Sowell, Thomas. Intellectuals and Society. New York: Basic, 2010.
Thomas Sowell occupies a unique place in American intellectual life, at the intersection of economics, social science, and public philosophy, even as he writes a lively syndicated column. He is equally at home discoursing on “Say’s Law” (or the Law of Market) and exposing divisive and counterproductive affirmative-action programs. He is also among this nation’s most prominent black conservatives, which suggests a certain independence of mind and spirit. That independence, along with truly prodigious learning, is amply on display in his latest book.
Intellectuals and Society is something of a summa of Sowell’s concerns over the last 40 years. It builds upon the “informal trilogy”—A Conflict of Visions, The Vision of the Anointed, and The Quest for Cosmic Justice—in which he first examined the conflict between a “constrained” vision of politics and social change and a vision of society by which intellectuals (“the anointed”) seek permanent “solutions” to social and national problems. Modern intellectuals, Sowell writes, have a “vision of themselves as a self-appointed vanguard, leading towards a better world.” Unlike advocates of the more conservative, constrained vision, this intellectual vanguard tends to take the “benefits of civilization for granted.” The “vision of the anointed” lacks respect for the wisdom inherent in experience and common opinion. Its practitioners value abstractions—dreams for a peaceful, egalitarian world where conflicts have been overcome—over the “tacit knowledge” available to the parent, the consumer, the entrepreneur, and the citizen.
Sowell vigorously defends wisdom—practical reason—against an abstract rationalism that values ideas over the experience of actual human beings. Intellectuals, he argues, are particularly suspicious of the ties ordinary men and women feel to family, religion, and country. They look down upon “objective reality and objective criteria” in the social sciences, art, music, and philosophy. Their “systems” tend to be self-referential and lack accountability in the external world. . . .
Read the rest here: http://www.city-journal.org/2010/bc0618dm.html.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
"Challenges of German Idealism from Kant to Hegel," Centre for German Idealism, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, August 27, 2010.
Programme:
9:45 Welcome
10:00 Session 1: Kant
11:45 Session 2: Kant
14:00 Session 3: Fichte and Hegel
16:00 Session 4: Hegel
9:45 Welcome
10:00 Session 1: Kant
- Wooram Hong (Leuven University), Kant’s Metaphysical Deduction of the Idea of God in the CPR
- Stijn van Impe (Ghent University), Kant’s Moral Despair Argument against Atheism
- Arthur Kok (Tilburg University), The Moral Essence of Kant’s Philosophy
11:45 Session 2: Kant
- Hein van den Berg (VU University Amsterdam), Kant on Biology and Explanation
- Job Zinkstok (University of Groningen), The Formality of Kant’s Logic and His Characterization of Judgment
14:00 Session 3: Fichte and Hegel
- Michael Kolkman (University of Warwick), The Co-Genesis of Self and Other from Fichte’s Tathandlung
- Emiliano Acosta (Ghent University), The Argumentative Structure in the Establishment of the Three Axioms of Fichte’s Foundation of the Entire Doctrine of Science (1794/95)
- Kirill Chepurin (State University – Higher School of Economics, Moscow), The Place of the Soul’s Intensity in Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit: Concrete Subjectivity and the res publica
16:00 Session 4: Hegel
- Michela Bordignon (University of Padova), Contradictio regula veri
- Elisa Magrì (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa), Difference and Negation in Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind
- Ralph Palm (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Hegel’s Conception of Sublation: Misreadings and Implications
Pub: Huhn, Peter, et al., eds. THE LIVING HANDBOOK OF NARRATOLOGY. Hamburg: Hamburg UP, 2009 - .
The Living Handbook of Narratology (LHN) is based on the Handbook of Narratology first published by Walter de Gruyter in 2009. As an open access publication it makes available all of the 32 articles contained in the original print version—and more: the LHN also offers the additional functionality of an electronic publication, including full-text search facility, one-click-export of reference information, and digital humanities tools for text analysis.
The LHN continuously expands its original content base by adding new articles on further concepts and theories fundamental to narratology, and to the study of narrative in general. The LHN is published in a WiKi-System: it offers registered narratologists the opportunity to comment on existing articles, to suggest additions or corrections, and to submit new articles to the editors.
Download the essays here: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Main_Page.
The LHN continuously expands its original content base by adding new articles on further concepts and theories fundamental to narratology, and to the study of narrative in general. The LHN is published in a WiKi-System: it offers registered narratologists the opportunity to comment on existing articles, to suggest additions or corrections, and to submit new articles to the editors.
- Author by Jörg Schönert
- Character by Fotis Jannidis
- Cognitive Narratology by David Herman
- Coherence by Michael Toolan
- Conversational Narration / Oral Narration by Monika Fludernik
- Dialogism by David Shepherd
- Event and Eventfulness by Peter Hühn
- Fictional vs. Factual Narration by Jean-Marie Schaeffer
- Focalization by Burkhard Niederhoff
- Heteroglossia by Valerij Tjupa
- Identity and Narration by Michael Bamberg
- Illusion (Aesthetic) by Werner Wolf
- Implied Author by Wolf Schmid
- Mediacy and Narrative Mediation by Jan Alber and Monika Fludernik
- Metalepsis by John Pier
- Metanarration and Metafiction by Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning
- Narration in Film by Johann N. Schmidt
- Narration in Poetry and Drama by Peter Hühn and Roy Sommer
- Narration in Various Disciplines by Norbert Meuter
- Narration in Various Media by Marie-Laure Ryan
- Narrative Constitution by Michael Scheffel
- Narrative Levels by Didier Coste and John Pier
- Narrativity by H. Porter Abbott
- Narratology by Jan Christoph Meister
- Narrator by Uri Margolin
- Performativity by Ute Berns
- Perspective / Point of View by Burkhard Niederhoff
- Reader by Gerald Prince
- Schemata by Catherine Emmott and Marc Alexander
- Space by Marie-Laure Ryan
- Speech Representation by Brian McHale
- Tellability by Raphaël Baroni
Download the essays here: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Main_Page.
Lamey, Andy. "The Thinking Man's Marxist." LITERARY REVIEW OF CANADA June 1, 2010.
Cohen, G. A. Why Not Socialism?. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009.
