Western philosophy from c 1800 Books

Book SynopsisIntroducing the range of noted French philosopher Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's thinking, this book focuses in particular on the dynamic of the loss of the subject and its possible post-deconstructive recovery. The author places Lacoue-Labarthe's achievements in the context of related philosophers, most importantly Nancy, Derrida, and Blanchot.Trade Review"Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe is the most subtle philosopher of the human subject writing in any language, and John Martis is the clearest and most faithful interpreter of Lacoue-Labarthe on the crucial interaction of representation and the human subject. His book raises discussion of human selfhood to a new level of sophistication." -- -Kevin Hart University of Notre Dame

Read more less

Book SynopsisIntroducing the range of noted French philosopher Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's thinking, this book focuses in particular on the dynamic of the loss of the subject and its possible post-deconstructive recovery. The author places Lacoue-Labarthe's achievements in the context of related philosophers, most importantly Nancy, Derrida, and Blanchot.Trade Review"Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe is the most subtle philosopher of the human subject writing in any language, and John Martis is the clearest and most faithful interpreter of Lacoue-Labarthe on the crucial interaction of representation and the human subject. His book raises discussion of human selfhood to a new level of sophistication." -- -Kevin Hart University of Notre Dame

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhat is it to be a Jew and a philosopher? How has the notion of "Jewish identity" been written into and across Jewish literature, Jewish thought, and Jewish languages? This title addresses these questions, contrasting Derrida's thought with philosophical predecessors such as Rosenzweig, Levinas, Celan, and Scholem.Trade Review"Essays on the relationship between the writings of the French philosopher and multiple understandings of Jewish identity; also includes the first English translation of Derrida's essay 'Abraham, the Other'." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "...An impressive collection of essays stemming from a colloquium held in Paris in December 2000, addressing the work of Jacques Derrida...All essays are strong and provide for a text rich in material for fruitful contemplation." -Choice "In this volume sparks fly and cast unexpected light. Judeities represents a new phase in the difficult work of bringing together the speaking of Jewishness and the speaking of theory. If Derrida can be said to remain for us literally, in his writings, here is at once a candid self-portrait and a set of vigorous, equally courageous critical reflections thereof. This is the kind of work that makes us want to keep talking and thinking." -- -Jonathan Boyarin University of Kansas "A work of ground-breaking scholarship that brings together some of today's most prominent thinkers in continental philosophy, literary theory, and religious studies." -- -Ulrich Baer New York University

Read more less

Book SynopsisProvides an account of Jacques Derrida's involvement in debates about the university. Derrida has long argued that philosophy simultaneously belongs and does not belong to the university. This book asks whether a broader tension between "belonging" and "not belonging" also forms the basis of Derrida's political thinking and activism.Trade Review"A profound book for all who hope to find an opening to the future in the fast-closing contemporary university." -- -John Schad Lancaster University "...admirably penetrating and comprehensive..." -- -J. Hillis Miller "An important contribution to thinking about the university, teaching, the humanities, and cultural studies." -- -Peggy Kamuf University of Southern California

Read more less

Book SynopsisTaking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. It uses the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel to provide the point of embarkation for understanding the two positions on this question.Trade Review"Contrasts the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel in a study of what it means for something or someone to be other than the self." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "Treanor stages a dramatic joust between the ethical theories of Levinas and Marcel - the resulting adjudication is ingenious, timely and scrupulously just." -- -Richard Kearney Boston College "This important and thought-provoking work successfully reveals the relevance of the underappreciated Marcel for contemporary debates in ethics and the philosophy of religion." -Choice "Aspects of Alterity provides a nuanced and wonderfully lucid account of the problem of otherness. By way of a careful reading of Levinas, Marcel, and their inheritors, Treanor compellingly argues that an absolute other can issue no call nor even be understood as other. Instead, Treanor points us to a 'relative otherness,' one that is still truly other but with whom relations are actually possible." -- -Bruce Ellis Benson Wheaton College "Treanor's exposition of 'otherness' in Marcel and Levinas is lucid, thorough and provocative." -- -Brendan Sweetman Rockhurst University "In this provocative text, Treanor not only offers a fascinating exposition of the competitive and complementary heterologies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel, but he also sounds out the echoes of their voices in the contemporary debate between absolute and relative alterity." -- -B. Keith Putt Samford University

Read more less

Book SynopsisA study on Descartes, that brings together essays on the topics of the ego and of God. It explores the alterity of the Cartesian ego. It closes with a careful delineation of the concept of causa sui and a detailed survey of the idea of God in seventeenth-century thought.Trade Review"Offers a rare and accessible survey of the questions that motivate one of the most important interpreters of Descartes in the twentieth century." -- -Jeffrey Kosky Washington & Lee University "To read Jean-Luc Marion on Descartes provokes the same sorts of excitement, surprise, disagreement and admiration that an earlier generation experienced when reading Martin Heidegger on Nietzsche. If Marion is less exorbitant than Heidegger, he is more exacting in what he demands of Descartes's writings. One thing is certain: no one who reads Descartes can afford not to read Marion on Descartes." -- -Kevin Hart University of Virginia "... Marion's project is immensely rich, subtle, and inventive." -Christianity and Literature

