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The Age of Precarity: Endless Crisis as an Art of Government
by Dario GentiliWhen Crisis Becomes the Norm: What Can We Do to Demand Change?Crisis 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?"
The Age of Nothing: How We Have Sought To Live Since The Death of God
by Peter WatsonThe closing months of 2008 saw the world's nations united in financial uncertainty. Amid endless reports of collapsing stock markets, failed banks, fiscal fraud and snowballing unemployment, THE AGE OF NOTHING offers a compelling insight into the demise of capitalism and the beginning of a new era.Peter Watson's scintillating thesis argues that the unprecedented credit crunch of 2008 was the result of a fundamental change in the fabric of society - one that became truly visible only as it reached its culmination.In a commanding narrative, Watson provides a historical perspective on the shift in our attitudes towards capitalism, while exploring the philosophical roots that underpin it. Of central importance in Watson's theory is Nietzsche's warning regarding mankind's responsibility for 'the death of God' - and the consequences thereof. Nietzsche's views on the frailty of human values in a world bereft of religious faith were echoed by writers including Tolstoy, Marx and Kandinsky - and his chilling message went on to resonate with thinkers throughout the 20th century. When Max Weber called the modern world 'disenchanted', and argued that society must choose to create a new value system based on knowledge or else surrender and embrace a religious faith, he was the latest in a long line of intellectuals attempting to address the problem Nietzsche had laid bare.With the arrival of THE AGE OF NOTHING, the line continues. The work fills a crucial gap in our intellectual history and serves as a comprehensive study of society's current predicament - as well as a timely answer to the question of what to do next.
The Age of Nothing: How We Have Sought To Live Since The Death of God
by Peter WatsonThe closing months of 2008 saw the world's nations united in financial uncertainty. Amid endless reports of collapsing stock markets, failed banks, fiscal fraud and snowballing unemployment, THE AGE OF NOTHING offers a compelling insight into the demise of capitalism and the beginning of a new era.Peter Watson's scintillating thesis argues that the unprecedented credit crunch of 2008 was the result of a fundamental change in the fabric of society - one that became truly visible only as it reached its culmination.In a commanding narrative, Watson provides a historical perspective on the shift in our attitudes towards capitalism, while exploring the philosophical roots that underpin it. Of central importance in Watson's theory is Nietzsche's warning regarding mankind's responsibility for 'the death of God' - and the consequences thereof. Nietzsche's views on the frailty of human values in a world bereft of religious faith were echoed by writers including Tolstoy, Marx and Kandinsky - and his chilling message went on to resonate with thinkers throughout the 20th century. When Max Weber called the modern world 'disenchanted', and argued that society must choose to create a new value system based on knowledge or else surrender and embrace a religious faith, he was the latest in a long line of intellectuals attempting to address the problem Nietzsche had laid bare.With the arrival of THE AGE OF NOTHING, the line continues. The work fills a crucial gap in our intellectual history and serves as a comprehensive study of society's current predicament - as well as a timely answer to the question of what to do next.
The Age of Lovecraft
by Carl H. Sederholm Jeffrey Andrew WeinstockHoward Phillips Lovecraft, the American author of "weird tales" who died in 1937 impoverished and relatively unknown, has become a twenty-first-century star, cropping up in places both anticipated and unexpected. Authors, filmmakers, and shapers of popular culture like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Guillermo del Toro acknowledge his influence; his fiction is key to the work of posthuman philosophers and cultural critics such as Graham Harman and Eugene Thacker; and Lovecraft's creations have achieved unprecedented cultural ubiquity, even showing up on the animated program South Park.The Age of Lovecraft is the first sustained analysis of Lovecraft in relation to twenty-first-century critical theory and culture, delving into troubling aspects of his thought and writings. With contributions from scholars including Gothic expert David Punter, historian W. Scott Poole, musicologist Isabella van Elferen, and philosopher of the posthuman Patricia MacCormack, this wide-ranging volume brings together thinkers from an array of disciplines to consider Lovecraft's contemporary cultural presence and its implications. Bookended by a preface from horror fiction luminary Ramsey Campbell and an extended interview with the central author of the New Weird, China Miéville, the collection addresses the question of "why Lovecraft, why now?" through a variety of approaches and angles. A must for scholars, students, and theoretically inclined readers interested in Lovecraft, popular culture, and intellectual trends, The Age of Lovecraft offers the most thorough examination of Lovecraft's place in contemporary philosophy and critical theory to date as it seeks to shed light on the larger phenomenon of the dominance of weird fiction in the twenty-first century.Contributors: Jessica George; Brian Johnson, Carleton U; James Kneale, U College London; Patricia MacCormack, Anglia Ruskin U, Cambridge; Jed Mayer, SUNY New Paltz; China Miéville, Warwick U; W. Scott Poole, College of Charleston; David Punter, U of Bristol; David Simmons, Northampton U; Isabella van Elferen, Kingston U London.