Cohen’s path in that world saw him study philosophy at McGill University and, beginning in 1961, Oxford. The image of a staunch Marxist such as Cohen arriving at Oxford that year is incongruous. Oxford was then a bastion of so-called analytic philosophy, a tradition of thought that traced its roots to British philosophers such as G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. Insofar as analytic philosophy of the 1960s took up political questions at all, as it did in the work of Isaiah Berlin, it was explicitly anti-communist. Berlin’s interest in politics however was the exception. Oxford-style philosophy focused overwhelmingly on the philosophy of mind, logic and, above all, language. Political philosophy was so marginal that a year after Cohen arrived Berlin published an essay under the morose title “Does political theory still exist?”
It was a common occurrence during the 1960s for politically committed students to be hostile to analytic philosophy, on the grounds that it was quietist and trivial. “If you are young and left-wing,” Cohen has said, “and you come to university with a thirst for relevant ideas, and academic philosophy of the Oxford kind is the first system of thought you encounter, then it will be hard for you not to feel disappointed or even cheated by it.” But precisely because Cohen was already so politicized, he did not go to class looking for a political system. As a result Cohen was able to engage analytic philosophy on its own terms and excel at it—and, in time, be transformed by it.
The late 1960s saw Marxist ideas gain academic prominence. Works by French thinkers such as Louis Althusser were translated and widely discussed. Cohen’s analytic training made him critical of 1960s Marxism, which he came to term “bullshit Marxism.”
Its practitioners claimed to possess their own intellectual method, known as dialectics. Such claims struck Cohen as an excuse not to observe normal standards of evidence and rigour. When one read French Marxists closely, Cohen felt, their ideas were often expressed in such a gassy way it was impossible to determine if they were true or false. Cohen’s preferred approach was on display in the 1978 book that made his name, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence. It saw Cohen give an intellectually respectable account of Marxism by jettisoning Marx’s least defensible ideas and setting out the remainder with ruthless clarity.
Cohen soon became a leader of a school of thought known as analytic Marxism. Analytic Marxism eventually rejected so much of Marx—the dialectics, the scientific pretensions, the claims of historical inevitability—that it has long been debated whether it really is a form of Marxism. Cohen thought the question was misguided. In his view, Marx began a tradition of political and economic equality, and everything else was negotiable. Cohen once noted that Galileo and Newton founded physics, but physicists are never asked whether they are a Galilean. “Physics must contradict (much of) what Galileo and Newton said: only so can it be loyal to the tradition which they founded.” Whatever the accuracy of the Marxist label in other ways, it is definitely misleading if it is taken to suggest that only a Marxist can agree with Cohen’s arguments. . . .
Read the rest here: http://reviewcanada.ca/reviews/2010/06/01/the-thinking-man-s-marxist/.
Cohen’s path in that world saw him study philosophy at McGill University and, beginning in 1961, Oxford. The image of a staunch Marxist such as Cohen arriving at Oxford that year is incongruous. Oxford was then a bastion of so-called analytic philosophy, a tradition of thought that traced its roots to British philosophers such as G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. Insofar as analytic philosophy of the 1960s took up political questions at all, as it did in the work of Isaiah Berlin, it was explicitly anti-communist. Berlin’s interest in politics however was the exception. Oxford-style philosophy focused overwhelmingly on the philosophy of mind, logic and, above all, language. Political philosophy was so marginal that a year after Cohen arrived Berlin published an essay under the morose title “Does political theory still exist?”
It was a common occurrence during the 1960s for politically committed students to be hostile to analytic philosophy, on the grounds that it was quietist and trivial. “If you are young and left-wing,” Cohen has said, “and you come to university with a thirst for relevant ideas, and academic philosophy of the Oxford kind is the first system of thought you encounter, then it will be hard for you not to feel disappointed or even cheated by it.” But precisely because Cohen was already so politicized, he did not go to class looking for a political system. As a result Cohen was able to engage analytic philosophy on its own terms and excel at it—and, in time, be transformed by it.
The late 1960s saw Marxist ideas gain academic prominence. Works by French thinkers such as Louis Althusser were translated and widely discussed. Cohen’s analytic training made him critical of 1960s Marxism, which he came to term “bullshit Marxism.”
Its practitioners claimed to possess their own intellectual method, known as dialectics. Such claims struck Cohen as an excuse not to observe normal standards of evidence and rigour. When one read French Marxists closely, Cohen felt, their ideas were often expressed in such a gassy way it was impossible to determine if they were true or false. Cohen’s preferred approach was on display in the 1978 book that made his name, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence. It saw Cohen give an intellectually respectable account of Marxism by jettisoning Marx’s least defensible ideas and setting out the remainder with ruthless clarity.
Cohen soon became a leader of a school of thought known as analytic Marxism. Analytic Marxism eventually rejected so much of Marx—the dialectics, the scientific pretensions, the claims of historical inevitability—that it has long been debated whether it really is a form of Marxism. Cohen thought the question was misguided. In his view, Marx began a tradition of political and economic equality, and everything else was negotiable. Cohen once noted that Galileo and Newton founded physics, but physicists are never asked whether they are a Galilean. “Physics must contradict (much of) what Galileo and Newton said: only so can it be loyal to the tradition which they founded.” Whatever the accuracy of the Marxist label in other ways, it is definitely misleading if it is taken to suggest that only a Marxist can agree with Cohen’s arguments. . . .
Read the rest here: http://reviewcanada.ca/reviews/2010/06/01/the-thinking-man-s-marxist/.
Romano, Carlin. "The Second 'Second Sex.'" CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION June 20, 2010.
As translation contretemps go, the one surrounding French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) and her foundational work of modern feminism, Le Deuxième Sexe, first published in two volumes in French in 1949, remains one of the most tempestuous and fascinating. For decades, Beauvoir scholars in the English-speaking world bemoaned, attacked, and sought to replace the widely used 1953 translation by H.M. Parshley (1884-1953), a zoologist at Smith College who knew little philosophy or existentialism, had never translated a book from French, and relied mainly on his undergraduate grasp of the language. A few years back, they succeeded in getting the rights holders, Gallimard in France and Alfred A. Knopf and Vintage in the English-speaking world, to commission a new translation. Now that second version has appeared from Knopf (The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, "A New Translation of the Landmark Classic by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier," with an introduction by Judith Thurman, "Complete and Unabridged for the First Time").
If Knopf and its partners expected to be showered with feminist appreciation, they've been sorely disappointed. The Norwegian Beauvoir scholar Toril Moi, a professor at Duke and one of the foremost critics of Parshley's translation, savaged the new version in the London Review of Books. Francine du Plessix Gray, in The New York Times Book Review, also expressed reservations. How everyone involved got from vituperative discontent to hopeful triumph and back to discontent makes an instructive tale in itself and offers some lessons for what matters and doesn't in the evolution of a classic. . . .
Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Second-Second-Sex/65962/.
If Knopf and its partners expected to be showered with feminist appreciation, they've been sorely disappointed. The Norwegian Beauvoir scholar Toril Moi, a professor at Duke and one of the foremost critics of Parshley's translation, savaged the new version in the London Review of Books. Francine du Plessix Gray, in The New York Times Book Review, also expressed reservations. How everyone involved got from vituperative discontent to hopeful triumph and back to discontent makes an instructive tale in itself and offers some lessons for what matters and doesn't in the evolution of a classic. . . .
Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Second-Second-Sex/65962/.
Scott, Sarah. "Martin Buber." INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY June 21, 2010.
Martin Buber was a prominent twentieth century philosopher, religious thinker, political activist and educator. Born in Austria, he spent most of his life in Germany and Israel, writing in German and Hebrew. He is best known for his 1923 book, Ich und Du (I and Thou), which distinguishes between “I-Thou” and “I-It” modes of existence. Often characterized as an existentialist philosopher, Buber rejected the label, contrasting his emphasis on the whole person and intersubjectivity rather than self-reflective, isolating monolog. In his later essays, he defines man as the being who faces an “other” and constructs a world from the dual acts of distancing and relating. His writing challenges Kant, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dilthey, Simmel and Heidegger, and he influenced Emmanuel Lévinas.
Buber was also a cultural Zionist who advocated a binational state and promoted Jewish cultural renewal through his study of Hasidic Judaism. He was an important pre-World War 1 German voice of cultural Zionism. He argued for the renewal of society through decentralized, communitarian socialism. He recorded and translated Hasidic legends and anecdotes, translated the Bible from Hebrew into German in collaboration with Franz Rosenzweig, and wrote numerous religious and Biblical studies. The leading Jewish adult education specialist in Germany in the 1930s, he developed a philosophy of education based on addressing the whole person through education of character, and directed the creation of Jewish education centers in Germany and teacher-training centers in Israel.
Most current scholarly work on Buber is done in the areas of pedagogy, psychology and applied social ethics. . . .
Read the rest here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/buber/.
Buber was also a cultural Zionist who advocated a binational state and promoted Jewish cultural renewal through his study of Hasidic Judaism. He was an important pre-World War 1 German voice of cultural Zionism. He argued for the renewal of society through decentralized, communitarian socialism. He recorded and translated Hasidic legends and anecdotes, translated the Bible from Hebrew into German in collaboration with Franz Rosenzweig, and wrote numerous religious and Biblical studies. The leading Jewish adult education specialist in Germany in the 1930s, he developed a philosophy of education based on addressing the whole person through education of character, and directed the creation of Jewish education centers in Germany and teacher-training centers in Israel.
Most current scholarly work on Buber is done in the areas of pedagogy, psychology and applied social ethics. . . .
Read the rest here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/buber/.
Bauerlein, Mark, et al. "We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research." CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION June 13, 2010.
Everybody agrees that scientific research is indispensable to the nation's health, prosperity, and security. In the many discussions of the value of research, however, one rarely hears any mention of how much publication of the results is best. Indeed, for all the regrets one hears in these hard times of research suffering from financing problems, we shouldn't forget the fact that the last few decades have seen astounding growth in the sheer output of research findings and conclusions. Just consider the raw increase in the number of journals. Using Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Michael Mabe shows that the number of "refereed academic/scholarly" publications grows at a rate of 3.26 percent per year (i.e., doubles about every 20 years). The main cause: the growth in the number of researchers.
Many people regard this upsurge as a sign of health. They emphasize the remarkable discoveries and breakthroughs of scientific research over the years; they note that in the Times Higher Education's ranking of research universities around the world, campuses in the United States fill six of the top 10 spots. More published output means more discovery, more knowledge, ever-improving enterprise.
If only that were true.
While brilliant and progressive research continues apace here and there, the amount of redundant, inconsequential, and outright poor research has swelled in recent decades, filling countless pages in journals and monographs. Consider this tally from Science two decades ago: Only 45 percent of the articles published in the 4,500 top scientific journals were cited within the first five years after publication. In recent years, the figure seems to have dropped further. In a 2009 article in Online Information Review, Péter Jacsó found that 40.6 percent of the articles published in the top science and social-science journals (the figures do not include the humanities) were cited in the period 2002 to 2006.
As a result, instead of contributing to knowledge in various disciplines, the increasing number of low-cited publications only adds to the bulk of words and numbers to be reviewed. Even if read, many articles that are not cited by anyone would seem to contain little useful information. The avalanche of ignored research has a profoundly damaging effect on the enterprise as a whole. Not only does the uncited work itself require years of field and library or laboratory research. It also requires colleagues to read it and provide feedback, as well as reviewers to evaluate it formally for publication. Then, once it is published, it joins the multitudes of other, related publications that researchers must read and evaluate for relevance to their own work. Reviewer time and energy requirements multiply by the year. The impact strikes at the heart of academe. . . .
Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/We-Must-Stop-the-Avalanche-of/65890/.
Many people regard this upsurge as a sign of health. They emphasize the remarkable discoveries and breakthroughs of scientific research over the years; they note that in the Times Higher Education's ranking of research universities around the world, campuses in the United States fill six of the top 10 spots. More published output means more discovery, more knowledge, ever-improving enterprise.
If only that were true.
While brilliant and progressive research continues apace here and there, the amount of redundant, inconsequential, and outright poor research has swelled in recent decades, filling countless pages in journals and monographs. Consider this tally from Science two decades ago: Only 45 percent of the articles published in the 4,500 top scientific journals were cited within the first five years after publication. In recent years, the figure seems to have dropped further. In a 2009 article in Online Information Review, Péter Jacsó found that 40.6 percent of the articles published in the top science and social-science journals (the figures do not include the humanities) were cited in the period 2002 to 2006.
As a result, instead of contributing to knowledge in various disciplines, the increasing number of low-cited publications only adds to the bulk of words and numbers to be reviewed. Even if read, many articles that are not cited by anyone would seem to contain little useful information. The avalanche of ignored research has a profoundly damaging effect on the enterprise as a whole. Not only does the uncited work itself require years of field and library or laboratory research. It also requires colleagues to read it and provide feedback, as well as reviewers to evaluate it formally for publication. Then, once it is published, it joins the multitudes of other, related publications that researchers must read and evaluate for relevance to their own work. Reviewer time and energy requirements multiply by the year. The impact strikes at the heart of academe. . . .
Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/We-Must-Stop-the-Avalanche-of/65890/.
Eshleman, Matthew. Review of Jennifer Ang Mei Sze, SARTRE AND THE MORAL LIMITS OF WAR AND TERRORISM. NDPR (June 2010).
Sze, Jennifer Ang Mei. Sartre and the Moral Limits of War and Terrorism. London: Routledge, 2010.
Jennifer Ang Mei Sze's Sartre and the Moral Limits of War and Terrorism provides an ambitious study of Jean-Paul Sartre's widely varying analyses of violence. Traversing his massive corpus, Sze both "reconstructs" (2, 3, 4, 7, 132) and "reinterprets" (4, 7, 27, 107) her way to what she labels 'the violent Sartre.' This is a self-consciously ironic label, since the "reconstructed 'violent Sartre'" takes an "absolutist" position that prohibits certain kinds of violence, "especially when terrorist tactics are involved" (2, 89, see also 132). Undoubtedly this book will stir controversy, especially given Sartre's many incendiary remarks about violence, which do not appear (at all) to caution against terrorist tactics and/or the killing of civilians, at least not at first glance; e.g., those from his preface to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth [1961] and later from essays in the Maoist revolutionary newspaper La Cause du peuple [early 1970's]. While Sze offers reasonable interpretations of these polemical essays, which render them consistent with her reconstructed view, her relative strengths and least controversial analyses occur when she focuses on Sartre's theoretical works, which provide this book's central focus.
Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20208.
Jennifer Ang Mei Sze's Sartre and the Moral Limits of War and Terrorism provides an ambitious study of Jean-Paul Sartre's widely varying analyses of violence. Traversing his massive corpus, Sze both "reconstructs" (2, 3, 4, 7, 132) and "reinterprets" (4, 7, 27, 107) her way to what she labels 'the violent Sartre.' This is a self-consciously ironic label, since the "reconstructed 'violent Sartre'" takes an "absolutist" position that prohibits certain kinds of violence, "especially when terrorist tactics are involved" (2, 89, see also 132). Undoubtedly this book will stir controversy, especially given Sartre's many incendiary remarks about violence, which do not appear (at all) to caution against terrorist tactics and/or the killing of civilians, at least not at first glance; e.g., those from his preface to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth [1961] and later from essays in the Maoist revolutionary newspaper La Cause du peuple [early 1970's]. While Sze offers reasonable interpretations of these polemical essays, which render them consistent with her reconstructed view, her relative strengths and least controversial analyses occur when she focuses on Sartre's theoretical works, which provide this book's central focus.
Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20208.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
"Marshall McLuhan in a POMO World: Is the Medium the Message?," Department of Rhetoric, Writing and Communications, University of Winnipeg, October 14-16, 2010.
Thirty years after his death, Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) is widely known for his aphorisms about electronic media (having called the world a “global village” and the medium “the message”). Many consider him to have shaped twentieth-century thinking about technology and communication, and as technology continues its march there has been a resurgence of interest in his ideas and work. Our conference -- convened in Winnipeg, where McLuhan received both his B.A. and M.A. -- invites you to consider how McLuhan’s ideas resonate in media-saturated post-modern culture.
Other topics related to language and culture, especially those related to media and communications, are also welcome.
Keynote Speakers:
Douglas Coupland, award-winning author of McLuhan
Robert Logan, physicist, media ecologist, author, McLuhan collaborator
See the Call for Papers here: http://rhetoric.uwinnipeg.ca/McLuhan_in_a_POMO_World/CALL_FOR_PROPOSALS.pdf.
Other topics related to language and culture, especially those related to media and communications, are also welcome.
Keynote Speakers:
Douglas Coupland, award-winning author of McLuhan
Robert Logan, physicist, media ecologist, author, McLuhan collaborator
See the Call for Papers here: http://rhetoric.uwinnipeg.ca/McLuhan_in_a_POMO_World/CALL_FOR_PROPOSALS.pdf.
Worster, Donald. "Historians and Nature." THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR (Spring 2010).
In biology the evolutionist tries to explain change over time by constructing what evolutionary biologist Ernst W. Mayr calls a “historical narrative.” Such a narrative addresses questions like these: Why did this trait appear in an organism when it did, what function did it serve? How did it reshape the whole organism and help it reproduce itself? When did the trait decline and disappear? These are good questions for historians as well as biologists to pursue. They should lead us to create narratives around changes in soil or climate conditions and in accessibility of resources and to relate those changes to technological innovation, the rules people make up and follow, and the moral ideals they invent to guide their relations with the natural world.
Telling such stories would require that historians follow the natural sciences by taking the environment more seriously as a force in human life. Historians would need to acknowledge, with the aid of evolutionary psychology, the reality of a human nature that evolves through time. At the same time they would need to think about the role of cultural beliefs and rules as a quasi-independent but never isolated force on the planet–a force that never functions in an ecological void, a force that can have a devastating effect on other forms of life and can enhance or threaten our survival.
The human mind is remarkable for finding multiple pathways through the natural world, but those paths are always contingent on what came before and what is happening now to the planet. Historians need to acknowledge the importance of the environment and to embrace the theory and worldview of evolution for the dazzling light it sheds on the origins, development, and fate of humanity. . . .
Read the rest here: http://www.theamericanscholar.org/historians-and-nature/.
Telling such stories would require that historians follow the natural sciences by taking the environment more seriously as a force in human life. Historians would need to acknowledge, with the aid of evolutionary psychology, the reality of a human nature that evolves through time. At the same time they would need to think about the role of cultural beliefs and rules as a quasi-independent but never isolated force on the planet–a force that never functions in an ecological void, a force that can have a devastating effect on other forms of life and can enhance or threaten our survival.
The human mind is remarkable for finding multiple pathways through the natural world, but those paths are always contingent on what came before and what is happening now to the planet. Historians need to acknowledge the importance of the environment and to embrace the theory and worldview of evolution for the dazzling light it sheds on the origins, development, and fate of humanity. . . .
Read the rest here: http://www.theamericanscholar.org/historians-and-nature/.
Fish, Stanley. "Deep in the Heart of Texas." Opinionator Blog. New York Times June 21, 2010.
