Over breakfast this morning at the International Philosophical Seminar in the Süd Tyrol, Gary Ayleworth pointed me to his recent review of a new book on Heiedegger, De Gennaro’s The Weirdness of Being. This gives a taste: “Let the reader beware, then, that De Gennaro’s intended addressee is being itself, and if he addresses other human beings at all, it is only those few who qualify as ‘thinking.'” The gist of the book, Gary notes, is to argue that the Ereignis has already happened, that it’s the job of a “priestly cult” to reinitiate what has already happened in Heidegger’s texts, especially those texts that Heidegger kept private during his lifetime. Unfortunately for the author, this book was published prior to the Schwarze Hefte (here’s Richard Wolin’s review, whom I generally don’t like reading, but the priestly sort does have to come to grips with the thrust of his critique), so one hopes that he will revise that thesis. But perhaps he thinks there are even more secret works where Heidegger kept hidden his answer to the Seinsfrage, available to the select few.
Month: June 2014
Balibar, Equaliberty and Rancière Now reviewed at NDPR
Stuart Elden links to two recent NDPR reviews. The Ranciere Now is particularly good–I just read through much of it and will be discussing Ranciere with Oliver Davis this week.
Two interesting reviews at NDPR: Étienne Balibar, Equaliberty: Political Essays reviewed by Jonathan Joseph; and Oliver Davis (ed.), Rancière Now reviewed by Samuel A. Chambers.
Endorsements in for my upcoming book.
Quite nice <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1441174753/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1403524252&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40″>endorsements</a> from an excellent assortment of important thinkers. h/t Paul Ennis. (Click on description)
Now back to the nature conference here in Augsburg–a really excellent event.
Environment and Planning A theme issue on ‘territorial stigmatization’
First translation of Deleuze’s course on Rousseau
I’ll give this a read when I get a chance.
“Thought is the courage of hopelessness” – interview with Giorgio Agamben
“Thought is the courage of hopelessness: an interview with philosopher Giorgio Agamben” at the Verso blog (translated from a French original).
A Century of Knowledge: The Humanities – Routledge
Lots of good Routledge stuff available online this month, from phenomenology to Foucault and beyond: A Century of Knowledge: The Humanities – Routledge.
Unger Knew, but Didn’t Want to Know – Digressions&Impressions
Eric Schliesser on one of the more obnoxious interviews I’ve read by a philosopher, namely with Peter Unger of NYU: Unger Knew, but Didn’t Want to Know – Digressions&Impressions. Schliesser picks up on Unger’s strange point scoring on who is smarter than whom (it comes up several times), like somebody who last developed ideas on this in high school, and his “pick up the ladder behind him” approach to the discipline (he claims it should be done with, after a career doing it). Anyway, it’s interesting what he claims philosophy to be (basically leave it to the scientists), which then makes it easier to claim it should just wilt on the vein. Clearly he’s not a political thinker and that doesn’t count for him (he derides what were some of the high points of Russell’s writings) as philosophy. He did well at the institutional game but then doesn’t note the problems of that game except that it allows him to deride the work of almost all others, a priori it seems.
Lecture in Bangkok Tomorrow
Probably should have put this up with more notice, but for any Thai readers (according to WordPress, there are some!), I’ll be talking tomorrow on “Liberty, Equality, but not Fraternity” (chosen by my host) at the centrally located Chulalongkorn University, Boroomrajchakumaree Building, room 706. I’m looking forward to it–not just for meeting the department, etc., but also any political discussion (especially about questions of sovereignty) here given the recent coup (all but the most tourist-y of areas are still under curfew and a firm date is not forthcoming on the implementation of a new constitution) is bound to have more than the discussed resonances (though I won’t go into it myself).
After that, it’s off to Munich and the nearby Augsburg, with whom we are setting up a join-PhD program, for a block seminar on nature (my focus will be on the recent Continental turn to naturalism–and where I see its problems). While there, I’ll also be writing up my paper on Jacques Rancière’s Aisthesis for the International Philosophical Seminar later this month in the Südtirol, Italy. Thus three longish papers in three weeks on different topics, then back to book work while staying in Europe until the end of July.
Academic Publisher Tries to Silence Debate on Academic Publishing
This is obviously troubling. And no doubt this shows Taylor and Francis–at least those who were behind this–don’t get academics or even media 101: far more people have now noticed this than would have otherwise and it demonstrates some of the very problems the issue set out to highlight.
An article in Times Higher Education reports that the editorial board of the journal of Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation, has threatened to resign. Why? The journal’s publisher, Taylor & Francis, delayed the publication of a special issue of Prometheus on the topic of academic publishing and profits and made changes to the issue’s articles, including removing the names of academic publishers. The publisher also inserted a disclaimer alongside the main article, saying that “the accuracy of the content should not be relied upon”. (via Sam Liao)
Taylor & Francis publish many philosophy journals. Any editors care to weigh in on this?
PHILOSOPHY IN A TIME OF ERROR 