An Age of Limits: Social Theory for the 21st Century
by Ralph SchroederAn Age of Limits outlines a new social theory for understanding contemporary society. Providing an analysis of why political, economic and cultural powers face constraints across the global North and beyond, this bold book argues that forces which address current challenges must confront the limits of the interplay between dominant institutions.
The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart (The CBC Massey Lectures)
by Astra TaylorThese days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn’t working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on? In this urgent cultural diagnosis, author and activist Astra Taylor exposes how seemingly disparate crises—rising inequality and declining mental health, the ecological emergency, and the threat of authoritarianism—originate from a social order built on insecurity. From home ownership and education to the wellness industry and policing, many of the institutions and systems that promise to make us more secure actually undermine us. Mixing social critique, memoir, history, political analysis, and philosophy, this genre-bending book rethinks both insecurity and security from the ground up. By facing our existential insecurity and embracing our vulnerability, Taylor argues, we can begin to develop more caring, inclusive, and sustainable forms of security to help us better weather the challenges ahead. The Age of Insecurity will transform how you understand yourself and society—while illuminating a path toward meaningful change.
An Age of Hubris: Colonialism, Christianity, and the Xhosa in the Nineteenth Century (Reconsiderations in Southern African History)
by Timothy KeeganAn Age of Hubris is the first comprehensive overview of the impact of missionary enterprise on the Xhosa chiefdoms of South Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century, chronicling a world punctuated by war and millenarian eruptions, and the steady encroachment of settler land hunger and colonial hegemony. With it, Timothy Keegan contributes new approaches to Xhosa history and, most important, a new dimension to the much-trodden but still vital topic of the impact—cultural, social, and political—of missionary activity among African peoples.The most significant historical works on the Xhosa have either become dated, foreground imperial-colonial history, or remain heavily theoretical in nature. In contrast, Keegan draws fruitfully on the rich Africanist comparative and anthropological literature now available, as well as extant primary sources, to foreground the Xhosa themselves in this crucial work. In so doing, he highlights the ways in which Africans utilized new ideas, resources, and practices to make sense of, react to, and resist the forces of colonial dispossession confronting them, emphasizing missionary frustration and African agency.
The Age Of Globalization
by Benedict AndersonHistory is forged through the travel of ideas across continents--as well as by bombs. The Age of Globalization is an account of the unlikely connections that made up late nineteenth-century politics and culture, and in particular between militant anarchists in Europe and the Americas, and anti-imperialist uprisings in Cuba, China and Japan. Told through the complex intellectual interactions of two great Filipino writers--the political novelist José Rizal and the pioneering folklorist Isabelo de los Reyes--The Age of Globalization is a brilliantly original work on how global exchanges shaped the nationalist movements of the time.
The Age of German Liberation 1795-1815
by Friedrich MeineckeThis title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.
The Age of German Idealism: Routledge History of Philosophy Volume VI (Routledge History of Philosophy #Vol. 6)
by Robert C. Solomon Kathleen M. HigginsThe turn of the nineteenth century marked a rich and exciting explosion of philosophical energy and talent. The enormity of the revolution set off in philosophy by Immanuel Kant was comparable, by Kant's own estimation, with the Copernican Revolution that ended the Middle Ages. The movement he set in motion, the fast-moving and often cantankerous dialectic of `German Idealism', inspired some of the most creative philosophers in modern times: including G.W.F. Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer as well as those who reacted against Kant - Marx and Kierkegaard, for example.This volume traces the emergence of German Idealism from Kant and his predecessors through the first half of the nineteenth century, ending with the irrationalism of Kierkegaard. It provides a broad, scholarly introduction to this period for students of philosophy and related disciplines, as well as some original interpretations of these authors. Each chapter is written by a distinguished scholar in the field. A glossary of technical terms together with a chronological table of philosophical, scientific and other important cultural events are provided.
The Age of German Idealism: Routledge History of Philosophy Volume 6 (Routledge History Of Philosophy Ser.)
by Robert C. Solomon Kathleen M. HigginsGerman Idealism was one of the most fertile and important movements in the history of Western philosophy. This volume includes eleven chapters on all aspects and the period's most influential philosophers, including Kant and Hegel.
