Adorno Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts
Geoffrey Boucher
I B Tauris, PB, 9781848859470
Dismissed as a miserable elitist who condemned popular culture in the name of 'high art', Theodore W. Adorno (1903-1969) is one of the most provocative and important yet least understood of contemporary thinkers. This book challenges this popular image and re-examines Adorno as a utopian philosopher who believed authentic art could save the world. Adorno Reframed is not only a comprehensive ... More/Buy
Against Fairness
Stephen T Asma
University of Chicago Press, HB, 9780226029863
From the school yard to the workplace, there's no charge more damning than 'You're being unfair!' Born out of democracy and raised in open markets, fairness has become our de facto modern creed. The very symbol of American ethics 'Lady Justice' wears a blindfold as she weighs the law on her impartial scale. In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have ... More/Buy
American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
University of Chicago Press, PB, 9780226006765
In American Nietzsche, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen delves deeply into Nietzsche's philosophy, and America's reception of it, to tell the story of his curious appeal. Beginning her account with Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom the seventeen-year-old Nietzsche read fervently, she shows how Nietzsche's ideas first burst on American shores at the turn of the twentieth century, and how they continued alternately to invigorate and ... More/Buy
The Book of Genesis: A Biography
Ronald Hendel
Princeton University Press, HB, 9780691140124
During its 2,500-year life, the book of Genesis has been the keystone to almost every important claim about reality, humanity, and God in Judaism and Christianity. And it continues to play a central role in debates about science, politics, and human rights. With clarity and skill, acclaimed biblical scholar Ronald Hendel provides a panoramic history of this iconic book, exploring its ... More/Buy
The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography
John J Collins
Princeton University Press, HB, 9780691143675
Since they were first discovered in the caves at Qumran in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have aroused more fascination--and more controversy--than perhaps any other archaeological find. They appear to have been hidden in the Judean desert by the Essenes, a Jewish sect that existed around the time of Jesus, and they continue to inspire veneration and conspiracy theories to this ... More/Buy
Double Vision: Moral Philosophy and Shakespearean Drama
Tzachi Zamir
Princeton University Press, PB, 9780691155456
Hamlet tells Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy. In Double Vision, philosopher and literary critic Tzachi Zamir argues that there are more things in Hamlet than are dreamt of--or at least conceded--by most philosophers. Making an original and persuasive case for the philosophical value of literature, Zamir suggests that certain ... More/Buy
Ecstasy of Communication (New Edition)
Jean Baudrillard
Semiotext(e), PB, 9781584350576
First published in France in 1987, The Ecstasy of Communication was Baudrillard's summarization of his work for a postdoctoral degree at the Sorbonne: a dense, poetically crystalline essay that boiled down two decades of radical, provocative theory into an aphoristically eloquent swan song to twentieth-century alienation. Baudrillard's quixotic effort to be recognized by the French intellectual establishment may have been doomed ... More/Buy
Ethics: The Big Questions
Julian Baggini
Quercus, HB, 9781780870342
The Big Questions series is designed to let renowned experts confront the 20 most fundamental and frequently asked questions of a major branch of science or philosophy. In The Big Questions: Ethics Julian Baggini, one of Britain's best-known philosophers, condenses complex, contemporary issues of right and wrong into 20 key questions. He examines how we can start to answer them, what ... More/Buy
Finding Oneself in the Other
G A Cohen
Princeton University Press, PB, 9780691148816
This is the second of three volumes of posthumously collected writings of G. A. Cohen, who was one of the leading, and most progressive, figures in contemporary political philosophy. This volume brings together some of Cohen's most personal philosophical and nonphilosophical essays, many of them previously unpublished. Rich in first-person narration, insight, and humor, these pieces vividly demonstrate why Thomas Nagel ... More/Buy
Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of the Transindividual
Muriel Combes
MIT Press, HB, 9780262018180
Gilbert Simondon (1924 - 1989), one of the most influential contemporary French philosophers, published only three works: L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (The individual and its physico-biological genesis, 1964) and L'individuation psychique et collective (Psychic and collective individuation, 1989), both drawn from his doctoral thesis, and Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (On the mode of existence of technical objects, 1958). ... More/Buy
LoveKnowledge: The Life of Philosophy from Socrates to Derrida
Roy Brand
Columbia University Press, HB, 9780231160445
Since its inception, philosophy has been more than an abstract search for truth or body of knowledge. It perfects one's understanding by means of discussion and dialogue and personal, poetic, or dramatic investigation. Philosophers such as Socrates, Spinoza, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida differ in almost every respect, yet they share a common method of practicing philosophy -- not as a ... More/Buy
Mapping Ideology
Slavoj Zizek
Verso Books, PB, 9781844675548
For a long time, the term 'ideology' was in disrepute, having become associated with such unfashionable notions as fundamental truth and the eternal verities. The tide has turned and recent years have seen a revival of interest in the questions that ideology poses to social and cultural theory and to political practice. Including Slavoj Zizek's study of the development of the ... More/Buy