Student evaluations (against which I have inveighed since I first saw them in the ’60s) are all wrong as a way of assessing teaching performance: they measure present satisfaction in relation to a set of expectations that may have little to do with the deep efficacy of learning. Students tend to like everything neatly laid out; they want to know exactly where they are; they don’t welcome the introduction of multiple perspectives, especially when no master perspective reconciles them; they want the answers.
But sometimes (although not always) effective teaching involves the deliberate inducing of confusion, the withholding of clarity, the refusal to provide answers; sometimes a class or an entire semester is spent being taken down various garden paths leading to dead ends that require inquiry to begin all over again, with the same discombobulating result; sometimes your expectations have been systematically disappointed. And sometimes that disappointment, while extremely annoying at the moment, is the sign that you’ve just been the beneficiary of a great course, although you may not realize it for decades.
Needless to say, that kind of teaching is unlikely to receive high marks on a questionnaire that rewards the linear delivery of information and penalizes a pedagogy that probes, discomforts and fails to provide closure. Student evaluations, by their very nature, can only recognize, and by recognizing encourage, assembly-line teaching that delivers a nicely packaged product that can be assessed as easily and immediately as one assesses the quality of a hamburger. . . .
Read the rest here: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/deep-in-the-heart-of-texas/.
But sometimes (although not always) effective teaching involves the deliberate inducing of confusion, the withholding of clarity, the refusal to provide answers; sometimes a class or an entire semester is spent being taken down various garden paths leading to dead ends that require inquiry to begin all over again, with the same discombobulating result; sometimes your expectations have been systematically disappointed. And sometimes that disappointment, while extremely annoying at the moment, is the sign that you’ve just been the beneficiary of a great course, although you may not realize it for decades.
Needless to say, that kind of teaching is unlikely to receive high marks on a questionnaire that rewards the linear delivery of information and penalizes a pedagogy that probes, discomforts and fails to provide closure. Student evaluations, by their very nature, can only recognize, and by recognizing encourage, assembly-line teaching that delivers a nicely packaged product that can be assessed as easily and immediately as one assesses the quality of a hamburger. . . .
Read the rest here: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/deep-in-the-heart-of-texas/.
Pub: HISTORY AND THEORY 49 (May 2010).
- Berel Lang, "Six Questions on (or about) Holocaust Denial" (available free here: http://www.historyandtheory.org/Lang.pdf)
- Hermann Paul, "Who Suffered From the Crisis of Historicism? A Dutch Example"
- Elias Jose Palti, "From Ideas to Concepts to Metaphors: the German Tradition of Intellectual History and the Complex Fabric of Language"
- Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, "Koselleck, Arendt, and the Anthropology of Historical Experiences"
- Jan Plamper, "The History of Emotions: an Interview with William Reddy, Barbara Rosenwein, and Peter Stearns" (available free here: http://www.historyandtheory.org/Plamper.pdf)
Di Leo, Jeffrey R. "In Praise of Tough Criticism." CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION June 13, 2010.
Professor Jones is well known for her generosity. She encourages nonconfrontational exchanges of ideas and is always upbeat and positive about her colleagues and their work. She is patient with her graduate students, encouraging them to be patient with one another as well. When a student makes a comment in class that is weak or off base, unlike some other faculty members in her department, Jones will not make a fuss. When the appropriate opportunity presents itself, she will try to work with the student to improve his or her thinking. Jones's critical credo is, "If you don't have something positive to say, then it is best not to say anything at all—at least not in public."
Her colleague Professor Smith is quite the opposite. He has built a successful career by telling people that they are wrong. The goal of criticism, he believes, is to persuade other people to see the world his way, and if they don't, then he will do everything he can to prove to them—and anyone else who will listen—that they are wrong. Criticism is a competition of ideas, a nasty business in which it is acceptable and sometimes necessary to be a brute. Strong ideas survive, weak ones perish; there is no room for wishy-washy opinions and people. Smith's assessments are harsh but well argued and persuasive. His critical credo is, "Public criticism is as valid as public praise."
Most of us probably know someone like Jones. Others have either heard of someone like Smith—or have been attacked by someone like Smith. The bulk of literary scholars and critics, I think, believe that our profession would be better off if it contained more people like Jones and fewer people like Smith—more compassion, less confrontation. The critic Jane Tompkins has bemoaned scholarly attacks as evidence of a "decline of civility," and Herbert S. Lindenberger, a professor emeritus of humanities at Stanford University, has lamented the "warlike atmosphere" of English studies.
Such comments are indicative of a broad dissatisfaction with harsh criticism, which is frowned upon both because of its potential for emotional disruption and for its alleged divisiveness. Therefore critics like Jones, who believe that solidarity is not possible in a climate where ideas are publicly dismantled, call for the adoption of a more civil form of criticism. But when it comes to criticism, is compassion really preferable to combativeness? Does an upbeat style actually encourage positive tendencies in the profession? Is compassion an intellectual virtue? The answer to those questions is no. If a compassionate, caring form of criticism entails removing the "critical" from "critical exchange," then I would rather see the field move toward a more combative, confrontational style—even if it means ruffling a few feathers. . . .
Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/In-Praise-of-Tough-Criticism/65831.
Her colleague Professor Smith is quite the opposite. He has built a successful career by telling people that they are wrong. The goal of criticism, he believes, is to persuade other people to see the world his way, and if they don't, then he will do everything he can to prove to them—and anyone else who will listen—that they are wrong. Criticism is a competition of ideas, a nasty business in which it is acceptable and sometimes necessary to be a brute. Strong ideas survive, weak ones perish; there is no room for wishy-washy opinions and people. Smith's assessments are harsh but well argued and persuasive. His critical credo is, "Public criticism is as valid as public praise."
Most of us probably know someone like Jones. Others have either heard of someone like Smith—or have been attacked by someone like Smith. The bulk of literary scholars and critics, I think, believe that our profession would be better off if it contained more people like Jones and fewer people like Smith—more compassion, less confrontation. The critic Jane Tompkins has bemoaned scholarly attacks as evidence of a "decline of civility," and Herbert S. Lindenberger, a professor emeritus of humanities at Stanford University, has lamented the "warlike atmosphere" of English studies.
Such comments are indicative of a broad dissatisfaction with harsh criticism, which is frowned upon both because of its potential for emotional disruption and for its alleged divisiveness. Therefore critics like Jones, who believe that solidarity is not possible in a climate where ideas are publicly dismantled, call for the adoption of a more civil form of criticism. But when it comes to criticism, is compassion really preferable to combativeness? Does an upbeat style actually encourage positive tendencies in the profession? Is compassion an intellectual virtue? The answer to those questions is no. If a compassionate, caring form of criticism entails removing the "critical" from "critical exchange," then I would rather see the field move toward a more combative, confrontational style—even if it means ruffling a few feathers. . . .
Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/In-Praise-of-Tough-Criticism/65831.
Bakewell, Sarah. "Montaigne, Philosopher of Life, Part 7: What Can We Learn from Montaigne?" GUARDIAN June 21, 2010.
So, are we all Montaignes now? In many ways, yes.
Few of us write long books of essays, and even fewer of us immerse ourselves in classical and historical sources until they become indistinguishable from our very selves. But we are curious, well-informed, well-connected, introspective and hyper-communicative. We never tire of talking about the things that go through our heads. The diversity of cultural perspectives is a familiar idea to us, in a way it wasn't in the 16th century, and many take it for granted that truth is relative. We know about psychology: about unconscious drives, repressed memories, hormones, and moods. We don't expect ourselves to be rational all the time. We apparently forgive ourselves a lot of bad behaviour, on the excuse that it's the fault of our upbringing or genes. Do we really need Montaigne to tell us to relax, accept our mistakes, go with the flow, and gaze fascinated at ourselves all day?
Get the answer here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jun/21/montaigne-philosophy-essays.
Few of us write long books of essays, and even fewer of us immerse ourselves in classical and historical sources until they become indistinguishable from our very selves. But we are curious, well-informed, well-connected, introspective and hyper-communicative. We never tire of talking about the things that go through our heads. The diversity of cultural perspectives is a familiar idea to us, in a way it wasn't in the 16th century, and many take it for granted that truth is relative. We know about psychology: about unconscious drives, repressed memories, hormones, and moods. We don't expect ourselves to be rational all the time. We apparently forgive ourselves a lot of bad behaviour, on the excuse that it's the fault of our upbringing or genes. Do we really need Montaigne to tell us to relax, accept our mistakes, go with the flow, and gaze fascinated at ourselves all day?
Get the answer here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jun/21/montaigne-philosophy-essays.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Parekh, Serena. Review of Jason D. Hill, BEYOND BLOOD IDENTITIES. NDPR (June 2010).
Hill, Jason D. Beyond Blood Identities: Posthumanity in the Twenty-First Century. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2009.
The position argued for in this book -- strong cosmopolitanism -- is one that will be unfamiliar to many readers. Cosmopolitanism itself is an ancient moral and political theory that holds that all human beings should be thought of as belonging to the same human community; we should all see ourselves as "citizens of the world." This view can be traced back to at least the Stoics, and has been popularized in recent years by people like Martha Nussbaum and Anthony Appiah. The form of cosmopolitanism advocated by these philosophers is referred to by Hill as moderate or weak cosmopolitanism because it does not see itself as being incompatible with the local identities that many people hold on to even while believing in cosmopolitan values. For Nussbaum and Appiah, one can identify as a Muslim or a Tutsi and still believe that the relevant moral group of concern is all humanity.
The strong version of cosmopolitanism put forth by Hill in this book, by contrast, does not share this view. For him, all forms of "tribal" identification (i.e., identity based on culture, race, language, ethnicity, nationality, etc.) are entirely without warrant and should not play any role in our moral or political framework. In Hill's view, we need to move beyond these forms of identification in order to achieve the goals of cosmopolitanism. We need to see ourselves and each other first and foremost as individuals, without limiting ourselves to narrow forms of group identification. Since most people are raised to see themselves according to "tribal" identifications -- as an American, a Jew, Chinese, Sicilian, etc -- this position is not intuitively obvious. While I think Hill does a laudable job trying to make this position seem credible and morally desirable, I do not think it is sufficient to overcome the (legitimate) reservations many people will have in giving up cultural, ethnic, or racial identity. Nonetheless, this book is an important contribution to the scholarship on cosmopolitanism and furthers the debate over exactly what form this political and moral philosophy should take. . . .
Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20028.
The position argued for in this book -- strong cosmopolitanism -- is one that will be unfamiliar to many readers. Cosmopolitanism itself is an ancient moral and political theory that holds that all human beings should be thought of as belonging to the same human community; we should all see ourselves as "citizens of the world." This view can be traced back to at least the Stoics, and has been popularized in recent years by people like Martha Nussbaum and Anthony Appiah. The form of cosmopolitanism advocated by these philosophers is referred to by Hill as moderate or weak cosmopolitanism because it does not see itself as being incompatible with the local identities that many people hold on to even while believing in cosmopolitan values. For Nussbaum and Appiah, one can identify as a Muslim or a Tutsi and still believe that the relevant moral group of concern is all humanity.
The strong version of cosmopolitanism put forth by Hill in this book, by contrast, does not share this view. For him, all forms of "tribal" identification (i.e., identity based on culture, race, language, ethnicity, nationality, etc.) are entirely without warrant and should not play any role in our moral or political framework. In Hill's view, we need to move beyond these forms of identification in order to achieve the goals of cosmopolitanism. We need to see ourselves and each other first and foremost as individuals, without limiting ourselves to narrow forms of group identification. Since most people are raised to see themselves according to "tribal" identifications -- as an American, a Jew, Chinese, Sicilian, etc -- this position is not intuitively obvious. While I think Hill does a laudable job trying to make this position seem credible and morally desirable, I do not think it is sufficient to overcome the (legitimate) reservations many people will have in giving up cultural, ethnic, or racial identity. Nonetheless, this book is an important contribution to the scholarship on cosmopolitanism and furthers the debate over exactly what form this political and moral philosophy should take. . . .
Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20028.
Donougho, Martin. Review of G. W. F. Hegel, HEIDELBERG WRITINGS. NDPR (June 2010).
Hegel, G. W. F. Heidelberg Writings: Journal Publications. Ed. and trans. Brady Bowman and Allen Speight. Cambridge: CUP, 2009.
This text -- first in a projected series, under the general editorship of Michael Baur -- presents two essays from Hegel's stint at Heidelberg in 1816-18. One essay, previously untranslated, reassesses the philosophical significance of F. H. Jacobi, who had been roundly criticized by the young Hegel in Faith and Knowledge (1802). The other, partially translated by T.M. Knox in Hegel's Political Writings (Oxford, 1964), is an extended polemic against the Proceedings of the Assembly of the Württemberg Estates, 1815-16. The series aims to offer "translations of the best modern German editions of Hegel's work in a uniform format suitable for Hegel scholars, together with philosophical introductions and full editorial apparatus" (p. i). This inaugural volume gets things off to an excellent start.
