Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.24 (Derrida Edition)
I have a few more lovely books for school that I want to let you all know about, although it occurs to me that these may be of even less interest to most of you than they are to me, since they’re not even genre-based. But who am I to say what you’re all interested in, right? This edition rounds up almost all of the remaining books for my schoolwork. There are still a handful of lingering books here or there, which I’ll throw up here in a future edition, but I won’t know what those are for a few more weeks (my science fiction/utopia course has four weeks of “you’ll all decide what we’re reading”). Here’s the image: And now for the descriptions, from left to right, top to bottom (taken from Amazon): 1. Acts of Religion by Jacques Derrida “Is there, today,” asks Jacques Derrida, “another ‘question of religion’?” Derrida’s writings on religion situate and raise anew questions of tradition, faith, and sacredness and their relation to philosophy and political culture. He has amply testified to his growing up in an Algerian Jewish, French-speaking family, to the complex impact of a certain Christianity on his surroundings and himself, and to his being deeply affected by religious persecution. Religion has made demands on Derrida, and, in turn, the study of religion has benefited greatly from his extensive philosophical contributions to the field. Acts of Religion brings together for the first time Derrida’s key writings on religion, along with two new essays translated by Gil Anidjar that appear here for the first time in any language. These eight texts are organized around the secret holding of links between the personal, the political, and the theological. In these texts, Derrida’s reflections on religion span from negative theology to the limits of reason and to hospitality. Acts of Religion will serve as an excellent introduction to Derrida’s remarkable contribution to religious studies. 2. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason by Jacques Derrida Rogues, published in France under the title Voyous, comprises two major lectures that Derrida delivered in 2002 investigating the foundations of the sovereignty of the nation-state. The term “État voyou” is the French equivalent of “rogue state,” and it is this outlaw designation of certain countries by the leading global powers that Derrida rigorously and exhaustively examines. Derrida examines the history of the concept of sovereignty, engaging with the work of Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, Schmitt, and others. Against this background, he delineates his understanding of “democracy to come,” which he distinguishes clearly from any kind of regulating ideal or teleological horizon. The idea that democracy will always remain in the future is not a temporal notion. Rather, the phrase would name the coming of the unforeseeable other, the structure of an event beyond calculation and program. Derrida thus aligns this understanding of democracy with the logic he has worked out elsewhere. But it is not just political philosophy that is brought under deconstructive scrutiny here: Derrida provides unflinching and hard-hitting assessments of current political realities, and these essays are highly engaged with events of the post-9/11 world. 3. Points: Interviews — 1974-1994 by Jacques Derrida This volume collects 23 interviews given over the course of the last two decades by the author. It illustrates the extraordinary breadth of the Derrida’s concerns, touching upon such subjects as AIDS, philosophy, sexual difference and feminine identity, the media, politics, and nationalism. 4. The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. 1 by Jacques Derrida When he died in 2004, Jacques Derrida left behind a vast legacy of unpublished material, much of it in the form of written lectures. With The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1, the University of Chicago Press inaugurates an ambitious series, edited by Geoffrey Bennington and Peggy Kamuf, translating these important works into English. The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1 launches the series with Derrida’s exploration of the persistent association of bestiality or animality with sovereignty. In this seminar from 2001–2002, Derrida continues his deconstruction of the traditional determinations of the human. The beast and the sovereign are connected, he contends, because neither animals nor kings are subject to the law—the sovereign stands above it, while the beast falls outside the law from below. He then traces this association through an astonishing array of texts, including La Fontaine’s fable “The Wolf and the Lamb,” Hobbes’s biblical sea monster in Leviathan, D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Snake,” Machiavelli’s Prince with its elaborate comparison of princes and foxes, a historical account of Louis XIV attending an elephant autopsy, and Rousseau’s evocation of werewolves in The Social Contract. Deleuze, Lacan, and Agamben also come into critical play as Derrida focuses in on questions of force, right, justice, and philosophical interpretations of the limits between man and animal. 