Editions Rodopi
Communities of peace; confronting injustice and creating justice.
Eight papers selected from the 2009 Concerned Philosophers for Peace annual conference, held in Dayton, Ohio, focus on communities of justice. Among the topics are the shame of punishment from scaffold to prison to nursery, intersectionality and love, Black feminist reflections on the utility of rage for building communities of support, and a sketch of the moral responsibility to engage oppressors. This is the 16th volume of the Philosophy of Peace Special Series, which began in 1995. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Creating destruction; constructing images of violence and genocide.
As part of a series on hostility and violence in the contemporary world, Billias (affiliation not provided) and Praeg (political and international studies, Rhodes U., South Africa) compile 11 essays first presented in a conference held by Inter-Disciplinary.Net in Budapest in 2007. Authors address the theme of how ideologies influence, facilitate and shape our understanding of involvement in violence. They present case studies examining strategies for the construction of the Other developed to justify ethnic cleansing of a group (e.g., the Tutsi in Rwanda) or war against a perceived enemy (the US in Iraq). The second section focuses on the construction of violent images through media, legal, social, and philosophical discourse. Not indexed is provided. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Narratives of trauma; discourses of German wartime suffering in national and international perspective.
Noting that the Holocaust is now institutionalized in public commemorations in Germany, Schmitz (German, U. of Warwick) and Seidel-Arpaci (Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Columbia U.) introduce 11 essays that reflect critical debates on a virtual self-inflicted taboo on representations of German national suffering in World War II. Drawing on differing concepts of trauma and mourning in memory studies, interdisciplinary authors discuss the theme of German victimhood in postwar fictional and nonfictional textual and visual narratives. Perspectives include German-Catholic, German historians on the Allied bombing, lesbians/feminists opposed to patriarchal Nazism, Dutch, and Israeli cinema (e.g., Walk on Water, 2004). Photos show "inclusive" monuments for all Germans. One essay is in untranslated German. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
New perspectives on pragmatism and analytic philosophy.
The 10 essays are based largely on presentations at the March 2005 international conference "Pragmatismo e filosophia analitica. Differenze e interazioni," held in Rome, so it is no surprise that most of the contributors are either Italian or American, where the pragmatism was born with the 20th century and dominated the philosophical scene until analytic philosophy arrived from Europe during the 1930s. They describe differences and interactions between the two schools of thought, primarily taking Pierce and Dewey as representatives of pragmatism and Wittgenstein as the analytic champion. Among the topics are beyond scientism, the pragmatic ground of communication, different pragmatist reactions to analytic philosophy, and pragmatism as anti-representationalism. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The philosophy of Viagra; bioethical responses to the Viagrification of the modern world.
Botz-Bornstein (philosophy, Gulf U. for Science and Technology, Kuwait) brings together political studies, philosophy, and bioethics scholars from across the globe to examine Viagra through the perspectives of classical philosophy, psychoanalysis, and culture. In 15 chapters, they challenge and deconstruct the scientific view of Viagra as an enhancer of self-esteem and sexual confidence and propose a phenomenological, existentialist vision of erotic experience. They discuss the drug in the context of Plato's Cephalus, Diogenes of Sinope, Aristotle's eudaimonia and Stoic philosophy, St. Augustine, and Campanella; bioethics; Freud and virtual reality; the Africanist perspective that views sexual virility as the means of transmitting life; Lacan and clinical sexology; American culture, sexuality, and race; the history of the science of impotence in the context of T.S. Kuhn's model of scientific paradigms; Arnold Gehlen's concept of the deficient nature of humanity; and nationalism and reproduction. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Postethnophilosophy.
Osha (Tshwane U. of Technology, South Africa) explores some of the major currents of contemporary African thought, among them the dynamics and configurations of decolonization; paradigmatic shifts in Africanist anthropology; the politics of culture and social memory; and questions of race, multiculturalism, and globalization. In particular, he looks at the disruption of the discourse created by the intertwine of Africanist anthropology and African philosophy — ethnophilosophy — that has dominated thinking in and about the continent for centuries. His topics include an anthropology of colonialism and contemporary globalization, an ethnic of culture and memory, figures of the African female, and a postcolonial text and the agency of theory. Price is converted from euros and subject to fluctuation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Projections of paradise; ideal elsewheres in postcolonial migrant literature.
The two editors are affiliated as follows: Helga Ramsey-Kurz (English literature, U. of Innsbruck, Austria) and Geetha Ganapathy-Doré (English, U. of Paris 13, France); the contributors are also English literature academics affiliated with European universities. The theme announced in the title is explored in 14 contributions. A sampling of topics: the expulsion from childhood in the writings of Penelope Lively, projections of paradise in Salman Rushdie and Agha Shahid Ali, Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide, Romesh Gunesekera's Reef, and Bernardine Evaristo's Soul Tourists. The U. of Innsbruck, Austria and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research are credited with support of this volume. Price is converted from euros and subject to fluctuation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Restoring the mystery of the rainbow; literature's refraction of science; 2v.
Forty-seven contributions presented in two volumes discuss the interaction of literature with science. Initial articles treat literature that predates Newton but deals with "a learned or philosophical awareness of how people interact with Nature" and with "sickness and health, medicine, mathematics, and various attempts at order and rationalization." Following are articles on literary works that responded to the dramatic changes in consciousness demanded by Newton's work and other developments in science, including the fears that science could eclipse the poetic and that the consequences of scientific exploration and knowledge would be dire for humanity. Arrangement is under the broad themes of the conflict of science in literature, bodily science, physics old and new, and the politics of science in literature. The second volume contains notably thorough indexing — by selected motifs, topics, and themes, and by authors, texts, and publications. Editors Valeria Tinkler-Villani and C.C. Barfoot are both retired from teaching in the English department at Leiden U., The Netherlands. Contributors are academics based in many countries. Price is converted from euros and subject to fluctuation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Shift linguals; cut-up narratives from William S. Burroughs to the present.
Robinson, who has published a number of articles on avant guarde and postmodern authors, offers a comprehensive look at the form, history, evolution and influence of the cut-up method in literature and other artistic media. He touches upon precursors to the cut-up method in poetry, painting, film, and the Dada and Surrealist movements, and outlines its specific origins, theory, and form as pioneered by Brion Gysin and popularized by William S. Burroughs. Robinson continues with critical analyses of early experimenters Gysin and Burroughs, Claude Pelieu, John Giorno, and Carl Weissner; self-professed "plagarist" Kathy Acker; and modern cut-up revivalist Stewart Home. He considers the impact of digital media and technology on the future of the cut-up method and notes the work of several contemporary authors who are further evolving the form. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