On taking up his position at Heidelberg Hegel was invited to help edit the Jahrbücher der Literatur (Yearbooks of Literature). He clearly relished the chance to engage in a public forum beyond teaching and esoteric theorizing. Written in a relatively accessible style, the pieces here display a different, more expansive side to Hegel's personality. As interventions in cultural and political life they may be seen as a rehearsal for his career at the University of Berlin. They appear, moreover, at a time critical for reconsidering the political and cultural legacy -- post-Kantian, post-revolutionary, post-Napoleonic -- of the period of Hegel's youthful formation. . . .
Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20087.
This text -- first in a projected series, under the general editorship of Michael Baur -- presents two essays from Hegel's stint at Heidelberg in 1816-18. One essay, previously untranslated, reassesses the philosophical significance of F. H. Jacobi, who had been roundly criticized by the young Hegel in Faith and Knowledge (1802). The other, partially translated by T.M. Knox in Hegel's Political Writings (Oxford, 1964), is an extended polemic against the Proceedings of the Assembly of the Württemberg Estates, 1815-16. The series aims to offer "translations of the best modern German editions of Hegel's work in a uniform format suitable for Hegel scholars, together with philosophical introductions and full editorial apparatus" (p. i). This inaugural volume gets things off to an excellent start.
On taking up his position at Heidelberg Hegel was invited to help edit the Jahrbücher der Literatur (Yearbooks of Literature). He clearly relished the chance to engage in a public forum beyond teaching and esoteric theorizing. Written in a relatively accessible style, the pieces here display a different, more expansive side to Hegel's personality. As interventions in cultural and political life they may be seen as a rehearsal for his career at the University of Berlin. They appear, moreover, at a time critical for reconsidering the political and cultural legacy -- post-Kantian, post-revolutionary, post-Napoleonic -- of the period of Hegel's youthful formation. . . .
Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20087.
"In the Footsteps of William James," William James Society, Harvard University, August 13-15, 2010.
A symposium on the legacy – and the on-going uses – of James's work organized by the William James Society and co-sponsored by the Chocorua Community Association and the Houghton Library at Harvard University.
Speakers:
Susan Gunter: "Alice Gibbens James and William James in Chocorua"
Doug Anderson: "William James in the Woods: Glenmore and Chocorua"
Charlene Haddock Seigfried: "Four Dimensions of Rationality: William James and Jane Addams"
Amy Kittelstrom: "William James and Liberal Religion: The Context Hidden in Plain Sight"
Tyson-Lord Gray: "The Contemporary Relevance of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience for Religion and Ecology"
Jacob Risinger: "William James, Romanticism, and the Varieties of Environmental Experience"
John Snarey: "All Unplanned for and Unexpected: William James on the Nature of Religious Experiences"
James Pawelski: "Beyond Healthy-Mindedness: William James, Positive Psychology and the Science of Well-Being"
Henry Greenspan: "Trauma, Testimony and Pluralistic Tolerance" (tentative)
Eric Charles: "Edwin Bissell Holt’s William James"
J. C. Hallman: "The Moral Equivalent of Paradise: William James and Utopian Thought"
Alexandra Pleshoyano: "William James’s Varieties of 'Spiritual' Experience"
Deborah Whitehead: "James’s Middle Way: Beyond Pragmatism"
Donald Crosby: "Mind and Body, Self and World in William James"
Renato Kinouchi: "Does Consciousness Still Exist?"
Nobuo Kazashi: "From James to Nishida and Soseki: Two Metamorphoses of the Jamesian Philosophy of 'Pure Experience' in Modern Japanese Thought"
Robert Richardson: "Will You or Won’t You Have It So?: James on the Will"
Miriam Strube: "Racing Pragmatism"
Trygve Throntveit: "James, Obama and Deliberative Pragmatism"
Kevin Zdiara: "Horace M. Kallen and the Legacy of William James"
Mark Franklin: "The Will to Believe and the Will to Truth"
Lee McBride: "William James and Weak Moral Objectivism"
Tadd Ruetenik: "The Book of James: Pragmatism and the Research of Gary Schwartz"
Mike Dieciuc: "James and the Resurgence of Psychedelic Research in Psychology"
Mike Leighton: "Standardized Measures in Psychical Research: Updated James Model for Detecting Causal Source of Agency"
Linda Simon: "'Life is in the Transitions': the James Centennial Exhibit"
Eugene Taylor: "William James and Contemporary Neurophenomenology"
Ezekiel Kimball: "'Old Truth' and 'New Fact' at Harvard: The Pragmatic Relationship of James and Eliot"
Richard Hall: "James on the Humanities"
James Kloppenberg: "What Makes William James Significant?"
Pamela Crosby: "The Social Value of Undergraduate Learning: William James on Educating Moral Leaders for Democracy"
Arthur Lothstein: "The Moment of Transition: Emerson, James and Radical Empiricism"
Further information is here: http://www.wjsociety.org/symposium.htm.
Speakers:
Susan Gunter: "Alice Gibbens James and William James in Chocorua"
Doug Anderson: "William James in the Woods: Glenmore and Chocorua"
Charlene Haddock Seigfried: "Four Dimensions of Rationality: William James and Jane Addams"
Amy Kittelstrom: "William James and Liberal Religion: The Context Hidden in Plain Sight"
Tyson-Lord Gray: "The Contemporary Relevance of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience for Religion and Ecology"
Jacob Risinger: "William James, Romanticism, and the Varieties of Environmental Experience"
John Snarey: "All Unplanned for and Unexpected: William James on the Nature of Religious Experiences"
James Pawelski: "Beyond Healthy-Mindedness: William James, Positive Psychology and the Science of Well-Being"
Henry Greenspan: "Trauma, Testimony and Pluralistic Tolerance" (tentative)
Eric Charles: "Edwin Bissell Holt’s William James"
J. C. Hallman: "The Moral Equivalent of Paradise: William James and Utopian Thought"
Alexandra Pleshoyano: "William James’s Varieties of 'Spiritual' Experience"
Deborah Whitehead: "James’s Middle Way: Beyond Pragmatism"
Donald Crosby: "Mind and Body, Self and World in William James"
Renato Kinouchi: "Does Consciousness Still Exist?"