Read more less

Book SynopsisWeaves together three themes at the intersection of Jacques Lacan and the philosophical tradition. This book also aims to explore, beyond the strict limits of Lacanian theory, possible points of intersection between psychoanalysis and other domains, including questions of race, biology, and evolutionary theory.Trade Review"Refusing dogmas of the established paradigms of interpretation, and yet respecting the specificity of psychoanalytic, philosophic, and literary practices, "Lacan and the Limit of Language" stages refreshing encounters between Lacanian psychoanalysis and its others: Kristeva, Heidegger, Derrida, or Foucault, to name just a few thinkers treated in this impressive study. In the process the book invites us to reflect again on the key concepts structuring these encounters: emotion, the body, race, sexuality, mood, tragedy, and above all, on the ethico-political implications of the limits of signification." -- -Ewa Ziarek author of "The Ethics of Dissensus" "In Lacan and the limits of language, Charles Shepherdson shows with admirable clarity, cogency and competence that psychoanalysis founds an anthropology of love, hate, desire, beauty, fantasy and memory while keeping its cutting edge in today's discussions of war, race, sexual difference and tragedy. Thanks to him, thinking with Lacan becomes an act of enlightenment." -- -Jean-Michel Rabate Vartan Gregorian Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania "Shepherdson's knowledge and use of the history of philosophy is stunning." -- -Kelly Oliver Vanderbilt University "Shepherdson's broadly learned background--in classics, philosophy, literature, critical and literary theory, and medical science--coupled with his lucid prose, makes him a compelling reader of Lacan. A more supple, nuanced and engaging Lacan emerges from the patient encounters Shepherdson stages among disciplines--a Lacan for our time, for time out of joint. Shepherdson is the analyst's analyst." -- -Arden Reed Pomona College "He (Shepherdson) compels the reader to ask deeper question of psychoanalysis and, indeed, to question the very aim of psychoanalysis" -- -Melissa Conroy Muskingum College "Shepherdson's writings are crucial interventions in the seemingly endless debates about the excesses of 'discursive construction.' And while the essays in this volume range far beyond those debates, they remind the reader of the costs of being caught up in a kind of oppositional thinking that seems to cling to the nineteenth century, as if Freud had never existed." -- -Elizabeth Weed Brown University

Read more less

Book SynopsisA lyrical meditation on listening, this work examines sound in relation to the human body. It also explores the mystery of music and of its effects on the listener.Trade Review"In Charlotte Mandell's splendid translation of Jean-Luc Nancy's brief but passionate A l'ecoute, the French philosopher gives us a glimpse of this completely different philosophy of music" -Current Musicology "Listening adds a much needed poetic register to the philosophy of music and sonic culture." -Parallax

Read more less

Book SynopsisDerrida and Lacan have long been viewed as proponents of two opposing schools of thought. This book argues, however, that the logical structure underpinning Lacanian psychoanalytic theory is a complex, paradoxical relationality that corresponds to Derrida's 'plural logic of the aporia'.Trade Review"An informative staging of an encounter between Derrida and Lacan ... intellectually joyful." -- -Michael Payne Bucknell University "Hurst brokers the relationship between Derrida and Lacan with great delicacy. Through patient, sympathetic, and often eye-opening readings of both, she maintains the separateness of these titans of French thought even as she draws them convincingly close together." -- -Joan Copjec The University at Buffalo, SUNY

Read more less

Book SynopsisOffers an investigation of Husserlian phenomenology. This book is suitable for those interested in the future of phenomenology or in a philosophy of life in the truest sense.Trade Review"A very important contribution to the foundation and the method of philosophy." -- -Adriaan Peperzak Loyola University, Chicago " ... Henry's book is a powerful advocate for life and affectivity, showing repeatedly that the dominant mode of phenomenology (and Western philosophy in general) priviledges ek-stasis and objectification at the expense of absolute subjectivity." -Christianity and Literature "Michel Henry's re-definition of Husserl's phenomenology can be compared only with that of Levinas. He was able to uncover some possibilities actually reached by Husserl, but kept hidden by his idealist turn, as in the primacy of Leib, the originarity of the self-affection of the self, and the limits of intentionality. This led him to reach one of the very few rigorous concepts of life ever achieved in philosophy. It is time to pay serious attention to one of the most important philosophers of the last century." -- -Jean-Luc Marion Universite Paris-Sorbonne, University of Chicago "This book will be of great value and interest to those interested in Henry's philosophy of life, Husserlian scholars, ad for thos interested in the future of phenomenology." -Kinesis "Translation of a 1990 work by the French philosopher (1922-2002)." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "Published originally in French in 1990, this book is an important contribution to phenomenology. Henry (1922-2002; formerly, Univ. Paul Valery) argues that phenomenology must be grounded in the radical immanence of life. He elaborates on this argument through a careful, detailed analysis of Husserlian conceptions of hyle (matter), the method of phenomenological reductions, and intersubjectivity in chapters 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Henry consistently responds to phenomenological claims of transcendence with his own claims of immanence focusing on the "pathos of life." He defines the substance of the material phenomenology of the title as "the pathetic immediacy in which life experiences itself." So where Husserl speaks of reduction to a sphere of pure phenomenological seeing, Henry counters that such a reduction focuses too much on what is outside, visible, and at a distance, rather than on the materiality and self-affectivity of life. The analysis presumes significant knowledge of Husserlian phenomenology, but is an original and creative contribution to phenomenological research. Davidson (Oklahoma City Univ.) provides a clear translation of this work and an elucidating introduction. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty/researchers." -Choice

