thought and one that we need to understand present-day practices of administration under neoliberal governance. -- Andrea Mura, Goldsmiths, University of LondonDario Gentili has, through an analysis of the language of crisis, shown how its inscription into the discourse of contemporary politics has diminished its force. The language of crisis has been legitimized. In its place he proposes a rethinking of conflict. The political is then recast in terms of life. Freed of the debilitating effect of the equation of life with the biological Gentile proposes a genuine biopolitics. The point of departure is the recovery of that which has been rendered precarious in the name of a new form of commonality. -- Andrew Benjamin, University of Technology, Sydney

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Book SynopsisPhilosophy was born out of discussion, out of the rivalry between world views. From the philosophical ferment of the Enlightenment arose the idea of emancipation, a conflictual perspective which Marina Garcés would have us rethink. New Radical Enlightenment lays out the need for critical dissent as a new beginning for the humanities in apocalyptic times. The productive dissent she envisions is established on the inclusion of multiple perspectives attending to common problems.Our societies are faced with the urgency of combating dogmatism in all its forms. Fundamentalism, authoritarianism, and the struggle of the rich against the poor are returning. We also see dogmatic ways of dealing with science, data, and technology emerging. In the face of this, unfinished philosophy is a bid to make thought exciting once again. It is not a question of nurturing sterile theories. Today’s young people need powerful tools for a critical imagination. Leaping out of historicis

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Book SynopsisThe "structuralist" theories of power show that the subject is produced and reproduced by the investment of power: but how then can we think of the subject's resistance to power? Based on this fundamental question, Power and Resistance interprets critically the (post-)structuralist theory of power and resistance, i.e., the theories of Foucault, Deleuze/Guattari, Derrida and Althusser. It analyses also the mechanism of power and the strategies of resistance in the era of neoliberalism. This meticulous analysis that completely renewed the theory of power is already published in French, Japanese, and Korean with success.Trade ReviewConceptually dense and philosophically masterful, Yoshiyuki Sato's Power and Resistance ranges widely across the work of Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, and Althusser (with Lacan as the 'silent partner' of the text), in pursuit of how the structuralist (non)dialectic of power and resistance comes to be underpinned by this aporetic subject that must be both the product of the social structure, yet also that which furnishes the force of resistance to its reproduction, demonstrating precisely that the "thought of the subject" is nothing other than a theory of how the 'outside' relates to the interiority of the structure. Refusing the now-widespread reception of post-68 French thought as having 'done away with' the category of the subject, Sato shows ably and with real mastery of the literature, why we must instead consider these thinkers to be precisely 'theoreticians of the subject'. In our current conceptual conjuncture, this important book has reemerged in English after its French and Japanese editions to provide the thought of a transformation beyond that dialectic of subjection and resistance which merely reinforces the social closure, giving proof positive for the politicality and living force of this set of figures so crucial to twentieth century thought. -- Gavin WalkerThe author is to be commended for his ability to pose problems clearly, for his very thorough and convincing argument, and for his enlightening and stimulating reading of the main authors he discusses, namely: Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida, and finally Althusser. -- Jacques-Louis Lantoine * Acta fabula *Sato has taken on the impressive task of isolating, with analytical precision, the sources of resistance within generally conceived structuralist theory. His thesis offers a masterful and erudite reading of Foucault, Freud, Deleuze, Lacan, Derrida, and Althusser, among others. His explanation of a sample of texts by these authors is quite illuminating. Indeed, Sato succeeds in showing that the theory of the subject, if understood in its relation to a constitutive death drive, carries with it the possibility of resisting the cruelty of the law and providing the basis for a general theory of resistance. He further shows that structuralism should not be seen as a 'static' description of social and linguistic structures, and that what is needed is rather a diachronic view of structures that takes into account - without domesticating - the forces of contingency. Starting from the death drive and the contingency of structures, and through an argument that is as erudite as it is enlightening, Sato constructs an explanation of resistance in structuralism (but also for it and its future), thus reviving a debate that has unfortunately been bogged down for some time in clichés and misconceptions. -- Judith ButlerWith unusual clarity, Yoshiyuki Sato reconstructs the relations of appropriation, exclusion and interaction that allow us to speak of a structuralist moment defined by the conjunction of Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida and Althusser. He explores the encounters that took place around the notion of power and, with it, the forms of its internalization: the subject, subjection and subjectivity. Sato shows us the multiple dialogues that took place between these very different thinkers, not in spite of their divergent lexicons, but because of them, and how the questions surrounding power led to an examination of the concept of resistance and its functions in fields as diverse as physics, biology, psychoanalysis and politics. Sato's rigor, his refusal to blur the distinctions between the philosophers in question and his insistence on staying close to their actual texts, sets this study apart from the common interpretations of structuralism and the structuralist moment. It provides a new foundation for the study of French philosophy of the sixties and seventies. -- Warren MontagSato's book brilliantly testifies to the acuteness, depth and originality of the readings of French philosophy of the twentieth century which are carried out today by young foreign philosophers, especially Japanese. Through them is brought a new freshness, a re-perspective and re-questioning, and therefore these are the conditions for a relaunch of previously passionate debates which reaches us at the opportune moment. As a participant, along with some others, in these debates in which I - quite wrongly - believed to have travelled all avenues, it is with great pleasure that I welcome this critical return and this relaunch. -- Etienne Balibar

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Book SynopsisTrue translation is transparent: it does not obscure the original, does not stand in its light, but rather allows pure language, as if strengthened by its own medium, to shine even more fully on the original. This is made possible primarily by conveying the syntax word-for-word; and this demonstrates that the word, not the sentence, is translations original element. For the sentence is the wall in front of the language of the original, and word-for-word rendering the arcade. (Walter Benjamin, The Translators Task) The book centers on Walter Benjamins revolutionary essay The Translators Task (1923) which subverts some widespread assumptions concerning translation: that it serves for communication, that it transfers meaning, that it must not distort the translators own language, and that it is inferior to the original. Benjamin overturns these assumptions by replacing the concept of translation as a merely linguistic operation with a metaphysical or theological concept of the same, derived from Jewish Kabbala and French Symbolisme. In The Translators Task, as well as his earlier essay On Language as such and the Language of Man, he delineates a cosmic linguistic cycle of descent from, and ascent back to, God. The translators task is to promote this ascent by deconstructing his own language in order to advance it towards a final Pure Language. Following an analysis of Benjamins approach, some of its affiliates are discussed in texts by Franz Rosenzweig, Paul Celan (as explicated by Peter Szondi) and Jacques Derrida. Rosenzweig, a translator like Benjamin, is shown to be concerned with more concrete aspects of translation, whereas Derridas autobiographical Monolingualism of the Other, though not focussing on translation, is shown to be an innovative contribution to the metaphysics of translation. Finally, an attempt is made to deal with the question of whether and how this abstract approach can be of help for the concrete practice of Poetry translation. The great poet Hoelderlins German translations of Sophocles testify to the clear, though elusive, practical contribution of this approach and to the importance of Benjamins legacy.

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