5. Politics of Friendship by Jacques Derrida The most influential of contemporary philosophers explores the idea of friendship and its political consequences. “O, my friends, there is no friend.” The most influential of contemporary philosophers explores the idea of friendship and its political consequences, past and future. Until relatively recently, Jacques Derrida was seen by many as nothing more than the high priest of Deconstruction, by turns stimulating and fascinating, yet always somewhat disengaged from the central political questions of our time. Or so it seemed. Derrida’s “political turn,” marked especially by the appearance of Specters of Marx, has surprised some and delighted others. In The Politics of Friendship Derrida renews and enriches this orientation through an examination of the political history of the idea of friendship pursued down the ages. Derrida’s thoughts are haunted throughout the book by the strange and provocative address attributed to Aristotle, “my friends, there is no friend” and its inversions by later philosophers such as Montaigne, Kant, Nietzsche, Schmitt and Blanchot. The exploration allows Derrida to recall and restage the ways in which all the oppositional couples of Western philosophy and political thought—friendship and enmity, private and public life — have become madly and dangerously unstable. At the same time he dissects genealogy itself, the familiar
Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.23
It’s about time I showed you all some of what I will be reading over the next few months. This semester is probably one of the most difficult I have ever had. Both of my courses are theory-oriented (one on the later works of Jacques Derrida, who some of you have probably heard of, and the other on utopia and science fiction), I have to practice for a Spanish exam, which I’m not close to being prepared for, I am teaching two classes, rather than one and a quarter, and I am finally working on my M.A. thesis, which I’ll probably talk about on this blog at some point. But at least the things I’m working on are things I enjoy. So, all but one of the following books are for my utopia and science fiction course, which is probably pretty obvious when you see the titles. Here’s the image: And here are the descriptions, from left to right, top to bottom (from Amazon.com or the back of the book): 1. Utopics by Louis Marin The first part of this book, a study of Thomas More’s Utopia, provides the elements for a theoretical reflection on utopic signifying practices. The second part is an application of the first: an analysis of utopic and pseudo-utopic spaces. The author’s thesis operates on three levels. The first is of a categorical or conceptual nature; the second is a schematic or imaginary; and the third is aesthetic or perceptive. These three levels are explored in terms of a double methodological preoccupation, both structural and historical. 2. Alien Encounters: Anatomy of Science Fiction by Mark Rose Science fiction has become part of the imaginative landscape of the twentieth century. At its finest it offers a poetics of cosmic vertigo, a vision of ourselves on a small planet immersed in a vastness of space and time, alienated from nature and from ourselves. Mark Rose’s beautifully lucid study is a distilled assessment of science fiction as a genre. The focus and compactness of the five chapters are reflected in their titles: “Genre”; “Paradigm”; “Space”; “Time”; “Machine”; “Monster.” The characteristic preoccupation of the genre, Rose suggests, is the human in relation to the nonhuman. The nonhuman may be projected into space, as an alien being or a form of inanimate nature, or into some future or alternate time; it may be a literal or metaphorical machine; or it may be found within the human. Rose’s readings of individual works range from Verne to Wells to Lem’s Solaris and Kubrick’s 2001. He moves with ease from highbrow to popular literature and from literary to theoretical concerns, providing perspective through references to works of other genres and periods. His continuing themes include the consideration of science fiction as a form of romance, as a mediator between the conviction of free will and the conviction of determinism, as a displacement of essentially religious concerns, and as a mirror of various aspects of the alienated sensibility of the modern era. 3. Scraps of Untainted Sky by Tom Moylan A cultural studies examination of the twentieth century genre of dystopian fiction in the political and scholarly context of the evolution of science fiction studies and utopian studies since the 1960s. Focuses especially on the “critical dystopias” of the 1980s and 1990s and examines their interrogation of the sociopolitical and cultural changes wrought by capitalist restructuring and neo-conservative and neo-liberal governments in the United States and Europe. In Scraps of the Untainted Sky, Tom Moylan offers a thorough investigation of the history and aesthetics of dystopia. To situate his study, he sets out the methodological paradigm that developed within the interdisciplinary fields of science fiction studies and utopian studies as they grow out of the oppositional political culture of the 1960s and 1970s (the context of that produced the project of cultural studies itself). He then presents a thorough account of the textual structure and formal operations of the dystopian text. From there, he focuses on the new science fictional dystopias that emerged in the context of the economic, political, and cultural convulsions of the 1980s and 1990s, and he examines in detail three of these new “critical dystopias:” Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Gold Coast, Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower , and Marge Piercy’s He, She, and It . Dystopian narrative is a product of the social ferment of the twentieth century. A hundred years of war, famine, disease, state terror, genocide, ecocide, and the depletion of humanity through the buying and selling of everyday life provided fertile ground for this fictive underside of the utopian imagination. From the classical works by E. M. Forster, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Margaret Atwood, through the new maps of hell in postwar science fiction, and most recently in the dystopian turn of the 1980s and 1990s, this narrative machine has produced challenging cognitive maps of the given historical situation by way of imaginary societies which are even worse than those that lie outside their authors’ and readers’ doors. 4. Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction by Marleen S. Barr The surprising and controversial thesis of Feminist Fabulation is unflinching: the postmodern canon has systematically excluded a wide range of important women’s writing by dismissing it as genre fiction. Marleen Barr issues an urgent call for a corrective, for the recognition of a new meta- or supergenre of contemporary writing–feminist fabulation–which includes both acclaimed mainstream works and works which today’s critics consistently ignore. 5. The Principle of Hope: Vol. 1 by Ernst Bloch The Principle of Hope is one of the great works of the human spirit. It is a critical history of the utopian vision and a profound exploration of the possible reality of utopia. Even as the world has rejected the doctrine on which Bloch sought to base his utopia, his work still challenges us to think more insightfully about our own visions of a better world. “Ernst Bloch’s Principle of Hope is one of the key books of our century. Part philosophic speculation, part political treatise, part lyric
Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.22
I have a few more hangovers from that Books-a-Million excursion from a few weeks ago. Two of these books were purchased because I knew about them beforehand, and really wanted to have the chance to read them in the future (Shine and WWW: Wake). Then there’s one impulse buy (Jacob’s Ladder) and one subscription delivery (Popular Culture). Here’s the image: And now for the descriptions, from left to right, top to bottom (from Amazon.com): 1. The Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 43, Number 4, August 2010 (subscribed) This issue of JPC contains articles on military horror films, The Simpsons, commodity racism, comic book biographies of Abraham Lincoln, and several essays on various aspects of feminism in relation to popular culture. There are also a bunch of book reviews on everything from Stephen King to Alice in Wonderland (and philosophy) to comics, among other subjects. Should be interesting to read. 2. Jacob’s Ladder by Brian Keaney Jacob awakens inexplicably in a gray, grim place called Locus, where people his age live in dormitories, wear identical gray uniforms, and eat spongy, tasteless food. Even worse than the dreary conditions is his realization that others have complacently accepted this fate – something Jacob vows not to do. Setting out with two companions on a perilous journey, Jacob slowly unravels the horrifying truth about the people of Locus. As they journey through fear toward hope, they must choose between a past they cannot remember and a future they cannot predict. 3. Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF edited by Jetse de Vries Shine: a collection of gems that throw light on a brighter future. Some of the world’s most talented SF writers (including Alastair Reynolds, Kay Keyon and Jason Stoddard) show how things can change for the better. From gritty polyannas to workable futures, from hard-fought progress to a better tomorrow; heart-warming and mind-expanding stories that will (re-) awaken the optimist in you! 4. WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math-and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind. But Caitlin’s brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. So when she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes. While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something-some other-lurking in the background. And it’s getting more and more intelligent with each passing day… And there you go. Some of these are fairly “old.” Have you read any of them? What did you think? Let me know in the comments.
Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.21
Last month I went to Books-a-Million to use a coupon I received for being a member. The cool thing about Books-a-Million is that they have so many good books for good prices, that it’s almost impossible to not spend money while you’re there. That’s why I only go every few months… In any case, the following books are half of the books I bought while I was there. The price tags are not the price I paid for all of these books, though. Coupons are wonderful things! Here goes: And here are the descriptions, from left to right, top to bottom (taken from Amazon.com): 1. Regenesis by C. J. Cherryh The direct sequel to the Hugo Award- winning novel Cyteen, Regenesis continues the story of Ariane Emory PR, the genetic clone of one of the greatest scientists humanity has ever produced, and of her search for the murderer of her progenitor—the original Ariane Emory. Murder, politics, deception, and genetic and psychological manipulation combine against a backdrop of interstellar human societies at odds to create a mesmerizing and major work in Regenesis. Who did kill the original Ariane Emory? And can her personal replicate avoid the same fate? Those questions have remained unanswered for two decades—since the publication of Cyteen. Now in Regenesis those questions will finally be answered. 2. Anathem by Neal Stephenson Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable — yet strangely inverted — world. Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside “saecular” world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent’s walls. Three times during history’s darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside — the Extramuros — for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago. Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent’s gates — at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious “extras” in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn’t seen since he was “collected.” But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change. Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros — a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose — as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world — as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond. 3. Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne In the current debate about creationism and intelligent design, there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned-the evidence. Yet the proof of evolution by natural selection is vast, varied, and magnificent. In this succinct and accessible summary of the facts supporting the theory of natural selection, Jerry A. Coyne dispels common misunderstandings and fears about evolution and clearly confirms the scientific truth that supports this amazing process of change. Weaving together the many threads of modern work in genetics, paleontology, geology, molecular biology, and anatomy that demonstrate the “indelible stamp” of the processes first proposed by Darwin, Why Evolution Is True does not aim to prove creationism wrong. Rather, by using irrefutable evidence, it sets out to prove evolution right. 4. Mariah Mundi: The Midas Box by G. P. Taylor A new spine-tingling adventure by the author of Shadowmancer. The Prince Regent is no ordinary hotel—powered entirely by steam, run by an eccentric inventor who doesn’t believe in sleep, it’s a place full of shadowy characters and dangerous secrets. Mariah has just started working there as a magician’s assistant, and when he and his coworker Sacha unwittingly learn more than they were meant to know, they suddenly find themselves pawns in an evil plot so full of twists and turns that even the labyrinth of hidden tunnels and caverns beneath the hotel can’t contain it. As they struggle to unravel the mystery and stay alive in the process, encountering secret rooms, enchanted objects and vicious mythical creatures, they question whom to trust. All the adults—even the ones offering help—seem to be hiding something. After all, Mariah only got his job because his predecessor vanished one night—and, as Mariah is fast realizing, not all magic tricks are illusions. 5. The Quiet War by Paul McAuley Twenty-third century Earth, ravaged by climate change, looks backwards to the holy ideal of a pre-industrial Eden. Political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families and their green saints. Millions of people are imprisoned in teeming cities; millions more labour on Pharaonicpre-emptive action against the Outers before it’s too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists and gene wizards.Amid campaigns for peace and reconciliation, political machinations, crude displays of military might, and espionage by cunningly wrought agents, the two branches of humanity edge towards war… 6. Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra by Obert Skye The dreams of mankind are in grave danger. The Dearth, the true evil
Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.20
The University of Florida bookstore had a clearance sale a few weeks ago. I discovered it via my superpower, which is kind of a Sixth Sense meets Spiderman meets Wolverine’s nostrils. The selection was somewhat limited–a lot of old textbooks and politics books–but there were a few books that were more to my liking. All but one of the following books (Harmony is not one of them) is from that sale. Hopefully they’ll be of interest to you all. So, here goes: Here are the descriptions, from left to right, top to bottom (from Amazon): 1. The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy: The Lion, the Witch, and the Worldview edited by Gregory Bassham and Jerry L. Walls The Chronicles of Narnia series has entertained millions of readers, both children and adults, since the appearance of the first book in 1950. Here, scholars turn the lens of philosophy on these timeless tales. Engagingly written for a lay audience, these essays consider a wealth of topics centered on the ethical, spiritual, mythic, and moral resonances in the adventures of Aslan, the Pevensie children, and the rest of the colorful cast. Do the spectacular events in Narnia give readers a simplistic view of human choice and decision making? Does Aslan offer a solution to the problem of evil? What does the character of Susan tell readers about Lewis’s view of gender? How does Lewis address the Nietzschean “master morality” embraced by most of the villains of the Chronicles? With these and a wide range of other questions, this provocative book takes a fresh view of the world of Narnia and expands readers’ experience of it. 2. Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids by Sidney Perkowitz Robots, androids, and bionic people pervade popular culture, from classics like Frankenstein and R.U.R. to modern tales such as The Six Million Dollar Man, The Terminator, and A.I. Our fascination is obvious and the technology is quickly moving from books and films to real life. In a lab at MIT, scientists and technicians have created an artificial being named COG. To watch COG interact with the environment to recognize that this machine has actual body language is to experience a hair-raising, gut-level reaction. Because just as we connect to artificial people in fiction, the merest hint of human-like action or appearance invariably engages us. Digital People examines the ways in which technology is inexorably driving us to a new and different level of humanity. As scientists draw on nanotechnology, molecular biology, artificial intelligence, and materials