Read more less

Book SynopsisHow are we to interpret Jacques Derrida's writings, after so much commentary has been devoted to his thought and his astonishing productivity has come to an end? In this book, the author extends his earlier contextualizing of Derrida's work in relation to Husserl by arguing that we must begin from a frame different from that provided by Derrida.Trade Review"Fielding Derrida makes new, potentially path breaking connections between Derrida's work and projects in philosophy, literary criticism, and intellectual history ..." -- -Burt Hopkins Seattle University "Readers in a wide range of disciplines will find this a first rate book with insightful discoveries of all sorts to learn from." -- -Jay Lampert University of Guelph "This intensely philosophical and well-written book addresses the challenge of the legacy of Derridean thought, and what this thought holds for the future, by assessing Derrida's actual contributions to a variety of problems and debates in the contemporary humanities. Once again Kates' profound familiarity with Husserlian thought proves to be a true asset that makes this book a powerful and engaging work to read." -- -Rodolphe Gasche University at Buffalo, The State University of New York "New and previously published writings that, among other things, link the French philosopher to Husserlian phenomenology." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "Kates has been producing the deepest, most original, and most even-handed treatment available of the relation between Derrida's thought and that of Husserl This new book opens new ways to think about both; it also introduces intriguing new perspectives on the Derrida-Husserl nexus through probing discussions of Jacob Klein and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is an important contribution to the evolving understanding of Derrida's place in the history of modern philosophy." -- -Henry Staten University of Washington

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe world into which we are born as the horizon of all our behavior is a world both of things and of events. But what are events? Though familiar to all of us, they are philosophically obscure. This title seeks to change all that, to describe what sort of phenomenon an event is and to establish how it can be grasped via a phenomenology.Trade Review"Claude Romano's powerful investigation of a world that is first made out of "eventful" and meaningful events, and not of mere happenings or facts opens an entirely new horizon for present-day phenomenology and hermeneutics. For many readers it will be an "event" in Romano's sense, changing radically their way of looking at the world, at the others and at themselves. (Professor Jean Greisch, Paris) Please tell me whether this proposal suits you and my congratulations for publishing this otustanding work." -- -Jean Greisch Institut Catholique "Compellingly taking the notion of event as his leading clue, Claude Romano analyzes the human "adventure" in an exceedingly rich and creative phenomenological hermeneutics. _Event and World_ lucidly examines the very process of something happening to us as we human beings are interpreted as the opening to events. This eloquent and profound work brings to the English speaking world one of France's leading contemporary thinkers. It marks a significant contribution to the philosophy of event, time, and world." -- -Anthony J. Steinbock Southern Illinois University at Carbondale "In this first volume of his ground-breaking phenomenology of the event, Claude Romano re-describes the human being as the being that is capable of events. The result is something new and provocative: an evential hermeneutics. All philosophers and theologians have things to learn from this study." -- -Kevin Hart The University of Virginia

Read more less

Book SynopsisMaurice Blanchot is a towering yet enigmatic figure in twentieth-century French thought. Both his fiction and his criticism played a determining role in how postwar French philosophy was written, especially in its intense concern with the question of writing as such. This volume collects his political writings from 1953 to 1993.Trade Review"Maurice Blanchot's leftist political writings are a major testament to this writer's perspicacity, independence and honor. His writings from the 1968 revolution are among the most piercing political tracts ever written, and the entire collection is an invaluable document for anyone working in French literary and political history of the last century." -- -Kevin Hart The University of Virginia "This selection of essays provides rich insights into the ways one of France's leading writers interpreted and related to the political history of his country in the decades following the second World War." -- -Samuel Weber Northwestern University