The Age of Figurative Theo-humanism
by Franco CirulliThis is a comprehensive, integrated account of eighteenth and early nineteenth century German figurative aesthetics. The author focuses on the theologically-minded discourse on the visual arts that unfolded in Germany, circa 1754-1828, to critique the assumption that German romanticism and idealism pursued a formalist worship of beauty and of unbridled artistic autonomy. This book foregrounds what the author terms an "Aesthetics of Figurative Theo humanism". It begins with the sculptural aesthetics of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Gottfried Herder before moving on to Karl Philipp Moritz, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder and Friedrich Schelling. The reader will discover how this aesthetic tradition, after an initial obsession with classical sculpture, chose painting as the medium more suited to the modern self's exploration of transcendence. This paradigm-shift is traced in the aesthetic discourse of Friedrich Schlegel and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In this work, the widespread prejudice that such aesthetics initiated a so-called "Modern Grand Narrative of the Arts" is deconstructed. One accusation directed at 18th century aesthetics has been that it realised into "Art" what had previously been a living, rich tissue of meaning: this work shows how Figurative Theo humanism's attention to aesthetic values was never detached from deeper theological and humanistic considerations. Furthermore, it argues that this aesthetic discourse never forgot that it emerged from modern disenchantment--far from occluding the dimension of secularization, it draws poignant meaning from it. Anyone with an interest in the current debates about the scope and nature of aesthetics(philosophers of art, theology, or religion) will find this book of great interest and assistance.
The Age Of Epistemology: Aristotelian Logic In Early Modern Philosophy 1500-1700
by Marco SgarbiMarco Sgarbi tells a new history of epistemology from the Renaissance to Newton through the impact of Aristotelian scientific doctrines on key figures including Galileo Galilei, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Isaac Newton. This history illuminates the debates philosophers had on deduction, meditation, regressus, syllogism, experiment and observation, the certainty of mathematics and the foundations of scientific knowledge. Sgarbi focuses on the Aristotelian education key philosophers received, providing a concrete historical framework through which to read epistemological re-definitions, developments and transformations over three centuries. The Age of Epistemology further highlights how Aristotelianism itself changed over time by absorbing doctrines from other philosophical traditions and generating a variety of interpretations in the process.
The Age of Disintegration: The Politics and Economics of Division
by Bill JordanThis book addresses the disintegration of collective units of all kinds, under the twin pressures of economic globalisation and technological automation. At the level of super-states, the constituent nations of the European Union and the former Soviet Union, and of the United Kingdom, have demonstrated this dynamic; and their constituent groups, associations and communities have done so too. The author analyses the causes and consequences of these processes, at the global, national and local levels, the significance of increased mobility and migration, and the politics of resistance to some damaging effects. He recommends ways in which public policy can offset some of the latter, including radical changes in tax-benefits systems, already being trialled in several countries worldwide.
Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
by Ian Goldin Chris KutarnaThe present is a contest between the bright and dark sides of discovery. To avoid being torn apart by its stresses, we need to recognize the fact—and gain courage and wisdom from the past. Age of Discovery shows how.Now is the best moment in history to be alive, but we have never felt more anxious or divided. Human health, aggregate wealth and education are flourishing. Scientific discovery is racing forward. But the same global flows of trade, capital, people and ideas that make gains possible for some people deliver big losses to others—and make us all more vulnerable to one another. Business and science are working giant revolutions upon our societies, but our politics and institutions evolve at a much slower pace. That’s why, in a moment when everyone ought to be celebrating giant global gains, many of us are righteously angry at being left out and stressed about where we’re headed.To make sense of present shocks, we need to step back and recognize: we’ve been here before. The first Renaissance, the time of Columbus, Copernicus, Gutenberg and others, likewise redrew all maps of the world, democratized communication and sparked a flourishing of creative achievement. But their world also grappled with the same dark side of rapid change: social division, political extremism, insecurity, pandemics and other unintended consequences of discovery.Now is the second Renaissance. We can still flourish—if we learn from the first.
An Age of Crisis: Man and World in Eighteenth Century French Thought (Goucher Colloquium)
by Lester G. CrockerOriginally published in 1959. This book examines the French Enlightenment by analyzing critical thought in eighteenth-centruy France. It examines the philosophes' views on evil, free will and determinism, and human nature. This is an interesting group to look at, according to Crocker, because French Enlightenment thinkers straddled two vastly different time periods.
The Age of Belief: The Medieval Philosophers
by Anne Jackson FreemantleDuring the thousand-year span of the Middle Ages, philosophers discussed the eternal questions of mankind within the most unified society known to Western culture, linked by a single religious faith which encompassed all European life. Inside this framework, scholars drew upon Greek thought and Christian revelation, exploring the nature of being, the problem of fate versus free will, and various views of ultimate reality. This perceptive book by a noted author and critic traces the great arguments of Medieval philosophy through the writings of major thinkers like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Boethius and Abelard.
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
by Evan OsnosWinner of the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction. An Economist Best Book of 2014. A vibrant, colorful, and revelatory inner history of China during a moment of profound transformation From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes  As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals-fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture-consider themselves "angry youth," dedicated to resisting the West's influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth? Writing with great narrative verve and a keen sense of irony, Osnos follows the moving stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battleground between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail.
