Terror from the air
(available to order)
Summary:
According to Peter Sloterdijk, the twentieth century started on a specific day and place: April 22, 1915, at Ypres in Northern France. That day, the German army used a chlorine gas meant to exterminate indiscriminately. Until then, war, as described by Clausewitz and practiced by Napoleon, involved attacking the adversary's vital function first. Using poison gas signaled(...)
Terror from the air
Actions:
(available to order)
Summary:
According to Peter Sloterdijk, the twentieth century started on a specific day and place: April 22, 1915, at Ypres in Northern France. That day, the German army used a chlorine gas meant to exterminate indiscriminately. Until then, war, as described by Clausewitz and practiced by Napoleon, involved attacking the adversary's vital function first. Using poison gas signaled the passage from classical war to terrorism. This terror from the air inaugurated an era in which the main idea was no longer to target the enemy's body, but their environment. From then on, what would be attacked in wartime as well as in peacetime would be the very conditions necessary for life.
Critical Theory
$34.50
(available to order)
Summary:
In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "radical orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In this book, the authors go head to head for(...)
The monstrosity of Christ: paradox or dialectic?
Actions:
Price:
$34.50
(available to order)
Summary:
In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "radical orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In this book, the authors go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have proven themselves worthy adversaries--and have also shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.
Critical Theory
$22.00
(available to order)
Summary:
The three essays collected in this book offer a succinct introduction to Agamben's recent work through an investigation of Foucault's notion of the apparatus, a meditation on the intimate link of philosophy to friendship, and a reflection on contemporariness, or the singular relation one may have to one's own time.
What is an apparatus? and other essays
Actions:
Price:
$22.00
(available to order)
Summary:
The three essays collected in this book offer a succinct introduction to Agamben's recent work through an investigation of Foucault's notion of the apparatus, a meditation on the intimate link of philosophy to friendship, and a reflection on contemporariness, or the singular relation one may have to one's own time.
Critical Theory
Criticism and truth
$23.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Written in 1966 in response to an attack on Barthes's sur Racine, this polemic answers many of the charges brought against French new criticism by conservative, academic, 19th-century-oriented critics: lack of "objectivity," fondness for "jargon," indifference to the author's intention, etc. More positively, Barthes outlines some key concerns: plurality of meanings;(...)
Criticism and truth
Actions:
Price:
$23.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Written in 1966 in response to an attack on Barthes's sur Racine, this polemic answers many of the charges brought against French new criticism by conservative, academic, 19th-century-oriented critics: lack of "objectivity," fondness for "jargon," indifference to the author's intention, etc. More positively, Barthes outlines some key concerns: plurality of meanings; analysis, based on linguistics, of the structures of possible meanings; the idea of a science of literature; and the dynamics of reading. Though some of the issues are specific to the French literary-academic situation, the bulk of this brief essay is a lively and accessible statement of an important modern critical position that is worth reading.
Critical Theory
books
The human condition
$27.50
(available to order)
Summary:
This new edition, published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of its original publication, contains an improved and expanded index and a new introduction by noted Arendt scholar Margaret Canovan which incisively analyzes the book's argument and examines its present relevance. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved(...)
The human condition
Actions:
Price:
$27.50
(available to order)
Summary:
This new edition, published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of its original publication, contains an improved and expanded index and a new introduction by noted Arendt scholar Margaret Canovan which incisively analyzes the book's argument and examines its present relevance. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.
books
January 1998, Chicago
Critical Theory
The origins of Greek thought
$18.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Jean-Pierre Vernant's concise, brillant essay on the origins of Greek thought relates the cultural achievement of the ancient Greeks to their physical and social environment and shows that what they believed was inseparable from the way they lived.
The origins of Greek thought
Actions:
Price:
$18.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Jean-Pierre Vernant's concise, brillant essay on the origins of Greek thought relates the cultural achievement of the ancient Greeks to their physical and social environment and shows that what they believed was inseparable from the way they lived.
Critical Theory
$39.95
(available to order)
Summary:
In this study, Jean-Pierre Vernant delineates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece. The book takes us far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon to reveal a fundamentally other culture — one of slavery, of masks and death, of scapegoats, of ritual hunting, and of ecstasies. Vernant’s discussions of various institutions and practices(...)