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to 'fall' asleep? Might there exist something like a 'reason' of sleep, a reason at work in its own form or modality, a modality of being in oneself, of return to oneself, without the waking 'self' that distinguishes 'I' from 'you' and from the world? This book attempts to answer these questions.Trade Review"The Fall of Sleep is Nancy's most lyrical, most beautiful work. It is also acute in tracing the limits of a phenomenology of sleep: for sleep is the disappearance of the self. Yet that dark self is also the Kantian thing in itself. So proposes Nancy in his noumenology of sleep..." -- -Kevin Hart The University of Virginia "... [A] brief siesta of an inquiry into slumber." -The Times Literary Supplement "A truly original examination of the most universally overlooked human experience." -- -Sarah Clift University of King's College, Halifax "A quarter-century ago Jean-Luc Nancy remarked that "Sleep, perhaps, has never been philosophical." Philosophy, after all, ruins sleep. In The Fall of Sleep Nancy explores the singularities of sleep as (among other things) an experience of freedom and a sojourn for lovers. The book is exemplary of Nancy's practice of finite thinking-thinking without concepts, categories, and other philosophical machinery. And in the bargain we have another superb translation by Charlotte Mandell." -- -Gerald L. Bruns University of Notre Dame "What happens to the subject when sleep descends? If philosophy has always supposed consciousness, what happens in the "fall of sleep," when intention, will, deliberation and its correlates are suspended? Nancy traces, not an absence of subjectivity, but another formation of the "I" in this meditative text -- part thesis and part reverie, as much a nocturne as a treatise -- and guides us toward the province of Morpheus." -- -Charles Shepherdson University at Abany, State University of New York "A beguiling set of reflections on a topic that has to be among those most resistant to philosophy and philosophizing: sleep. After reading Nancy, one will think differently about this enigmatic fact of life and how we talk about it." -- -Ian Balfour York University

Read more less

Book SynopsisBrings Peirce and social criticism into conversationTrade Review"This is a brave book balancing strong scholarship, clear organization, and a provocative reading of Peirce." -- -Roger Ward Georgetown College "Examines what is termed a neglected element of embodiment in the philosophy of Charles Sanders Pierce." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "The Politics of Survival provides a lucid, compelling, and exceptionally accessible account of the relevance of Peirce and pragmatism to contemporary discussions of social justice. Trout demonstrates how Peirce's philosophy rises above his personal prejudices to provide a unique set of tools for analyzing and criticizing the nonconscious biases of those who believe that they are free from prejudice. The Politics of Survival is unmatched in the manner in which it makes Peirce and pragmatism relevant to recent literature on racism and sexism." -- -Mitchell Aboulafia The Juilliard School

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review" ...[The reader] will learn much about how a great thinker tries, without any technical jargon or presupposed set of common references, to approach subjects as significant and challenging as the nature of justice, love, and beauty." -- -Michael Naas DePaul University

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review" ...[The reader] will learn much about how a great thinker tries, without any technical jargon or presupposed set of common references, to approach subjects as significant and challenging as the nature of justice, love, and beauty." -- -Michael Naas DePaul University

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"A writer of exquisite sensitivity and wit, as well as of impeccable clarity... A fascinating and thoroughly unique contribution to the study of popular culture, music, and more." -- -Gil Anidjar Columbia University

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Seductive in tone and style. It offers a seemingly simple yet powerful meditation on the larger role played by the animal kingdom." -- -Miladus Doueihi University of Glasgow "... Takes us on a poetic and philosophical journal that follows several paths, all leading to an encounter with the animal world... The reader will marvel at the author's penetrating vision of our shared world, one that in this case can be achieved only from animal side, or, should we say, through the gaze of the animal itself." -L'Esprit Createur "A reflection-part philosophical, part poetic-on mankind's shared existence with animal life. A truly breathtaking piece of writing." -- -John T. Hamilton Harvard University

Read more less

Book SynopsisMiracle and Machine is an introduction to the work of Jacques Derrida by means of a detailed reading of his 1994-5 essay “Faith and Knowledge,” Derrida’s most important work on the nature of religion in general and on the unprecedented forms it is taking today through science and the media.Trade Review"With Miracle and Machine, Naas provides us with an extremely rich and highly illuminating reading of Derrida's complex work that permits us to gauge the stakes of this absolutely unique text in Derrida's corpus." -Research in Phenomenology "This book is overflowing with insights and broad perspectives at the same time that it offers an authoritative summation, overview, and progress report on Jacques Derrida's considerable work on religion and its impact on the contemporary world." -- -Henry Sussman Yale University

Read more less

Book SynopsisMiracle and Machine is an introduction to the work of Jacques Derrida by means of a detailed reading of his 1994-5 essay “Faith and Knowledge,” Derrida’s most important work on the nature of religion in general and on the unprecedented forms it is taking today through science and the media.Trade Review"With Miracle and Machine, Naas provides us with an extremely rich and highly illuminating reading of Derrida's complex work that permits us to gauge the stakes of this absolutely unique text in Derrida's corpus." -Research in Phenomenology "This book is overflowing with insights and broad perspectives at the same time that it offers an authoritative summation, overview, and progress report on Jacques Derrida's considerable work on religion and its impact on the contemporary world." -- -Henry Sussman Yale University