science, they are learning how to create beings that move, think, and look like people. Others are routinely using sophisticated surgical techniques to implant computer chips and drug-dispensing devices into our bodies, designing fully functional man-made body parts, and linking human brains with computers to make people healthier, smarter, and stronger. In short, we are going beyond what was once only science fiction to create bionic people with fully integrated artificial components and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being. It seems quintessentially human to look beyond our natural limitations. Science has long been the lens through which we squint to discern our future. Although we are rightfully fearful about manipulating the boundaries between animate and inanimate, the benefits are too great to ignore. This thoughtful and provocative book shows us just where technology is taking us, in directions both wonderful and terrible, to ponder what it means to be human. 3. Harmony by Project Itoh In a perfect world, there is no escape In the future, Utopia has finally been achieved thanks to medical nanotechnology and a powerful ethic of social welfare and mutual consideration. This perfect world isn’t that perfect though, and three young girls stand up to totalitarian kindness and super-medicine by attempting suicide via starvation. It doesn’t work, but one of the girls–Tuan Kirie–grows up to be a member of the World Health Organization. As a crisis threatens the harmony of the new world, Tuan rediscovers another member of her suicide pact, and together they must help save the planet…from itself. 4. Conversations with Isaac Asimov edited by Carl Freedman Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), one of the most popular and influential American authors of the twentieth century, sparked the imagination of generations of writers. His “Foundation” trilogy paved the way for science fiction that was more speculative and philosophical than had been previously seen in the genre, and his book “I, Robot” and his story “The Bicentennial Man” have been made into popular movies. First published as a teenager in John W. Campbell’s groundbreaking science-fiction magazine “Astounding, Asimov published over two hundred books during his lifetime. While most prolific writers tend to concentrate almost exclusively on a single genre, Asimov was a polymath who wrote widely on a variety of subjects. He authored mysteries, autobiographies, histories, satires, companions to Shakespeare, children’s books on science, and collections of bawdy limericks. A lifelong atheist, he neverthe-less wrote more than a half dozen books on the Bible. Asimov’s varied interests establish him as a premier public intellectual, one who was frequently called upon to clarify debates in science, in history, and on the effects of technology on the modern age. “Conversations with Isaac Asimov” collects interviews with a man considered to be — along with Robert Heinlein, A. E. van Vogt, and Arthur C. Clarke — a founder of modern science fiction. Despite this, Asimov is perhaps best known for his many books of popular science writing. Carl Sagan once described Asimov as the greatest explainer of his age, and this talent made Asimov a natural for the interview form. His manner is always crisp and lucid, his tone always engaging, and his comments always enlightening. 5. Conversations with Carl Sagan edited by Tom Head Though a well-regarded physicist Carl Sagan (1934-1996) is best-known as a writer of popular nonfiction and science fiction and as the host of the PBS series Cosmos. Through his writings and spoken commentary, he worked to
Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Review v.4
Have you read anything by Karen Miller before? If not, then you should. She’s amazing with dialogue and she knows how to tell a good epic fantasy story. I’ve read two of her novels (both of which are set in the same world as the books below) and loved them. Lucky me, I get to review a few more of her books! Then again, I’d probably read them anyway… Anyway, here are the books (after the fold): And now for the descriptions (from Amazon): 1. The Prodigal Mage by Karen Miller Many years have passed since the last Mage War. It has been a time of great change. But not all changes are for the best, and Asher’s world is in peril once more. The weather magic that keeps Lur safe is failing. Among the sorcerers, only Asher has the skill to mend the antique weather map that governs the seasons, keeping the land from being crushed by natural forces. Yet, when Asher risks his life to meddle with these dangerous magic, the crisis is merely delayed, not averted. Asher’s son Rafel inherited his father’s talents, but he has been forbidden to use them. With Lur facing devastation, however, he may be its only hope. 2. The Reluctant Mage by Karen Miller It’s been many months since Rafel ventured over Barl’s Mountains into the unknown, in a desperate bid to seek help for their ravaged land. With his father’s Weather Magic exhausted, there seemed no other hope. Now this too has died. Only Deenie believes Rafel still lives, sensing her brother in tortured dreams. She also knows she must try to find him, as only Rafel’s talents could heal their land. The prospect terrifies Deenie, yet she sees no other choice. She soon learns of a dangerous new power. Deenie comes to suspect that not only is her brother involved, but that the evil their father destroyed is somehow reborn. And if she can’t save Rafel, then through him, Morg’s vast power could once again command their world. By the way, I’m almost halfway through The Prodigal Mage, and I’m loving it. So that’s that. So, have you received or purchased anything of interest lately?