Myth and society in ancient Greece
Actions:
Price:
$39.95
(available to order)
Summary:
In this study, Jean-Pierre Vernant delineates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece. The book takes us far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon to reveal a fundamentally other culture — one of slavery, of masks and death, of scapegoats, of ritual hunting, and of ecstasies. Vernant’s discussions of various institutions and practices (including war, marriage, and sacrifice) detail the complex intersection of the religious, social, and political structures of ancient Greece. The book concludes with Vernant’s authoritative genealogy of the study of myth from Antiquity to structuralism and beyond. “Myth,” he writes, “brings into operation a form of logic which we may describe, unlike the logic of noncontradiction of the philosophers, as a logic of the ambiguous and the equivocal.”
Critical Theory
$25.00
(available to order)
Summary:
Translates by Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. A bold new translation of a masterpiece of early social science that has found enthusiasts among such artists and scholars as James Joyce and Harold Bloom. Although Vico lived his whole life as an obscure academic in Naples, his New Science is an astonishingly ambitious attempt to provide a comprehensive(...)
The new science of Giambattista Vico
Actions:
Price:
$25.00
(available to order)
Summary:
Translates by Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. A bold new translation of a masterpiece of early social science that has found enthusiasts among such artists and scholars as James Joyce and Harold Bloom. Although Vico lived his whole life as an obscure academic in Naples, his New Science is an astonishingly ambitious attempt to provide a comprehensive science of all human society by decoding the history, mythology, and law of the ancient world. It argues that the key to true understanding lies in accepting that the customs and emotional lives of the Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, Jews, and Babylonians were utterly different from our own. In examining these huge themes, Vico offers countless fresh insights into topics ranging from physics to politics, money to monsters, and family structures to the Flood. Deeply influential since the dawn of Romanticism, the New Science even inspired the framework for Joyce's Finnegans Wake. This powerful new translation makes it clear why this work marked a turning-point in humanist thinking as significant as Newton's contemporary revolution in physics.
Critical Theory
$28.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Duffy illuminates speed as a logic and genuine pleasure of modernity. He plunges full-throttle into speed's 'adrenaline aesthetics,' offering deft readings of works ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", through J. G. Ballard's "Crash", to the cautionary consumerism of Ralph Nader. He describes how speed changed understandings of space, distance, chance,(...)
The speed handbook: velocity, pleasure, modernism
Actions:
Price:
$28.95
(available to order)
Summary:
Duffy illuminates speed as a logic and genuine pleasure of modernity. He plunges full-throttle into speed's 'adrenaline aesthetics,' offering deft readings of works ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", through J. G. Ballard's "Crash", to the cautionary consumerism of Ralph Nader. He describes how speed changed understandings of space, distance, chance, and violence; how the experience of speed was commodified in the dawning era of mass consumption; and how people were incited to abhor slowness and desire speed. He examines how they were trained by new media such as the cinema to see, hear, and sense speed, and how speed, demanded of the efficient assembly-line worker, was given back to that worker as the chief thrill of leisure. Assessing speed's political implications, Duffy considers how speed pleasure was offered to citizens based on criteria including their ability to pay and their gender, and how speed quickly became something to be patrolled by governments. Drawing on novels, news reports, photography, advertising, and much more, Duffy provides a breakneck tour through the cultural dynamics of speed.
Critical Theory
$12.50
(available to order)
Summary:
Because much of Leibniz's thinking in the realm of the sciences flowed from his philosophy, understanding how he approached the natural world and humanity's place in it is vital to understanding his contributions to modern science. This edition collects two of Leibniz's foundational works, "Discourse on Metaphysics" and "The Monadology," which expound on concepts of(...)
Discourse on metaphysics and the monadology
Actions:
Price:
$12.50
(available to order)
Summary:
Because much of Leibniz's thinking in the realm of the sciences flowed from his philosophy, understanding how he approached the natural world and humanity's place in it is vital to understanding his contributions to modern science. This edition collects two of Leibniz's foundational works, "Discourse on Metaphysics" and "The Monadology," which expound on concepts of philosophical "optimism"-that we live in the best of all possible worlds-and consequently features Leibniz's thoughts on the nature of physical matter. This classic work will intrigue all students of science and philosophy.
Critical Theory