Read more less

Book SynopsisJean-Luc Marion: The Essential Writings is the first anthology of this major contemporary philosopher's writings. It spans his entire career as a historian of philosophy, as a theologian, and as a theoretician of saturated phenomena. The editor's long general Introduction situates Marion in the history of modern philosophy, especially phenomenology, and shorter introductions preface each section of the anthology. The entire volume will enable professors to teach Marion by assigning a single book, and the editor's introductions will make it possible for students to learn enough about phenomenology to read Marion without having to take preliminary courses in Husserl and Heidegger.Trade Review"The Essential Marion will help a new generation of English-speaking readers to share the pleasure venerable French scholars, and less venerable Anglo-saxon scholars, have had for years. A superb, erudite and lucid introduction by Kevin Hart makes Marion even more readable while providing the audience with a general introduction to phenomenology. An astonishingly useful volume." -- -Jean-Yves Lacoste Australian Catholic University "The first major anthology of selections from many of Marion's most important writings, covering a wide range of his work in many different areas: history of philosophy (especially Descartes),phenomenology, theology, philosophy of religion. What makes the collection also particularly valuable are Kevin Hart's excellent introductions, both to Marion's work overall and to each particular area of his writings. Hart's introductions are introductions in the best sense of that term: They prepare the reader, awake interest, provide context, clarify difficulties, raise questions, and especially invite the reader into the texts themselves. This collection will be eminently useful for the classroom but will also prove a valuable introduction to Marion's work for the individual reader." -- -Christina M. Gschwandtner University of ScrantonTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction by Kevin Hart I. Metaphysics and Its Idols Introduction The Marches of Metaphysics Double Idolatry II. Saturation, Gift, and Icon Introduction The Breakthrough and the Broadening Sketch of the Saturated Phenomenon The Banality of Saturation The Reason of the Gift The Icon or the Endless Hermeneutic III. Reading Descartes Introduction The Ambivalence of Cartesian Metaphysics The Eternal Truths The Question of the Divine Names Does the Ego Alter the Other? The Originary Otherness of the Ego IV. Revelation and Apophasis Introduction The Prototype and the Image Thomas Aquinas and Onto-Theology The Possible and Revelation What Cannot Be Said The Impossible for Man-God V. On Love and Sacrifice Introduction The Intentionality of Love Concerning the Lover, and His Advance The Creation of the Self Sketch of a Phenomenological Concept of Sacrifice Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisKant has taken seriously, as no one else in the history of philosophy did, the existence of extraterrestrials. Their central role in his thought allows for a new approach of cosmopolitanism, in a tight dialogue with Carl Schmitt. At stake is a geopolitics of the sensible.Trade Review"Among the vast body of scholarship that explores the Kantian theory of space, none does so with greater urgency, concision, and wit than Kant in the Land of Extraterrestrials. It is especially innovative not only in its examination of the theme of extraterritoriality but also in its staging of the confrontation between Kant and Schmitt over the origin and fate of so-called outer space." -- -Peter Fenves Northwestern University "Kant in the Land of Extraterrestrials charts an original and compelling path from Schmitt to Kant, science fiction and Derrida, bringing to light the fantastical yet persistently unsettling role played by fictions of extraterritoriality in the philosophical elaboration of modern cosmopolitanism." -- -Daniel Heller-Roazen Princeton University "Regardless of whether Kant really believed in little green men, Kant in the Land of Extraterrestrials is a timely contribution to a bourgeoning field of inquiry." -Journal of the Fantastic in the ArtsTable of ContentsContents 1. A Little Bit of Tourism 2. Star Wars 3. Kant in the Land of Extraterrestrials 4. Cosmetics and Cosmopolitics 5. Weightlessness (The Archimedean Point of the Sensible) 6. Postface: What's Left of Cosmopolitanism? Notes

