A radical call for solidarity between humans and non-humans What is it that makes humans human? As science and technology challenge the boundaries between life and non-life, between organic and inorganic, this ancient question is more timely than ever. Acclaimed Object-Oriented philosopher Timothy Morton invites us to consider this philosophical issue as eminently political. It is in our relationship with non-humans that we decided the fate of ...
A comprehensive philosophy of contemporary life and politics, by one of the sharpest critics of the present We live in an age of impotence. Stuck between global war and global finance, between identity and capital, we seem to be incapable of producing the radical change that is so desperately needed. Is there still a way to disentangle ourselves from a global order that shapes our politics as well as our imagination? In his most systematic boo ...
A passionate attack on the tyranny of experts Modern life is being destroyed by experts and professionals. We have lost our amateur spirit and need to rediscover the radical and liberating pleasure of doing things we love. In The Amateur, thinker Andy Merrifield shows us how the many spheres of our lives—work, knowledge, cities, politics—have fallen into the hands of box tickers, bean counters and rule followers. In response, he corrals a team ...
In The Philosophy of Marx, Etienne Balibar provides an unsurpassed introduction to Marx and his followers. Written by one of political theory's leading thinkers, it examines all the key areas of Marx's writings in their wider historical and theoretical context – including the concepts of class struggle, ideology, humanism, progress, determinism, commodity fetishism, and the state. The Philosophy of Marx is a gateway into the thought of ...
A classic of twentieth-century thought, charting how society devours itself through the very rationality that was meant to set it free Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer are the leading figures of the Frankfurt School and this book is their magnum opus. Dialectic of Enlightenment is one of the most celebrated works of modern social philosophy and continues to impress in its wide-ranging ambition. Writing just after World War II and reflecting o ...
Michel Foucault remains the essential philosopher of the modern world Three decades after his death, Michel Foucault remains one of the towering intellectual figures of the last half-century. His works on sexuality, madness, the prison, and medicine are enduring classics. From 1971 until his death in 1984, Foucault gave public lectures at the famous College de France. These seminal events, attended by thousands, created the benchmarks for conte ...
Erdmut Wizisla’s groundbreaking work explores the important friendship between Walter Benjamin, the acclaimed critic and literary theorist, and Bertolt Brecht, one of the twentieth century’s most influential playwrights, directors and poets, during the crucial interwar years. From the first meeting between Benjamin and Brecht to their experiences in exile, the events in this friendship are illuminated by personal correspondence, journal entries, ...
Author of the influential Relational Aesthetics examines the dynamics of ideology Nicolas Bourriaud is a leading theorist and art curator. Here he looks to the future of art as a place to tackle the excluded, the disposable, and waste—the exform. He argues that the great theoretical battles to understand the present will be fought in the realms of ideology, psychoanalysis and art and a “realist” theory and practice must begin by uncovering the ...
Controversial manifesto by acclaimed cultural theorist debated by leading writers Fredric Jameson’s pathbreaking essay “An American Utopia” radically questions standard leftist notions of what constitutes an emancipated society. Advocated here are—among other things—universal conscription, the full acknowledgment of envy and resentment as a fundamental challenge to any communist society, and the acceptance that the division between work and lei ...