The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
by Michael FoleyThe good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfilment. The bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of TheAge ofAbsurdity- a wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of wellbeing and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life. Michael Foley examines the elusive condition of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and ageing are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships and perpetual youth. In conclusion, rather than denouncing and rejecting the age, Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today's world - finding happiness in its absurdity.
Age-Appropriate Digital Channels (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)
by Alireza Darvishy Hans-Peter Hutter Alexander SeifertAs a client or a developer, what do you need to consider when developing an age-appropriate website or mobile application? This book explains how age-related limitations affect the use of websites and mobile applications. If gerontological aspects are not taken into account in the design of digital channels, older people tend to do without them. Therefore, websites and mobile applications need to take into account the needs of older people. In the book, you will find useful recommendations on how to do this so that your websites and mobile apps are easy to use for everyone.
Agape: An Ethical Analysis
by Gene OutkaA professor of religion considers the various ethical problems raised by the idea of unconditional love.
Against White Interiority: A Racial Critique of Therapeutic Reason
by Sam BinkleyThis book presents a bold critique of the new racial sensibility that has attained global prominence following the police murder of George Floyd. Through a set of managerial and therapeutic discourses, this new sensibility describes the inner racial life of white subjects, inducing them to adopt a therapeutic attitude toward deeply interiorized white emotions and conflicts. In so doing, the new racial sensibility promises to remake whiteness in the image of the self-aware racial ally. However, such an appeal, it is argued, serves the subtle function of the preservation of white racial dispositions, and the reproduction of the very racism it sets out to transform. Adopting a critical lens derived from Michel Foucault’s analysis of sexuality, together with an engagement with sociological, psychoanalytic and phenomenological reflections on shame as a racial affect, a critique of white interiority considers alternative frames through which white anti-racist subjection might be imagined.
Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity
by Nelson Maldonado-TorresNelson Maldonado-Torres argues that European modernity has become inextricable from the experience of the warrior and conqueror. In Against War, he develops a powerful critique of modernity, and he offers a critical response combining ethics, political theory, and ideas rooted in Christian and Jewish thought. Maldonado-Torres focuses on the perspectives of those who inhabit the underside of western modernity, particularly Jewish, black, and Latin American theorists. He analyzes the works of the Jewish Lithuanian-French philosopher and religious thinker Emmanuel Levinas, the Martiniquean psychiatrist and political thinker Frantz Fanon, and the Catholic Argentinean-Mexican philosopher, historian, and theologian Enrique Dussel. Considering Levinas's critique of French liberalism and Nazi racial politics, and the links between them, Maldonado-Torres identifies a "master morality" of dominion and control at the heart of western modernity. This master morality constitutes the center of a warring paradigm that inspires and legitimizes racial policies, imperial projects, and wars of invasion. Maldonado-Torres refines the description of modernity's war paradigm and the Levinasian critique through Fanon's phenomenology of the colonized and racial self and the politics of decolonization, which he reinterprets in light of the Levinasian conception of ethics. Drawing on Dussel's genealogy of the modern imperial and warring self, Maldonado-Torres theorizes race as the naturalization of war's death ethic. He offers decolonial ethics and politics as an antidote to modernity's master morality and the paradigm of war. Against War advances the de-colonial turn, showing how theory and ethics cannot be conceived without politics, and how they all need to be oriented by the imperative of decolonization in the modern/colonial and postmodern world.
Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries
by Noah LevineBuddha was a revolutionary. His practice was subversive; his message, seditious. His enlightened point of view went against the norms of his day—in his words, "against the stream." His teachings changed the world, and now they can change you too.Presenting the basics of Buddhism with personal anecdotes, exercises, and guided meditations, bestselling author Noah Levine guides the reader along a spiritual path that has led to freedom from suffering and has saved lives for 2,500 years. Levine should know. Buddhist meditation saved him from a life of addiction and crime. He went on to counsel and teach countless others the Buddhist way to freedom, and here he shares those life-changing lessons with you. Read and awaken to a new and better life.
Against the Profit Motive
by Nicholas R. ParrilloIn America today, a public official’s lawful income consists of a salary. But until a century ago, the law frequently provided for officials to make money on a profit-seeking basis. Prosecutors won a fee for each defendant convicted. Tax collectors received a percentage of each evasion uncovered. Naval officers took a reward for each ship sunk. Numerous other officers were likewise paid for #147;performance. ” This book is the first to document the American government’s for-profit past, to discover how profit-seeking defined officialdom’s relationship to the citizenry, and to explain how lawmakers#151;by ultimately banishing the profit motive in favor of the salary#151;transformed that relationship forever.