Read more less

Book SynopsisReevaluates the role of war in politics and society based on an expanded definition of the violence that it entails, with special attention to the destruction of nonliving things such as dead bodies, cities, artworks, archives, or languages, and to extreme violence such as torture and rape.Trade Review"In the long tradition and ever growing sea of works that have linked 'language, literature, and war,' this is a strikingly original work that attends to the import of that phrase with exquisite responsibility." -- -Gil Anidjar Columbia University "Steven Miller's book War After Death is a truly impressive piece of critical writing. Indeed, this book is one of the most intellectually rich, trenchant and engaging works of criticism that I have read over the last decade." -- -Elissa Marder Emory UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction (i.e., the death drive) 1. Statues Also Die 2. Open Letter to the Enemy: Jean Genet, War, and the Exact Measure of Man 3. Mayhem: Symbolic Violence and the Culture of the Death Drive 4. War, Word, Worst: Reading Samuel Beckett's Worstward Ho 5. Translation of a System in Deconstruction: Derrida and the War of Language against Itself Afterword Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisReevaluates the role of war in politics and society based on an expanded definition of the violence that it entails, with special attention to the destruction of nonliving things such as dead bodies, cities, artworks, archives, or languages, and to extreme violence such as torture and rape.Trade Review"In the long tradition and ever growing sea of works that have linked 'language, literature, and war,' this is a strikingly original work that attends to the import of that phrase with exquisite responsibility." -- -Gil Anidjar Columbia University "Steven Miller's book War After Death is a truly impressive piece of critical writing. Indeed, this book is one of the most intellectually rich, trenchant and engaging works of criticism that I have read over the last decade." -- -Elissa Marder Emory UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction (i.e., the death drive) 1. Statues Also Die 2. Open Letter to the Enemy: Jean Genet, War, and the Exact Measure of Man 3. Mayhem: Symbolic Violence and the Culture of the Death Drive 4. War, Word, Worst: Reading Samuel Beckett's Worstward Ho 5. Translation of a System in Deconstruction: Derrida and the War of Language against Itself Afterword Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe End of the World and Other Teachable Moments follows the remarkable itinerary of Jacques Derrida’s final seminar, The Beast and the Sovereign (2001-2003), as the explicit themes of the seminar, namely, sovereignty and the question of the animal, come to be supplemented and interrupted by questions of death, mourning, survival, the archive, and, especially, the end of the world.Trade Review"With his luminous and generous intelligence, Michael Naas makes the task of reading Derrida look easy. But that's only because, like the finest of teachers, he takes us patiently through the difficulties and countenances bravely the disconcerting turns taken by this final seminar, what he calls its teachable moments. Naas's clarity of thought, the acuteness of his ear, and the deftness of his writing are gifts that readers appreciate on every page. This book will be indispensable reading from now on for whoever attends to Derrida's seminars." -- -Peggy Kamuf University of Southern California "The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments is a striking tribute to the end of the world that was Derrida, and it lives up to the responsibility of carrying forward what remains." -- -Kelly Oliver Vanderbilt University "Naas solidifies his singular place as our most brilliant and incisive scholar of Derrida's work." -- -Jeffrey Nealon Pennsylvania State University "Michael Naas is one of the most authoritative interpreters anywhere of Jacques Derrida's work. Naas's writing about Derrida is characterized by a remarkable intellectual generosity. The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments is a brilliant reading of Derrida's last seminar, The Beast and the Sovereign (2001-2003). Naas provides an exegesis of that seminar both in itself and in the light of an amazing in-depth knowledge of all Derrida's previous work, back to its beginning in the 1960's. This distinguished book is an essential guide for all those who are perplexed in one way or another by Derrida's writings." -- -J. Hillis Miller UCI Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, IrvineTable of ContentsAbbreviations of Works by Jacques Derrida Acknowledgments Introduction: Derrida's Other Corpus 1 1. Derrida's Flair (For the Animals to Follow ...) 2. "If you could take just two books ...": Derrida with Heidegger and Robinson Crusoe at the Ends of the World 3. To Die a Living Death: Phantasms of Burial and Cremation in Derrida's Final Seminar 4. Reinventing the Wheel: Of Sovereignty, Autobiography, and Deconstruction 5. Pray Tell: Derrida's Performative Justice 6. Derrida's Preoccupation with the Archive 7. "World, Finitude, Solitude": Derrida's Walten Conclusion: Desormais Notes Name and Subject Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisOur contemporary challenge, according to the authors, is that a new world has quietly cropped up on us and is, in fact, already here. In this book, the authors invite us on an uncharted walk into barely known worlds when an everyday French idiom, "What's this world coming to?," is used to question our conventional thinking about the world.

Read more less

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

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Bennington's Scatter 1 is a sophisticated, detailed, and strikingly original demonstration of the political efficacy of deconstruction. As always with Bennington to read him is to undergo an education in reading." -- -Robert Bernasconi Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsList of Abbreviations Introduction: The Politics of Politics 1. Parrhesia 2. Pseudos 3. Kairos 4. Moria 5. Diakrisis 6. Axioma Appendix: Derrida's notes on Dignity Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Bennington's Scatter 1 is a sophisticated, detailed, and strikingly original demonstration of the political efficacy of deconstruction. As always with Bennington to read him is to undergo an education in reading." -- -Robert Bernasconi Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsList of Abbreviations Introduction: The Politics of Politics 1. Parrhesia 2. Pseudos 3. Kairos 4. Moria 5. Diakrisis 6. Axioma Appendix: Derrida's notes on Dignity Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book investigates the form of spirituality given shape in the intersection of poetics and theological-philosophical reflection, concerned especially with matters of representation and failure.Trade Review"Colby Dickinson provides us with a compelling meditation on the complex relationship between poetry, philosophy, and religion. He not only illuminates Derrida and Agamben's engagement with poetry but allows poetry to talk back to philosophy-and invites the reader to reconsider what is at stake every time we sit down to write." -- -Adam Kotsko Shimer CollegeTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. The logic of the 'as if' and the (non)existence of God: An inquiry into the nature of belief 2. Aesthetics among the metaphysical ruins: The poetry of Paul Celan seen through the works of Jacques Derrida and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe 3. On language and its profanation: Beyond representation in the poetic theory of Giorgio Agamben Conclusion: The Spiritual and Creative Failures of Representation, or On the Art of Writing Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book investigates the form of spirituality given shape in the intersection of poetics and theological-philosophical reflection, concerned especially with matters of representation and failure.Trade Review"Colby Dickinson provides us with a compelling meditation on the complex relationship between poetry, philosophy, and religion. He not only illuminates Derrida and Agamben's engagement with poetry but allows poetry to talk back to philosophy-and invites the reader to reconsider what is at stake every time we sit down to write." -- -Adam Kotsko Shimer CollegeTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. The logic of the 'as if' and the (non)existence of God: An inquiry into the nature of belief 2. Aesthetics among the metaphysical ruins: The poetry of Paul Celan seen through the works of Jacques Derrida and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe 3. On language and its profanation: Beyond representation in the poetic theory of Giorgio Agamben Conclusion: The Spiritual and Creative Failures of Representation, or On the Art of Writing Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"In light of the renewed debates about Heidegger and Nazism, Heidegger, Philosophy, and Politics is a timely book. Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe and Gadamer tackle Heidegger's thinking head on, providing new insights into his legacy." -- -Leonard Lawlor Penn State University