Nobuo Kazashi: "From James to Nishida and Soseki: Two Metamorphoses of the Jamesian Philosophy of 'Pure Experience' in Modern Japanese Thought"
Robert Richardson: "Will You or Won’t You Have It So?: James on the Will"
Miriam Strube: "Racing Pragmatism"
Trygve Throntveit: "James, Obama and Deliberative Pragmatism"
Kevin Zdiara: "Horace M. Kallen and the Legacy of William James"
Mark Franklin: "The Will to Believe and the Will to Truth"
Lee McBride: "William James and Weak Moral Objectivism"
Tadd Ruetenik: "The Book of James: Pragmatism and the Research of Gary Schwartz"
Mike Dieciuc: "James and the Resurgence of Psychedelic Research in Psychology"
Mike Leighton: "Standardized Measures in Psychical Research: Updated James Model for Detecting Causal Source of Agency"
Linda Simon: "'Life is in the Transitions': the James Centennial Exhibit"
Eugene Taylor: "William James and Contemporary Neurophenomenology"
Ezekiel Kimball: "'Old Truth' and 'New Fact' at Harvard: The Pragmatic Relationship of James and Eliot"
Richard Hall: "James on the Humanities"
James Kloppenberg: "What Makes William James Significant?"
Pamela Crosby: "The Social Value of Undergraduate Learning: William James on Educating Moral Leaders for Democracy"
Arthur Lothstein: "The Moment of Transition: Emerson, James and Radical Empiricism"
Further information is here: http://www.wjsociety.org/symposium.htm.
Cfp: "Architecture + Philosophy 2011," Department of Philosophy, Boston University, April 9-10, 2011.
Thinking about architecture has long been an enterprise of philosophers and architects alike, but in recent years there has been a growing divergence between them over terminological and methodological issues. Philosophers charge architects with mishandling texts and architects charge philosophers with mishandling buildings.
But there are also other divisions among contemporary architectural theorists themselves. Some theorists concern themselves with the human experience, with ethical and poetical questions, and with sensory and aesthetic explorations of architecture and its environment. Other theorists are bent on treating architecture as a form of knowledge that takes shape as a formal and socio-political practice through tools such as language, algorithms, and diagrams. Still other theorists see their task as navigating among these sometimes quite distinct approaches.
Architecture+Philosophy 2011 seeks to clarify thought on the intersection of architecture and philosophy. Keynote speakers will be Dr. Karsten Harries and Dr. Alberto Pérez-Gómez. Two panel discussions will be held on concrete and on ethics, love, and architecture. . . .
Find further information here: http://philarch.wordpress.com/.
But there are also other divisions among contemporary architectural theorists themselves. Some theorists concern themselves with the human experience, with ethical and poetical questions, and with sensory and aesthetic explorations of architecture and its environment. Other theorists are bent on treating architecture as a form of knowledge that takes shape as a formal and socio-political practice through tools such as language, algorithms, and diagrams. Still other theorists see their task as navigating among these sometimes quite distinct approaches.
Architecture+Philosophy 2011 seeks to clarify thought on the intersection of architecture and philosophy. Keynote speakers will be Dr. Karsten Harries and Dr. Alberto Pérez-Gómez. Two panel discussions will be held on concrete and on ethics, love, and architecture. . . .
Find further information here: http://philarch.wordpress.com/.
Calcagno, Antonio. Review of Eugene W. Holland, et al., eds. GILLES DELEUZE: IMAGE AND TEXT. NDPR (June 2010).
Holland, Eugene W., Daniel W. Smith, and Charles J. Stivale, eds. Gilles Deleuze: Image and Text. London: Continuum, 2009.
Eugene Holland, Daniel Smith, and Charles Stivale, three leading Deleuze scholars, have collaborated to produce a much needed and excellent book that focuses on Deleuze's work on art, film, image, text and literature as well as philosophy. The book is comprised of thirteen essays and includes an introduction by Holland. This collection stems from a conference originally held at the University of South Carolina from April 5-8, 2007, sponsored by the Program in Comparative Literature, the English Department and College of Arts and Sciences, and organized by Professor Paul Allen Miller. Featured in the text are essays by major Deleuze and Guattari scholars, including Constantin Boundas, Elizabeth Grosz, and Éric Alliez. Holland notes,
Eugene Holland, Daniel Smith, and Charles Stivale, three leading Deleuze scholars, have collaborated to produce a much needed and excellent book that focuses on Deleuze's work on art, film, image, text and literature as well as philosophy. The book is comprised of thirteen essays and includes an introduction by Holland. This collection stems from a conference originally held at the University of South Carolina from April 5-8, 2007, sponsored by the Program in Comparative Literature, the English Department and College of Arts and Sciences, and organized by Professor Paul Allen Miller. Featured in the text are essays by major Deleuze and Guattari scholars, including Constantin Boundas, Elizabeth Grosz, and Éric Alliez. Holland notes,
Deleuze was intensely interested in the medium of thought -- interested in both individual styles of thought and in the various genres in which thought is conducted. For thought is by no means limited to philosophy alone: it also takes place -- can also take place, in the right hands and under the right circumstances -- in science, mathematics, literature, painting and cinema, to mention some of the genres or media of thought to which Deleuze most often refers. (1)Faithful to Deleuze's vision, the editors bring together scholars and artists to think about and extend Deleuze and Guattari's specific philosophical legacy concerning the arts and philosophy. But this collection is more than expository, as the editors have arranged the essays so that they assist readers in seeing how key concepts in Deleuze can actualize themselves through different frameworks. Holland comments,
In this volume, we have grouped essays according to genre categories -- literature, art, philosophy -- but as we and the contributors understand Deleuze's work, these categories intersect in an ongoing circulation of conceptual exchange. . . . We wish to introduce this volume by highlighting some of the transverse connections linking the essays via issues of representation, temporality, affect, sensation and counter-actualization. . . . (2)Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20107.
Recent Reviews on MARX AND PHILOSOPHY REVIEW OF BOOKS. June 14-19, 2010.
- Negri, Antonio. Reflections on Empire. Trans. Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity, 2008.
- Negri, Antonio. Empire and Beyond. Trans. Ed Emery. Cambridge: Polity, 2008.
- Rancière, Jacques. The Aesthetic Unconscious. Trans. Debra Keates and James Swenson. Cambridge: Polity, 2009.
- Mei, Todd S. Heidegger, Work and Being. London: Continuum, 2009.
- Burkett, Paul. Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009.
- Amartya Sen, Amartya. The Idea of Justice. London: Allen Lane, 2009.
Download the reviews here: http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks.
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