Read more less

Book SynopsisJean-Luc Nancy discusses his life’s work with Pierre-Philippe Jandin. As Nancy looks back on his philosophical texts, he thinks anew about democracy, community, jouissance, love, Christianity, and the arts.Trade Review"The Possibility of a World presents Jean-Luc Nancy in dialogue, allowing unique access to his thought. The book is particularly concerned with the possibility of inhabiting the world--a world that has become an object of calculation and mastery. For Nancy, such a habitus entails an ethos, or an 'ethics of the world' that involves the re-creation of the world. In the context of his thinking of such an ethical habitus, Nancy continues, throughout the book, his inventive engagement with Heidegger's thought as well as his ongoing debate with Derrida. This new book is an important contribution to Nancy's rethinking of the world and sense." -- -David Pettigrew Southern Connecticut State University

Read more less

Book SynopsisJean-Luc Nancy discusses his life’s work with Pierre-Philippe Jandin. As Nancy looks back on his philosophical texts, he thinks anew about democracy, community, jouissance, love, Christianity, and the arts.Trade Review"The Possibility of a World presents Jean-Luc Nancy in dialogue, allowing unique access to his thought. The book is particularly concerned with the possibility of inhabiting the world--a world that has become an object of calculation and mastery. For Nancy, such a habitus entails an ethos, or an 'ethics of the world' that involves the re-creation of the world. In the context of his thinking of such an ethical habitus, Nancy continues, throughout the book, his inventive engagement with Heidegger's thought as well as his ongoing debate with Derrida. This new book is an important contribution to Nancy's rethinking of the world and sense." -- -David Pettigrew Southern Connecticut State University

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Future Life of Trauma discusses the intersections between psychoanalysis and postcolonial studies in the concept of trauma. It examines the character of the traumatic event as it occurs in the Freudian metapsychology, the 1947 Partition of British India, and the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Read more less

Book SynopsisJean-Luc Nancy provides an analysis of the anti-Semitic aspects of Heidegger's recently published Black Notebooks. Nancy refers to a philosophical or historial anti-Semitism marked, nonetheless, by the banality of ordinary anti-Semitism pervading Europe. Heidegger's thought is placed in the broader context of the European (especially Christian) impulse toward new beginnings.Trade Review"A relentlessly powerful probe, masterfully cast, soundly translated. Rezoning Arendt's sense of banality, the work commits itself to handling the disturbingly blithe crudeness of anti-semitism in philosophical headquarters. One of the greatest philosophers of our time, Jean-Luc Nancy tracks Heidegger's descent, addressing the scandalous incompatibility of racist outburst and the question of Being. Covering a range of assault from the euphemization and derealization of anti-Semitic stances to the tragic consequences of juridical logic, Nancy goes after a traumatically enduring record of human/inhuman failure." -- -Avital Ronell New York UniversityTable of ContentsTranslator's Preface. Both/And: Heidegger's Equivocality One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Coda Supplement Acknowledgments Notes

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Marrano Spirit brings together work by major scholars who collectively pursue the reciprocal influence between Jacques Derrida and Hispanism: his reception within intellectual circles in Spain and Latin America, on the one hand, and the Hispanist or marrano inflection of Derrida’s philosophical writings on the other.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Marrano Spirit brings together work by major scholars who collectively pursue the reciprocal influence between Jacques Derrida and Hispanism: his reception within intellectual circles in Spain and Latin America, on the one hand, and the Hispanist or marrano inflection of Derrida’s philosophical writings on the other.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMonkey Trouble explores the turn toward immanence in contemporary posthumanism, which aims to extend hospitality to animals, plants, and even insentient things. This book argues that the displacement of anthropocentrism must cultivate a human/nonhuman relationality that affirms the immanent transcendency spawned by our phantasmatic humanness.Trade Review"Posthumanists, new materialists, neovitalists, cosmopoliticians, accelerationists, xenofeminists, post-poststructuralists, and speculative realists will have much to argue with here. But this is an argument they-we-would be well advised to have at this historical moment-a decade or two into the broader 'nonhuman turn'-given the often baroque claims, naive enthusiasms, and extravagant contradictions performed in its name. In Peterson's meticulous and elliptical critique we encounter a forceful Counter-Reformation against the more heretical proclamations of posthumanism; along with a nuanced insistence that-when all is said and done-we are human, all too human, after all." -- -Dominic Pettman The New School for Social ResearchTable of ContentsIntroduction (1) The Scandal of the Human: Immanent Transcendency and the Question of Animal Language (2) Sovereign Silence: The Desire for Answering Speech (3) The Gravity of Melancholia: A Critique of Speculative Realism (4) Listing Toward Cosmocracy: The Limits of Hospitality Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe fourth volume of Blanchot’s war-time chronicles reflects a commitment to silence and a detachment from circumstance, as Germany’s occupation of France reaches its end. Convinced that disaster is now insuperable, Blanchot neutralizes the nihilism of that position through making it the basis of a new language of human relation.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Michael Holland 1 The Mystery of Criticism 11 Return to the Source 16 From One Novel to Another 21 The Four Gospels 27 From Jean- Paul to Giraudoux 31 A Diary without Episodes 36 On the Subject of Language 40 The Romance of Mademoiselle Aïssé 45 The Joy of Storytelling 49 Outlawed Idols 53 The Art of André Dhôtel 58 Balzac’s Way of Working 63 The Gothic Novel 68 The Secrets of the Dream 73 A Novel by Jarry 78 Novellas and Stories 84 Chateaubriand’s Secret 88 Fantastic Novels 93 Air and Dreams 97 Joyce’s First Novel 102 A Secret Tone 107 The Literary I 112 Charles Cros 117 The Birth of Rome 122 William Blake 127 On the Various Ways of Dying 132 Pages by Paul Claudel 137 Narratives 142 Léon Bloy 147 Poems 153 The Concern for Sincerity 160 No Man’s Son 165 The Magical Experience of Henri Michaux 169 A Chronology of the “Chronicles of Intellectual Life” Collected in Faux pas 175 Notes 179 Index 195

Read more less

Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Problem of Mathematics in Critical Theory, 1 1. The Trouble with Logical Positivism: Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and the Origins of Critical Theory, 25 2. The Philosophy of Mathematics: Privation and Representation in Gershom Scholem’s Negative Aesthetics, 65 3. Infinitesimal Calculus: Subjectivity, Motion, and Franz Rosenzweig’s Messianism, 104 4. Geometry: Projection and Space in Siegfried Kracauer’s Aesthetics of Theory, 145 Conclusion: Who’s Afraid of Mathematics? Critical Theory in the Digital Age, 187 Acknowledgments 201 Notes 205 Bibliography 245 Index 269

Read more less

Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Problem of Mathematics in Critical Theory, 1 1. The Trouble with Logical Positivism: Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and the Origins of Critical Theory, 25 2. The Philosophy of Mathematics: Privation and Representation in Gershom Scholem’s Negative Aesthetics, 65 3. Infinitesimal Calculus: Subjectivity, Motion, and Franz Rosenzweig’s Messianism, 104 4. Geometry: Projection and Space in Siegfried Kracauer’s Aesthetics of Theory, 145 Conclusion: Who’s Afraid of Mathematics? Critical Theory in the Digital Age, 187 Acknowledgments 201 Notes 205 Bibliography 245 Index 269

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book argues that the work of Theodor W. Adorno is best understood through the lens of his highly suggestive—yet often overlooked—concept of the “uncoercive gaze,” an innovative way of relating to the object of one’s analysis that interweaves critical intimacy and analytic vigilance.Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Art of Reading | 1 1. Adorno and the Uncoercive Gaze | 17 2. Buried Possibility: Adorno and Arendt on Tradition | 39 3. The Inheritance of the Constellation: Adorno and Hegel | 70 4. Judging by Refraining from Judgment: Adorno’s Artwork and Its Einordnung | 95 5. The Literary Artwork between Word and Concept: Adorno and Agamben Reading Kafka | 115 6. The Artwork without Cardinal Direction: Notes on Orientation in Adorno | 131 7. False Life, Living On: Adorno with Derrida | 144 Conclusion: A Kind of Leave-Taking | 161 Acknowledgments | 167 Notes | 169 Index | 203

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book is about what exceeds or resists calculation—in life and in death. Its two parts and nine chapters highlight, in their coupling of Freud and Derrida (“Freuderrida”), the accidents both in and of psychoanalytic writing, and the philosophical question of what limits the openness of our horizon.Table of ContentsAbbreviations of Works Cited | ix Introduction: Freuderrida | 1 Part I Freuderrida 1. Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience (Foreign Bodies I) | 9 2. Traumatic Temporalities: Freud’s Other Legacy | 24 3. Is There Such a Thing as a Psychical Accident? | 35 4. What Are the Chances? Psychoanalysis and Telepathy (Foreign Bodies II) | 47 5. The Speculative Turn: Plato’s Place in the Theory of the Drives | 68 Part II Freuderrida 6. For the Love of Psychoanalysis: Deconstruction and Psychoanalysis | 101 7. Cruelty and Its Vicissitudes | 120 8. The “Question” of the Death Penalty | 139 9. A New Primal Scene: Derrida and the Scene of Execution | 151 Appendixes Crib Notes A. What Is at Play in Play? Derrida’s Fort/Da with Freud’s Fort/Da | 179 B. Devouring Figures: Little Red Riding Hood and the Final Seminars of Jacques Derrida | 190 Acknowledgements | 199 Notes | 201 Index | 243

Read more less