Philosophy and Ecology at the End of the World: Morton’s Hyperobjects reviewed

Cara Daggett reviews Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects at the Society and Space open site

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David Harvey in conversation with Tariq Ali

David Harvey in conversation with Tariq Ali – video here

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Posted in David Harvey, Politics, Tariq Ali | 4 Comments

Links on the Islamic State – from Burke to Esposito, Rogers to Zizek

_76864500_airstrike_iraq_syria_isis_08_08_14_624mapv2Back in June I posted a number of links – Explaining ISIS/ISIL – a roundup of things to read. Here are some more on the recent events. I’ve not generally linked to major news sources other than the Jason Burke piece and the BBC report, in part because of its good maps.

Iraq’s Jihadi Jack-in-the-Box – International Crisis Group Briefing

Paul Rogers, The Iraq Crisis: A Briefing Series – Oxford Research Group (four parts to date)

Jason Burke – The Isis leader’s vision of the state is a profoundly contemporary oneThe Guardian

Franco Galdini, The IS Blowback, Warscapes

Slavoj Žižek, ISIS is a disgrace to true fundamentalism, New York Times, 4 September 2014

John Esposito, How to Defeat a Phony Caliphate, Informed Comment

BBC News – What is Islamic State?

Update:

Noam Chomsky, Owl of Minerva’s View: ISIS and Our Times

Update 2:

Peter Harling: IS Back in Business, International Crisis Group/Le monde diplomatique

The End of Sikes Picot: First few minutes of this are interesting; then it gets very repetitive.

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David Stubbs, Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany

This looks very interesting – David Stubbs, Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany.

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West Germany after the Second World War was a country in shock: estranged from its recent history, and adrift from the rest of Europe. But this orphaned landscape proved fertile ground for a generation of musicians who, from the 1960s onwards, would develop the experimental and various sounds that became known as Krautrock.

Eschewing the Anglo-American jazz/blues tradition, they took their inspiration from elsewhere: the mysticism of the East; the fractured classicism of Stockhausen; the pneumatic repetition of industry, and the dense forests of the Rhineland; the endless winding of Autobahns.

Faust, Neu!, Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül II, Can, Kraftwerk ­- the influence of these groups’ ruminative, expansive compositions upon Western popular music is incalculable. They were key to the development of movements ranging from postpunk to electronica and ambient, and have directly inspired artists as diverse as David Bowie, Talking Heads and Primal Scream.

Future Days is an in-depth study of this meditative, sometimes abstract, often very beautiful music and the groups that made it, throwing light too on the social and political context that informed them. It’s an indispensable book for those wanting to understand how much of today’s music came about, and to discover a wealth of highly influential and pioneering artists.

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Free Articles in Gender, Place, and Culture

Papers from the Jan Monk Distinguished Lecture in Feminist Geography available open access this month from Gender, Place and Culture.

Mark Purcell's avatarPath to the Possible

Via Peter Hopkins:

This series of papers (see list below) are free to download until the end of September by following this link: http://explore.tandfonline.com/page/est/cgpc-jan-monk-lectures

Gentrification, assassination and forgetting in Mexico: a feminist Marxist tale http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2014.882650
* Volume 21 Issue 1 (2014)
* Melissa W. Wright

Storytelling and co-authorship in feminist alliance work: reflections from a journey http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2012.731383
* Volume 20 Issue 1 (2013)
* Richa Nagar

The intimate politics of secularism and the headscarf: the mall, the neighborhood, and the public square in Istanbul http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2011.633428
* Volume 19 Issue 1 (2012)
* Banu Gökarıksel

A feminist project of belonging for the Anthropocene http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2011.535295
* Volume 18 Issue 1 (2011)
* J.K. Gibson-Graham

Gender and mobility: new approaches for informing sustainability http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09663690903498225
* Volume 17 Issue 1 (2010)
* Susan Hanson

Circulating sadness: witnessing Filipina mothers’ stories of family separation http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09663690802574753
* Volume 16 Issue 1 (2009)
* Geraldine Pratt

Bad…

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Heidegger, Hölderlin’s Hymns “Germania” and “The Rhine” – translation out in September

Apparently this is actually now available.

stuartelden's avatarProgressive Geographies

The long awaited – it’s been forthcoming since the 1990s – translation of Martin Heidegger’s 1934-35 lecture course Hölderlin’s Hymns “Germania” and “The Rhine”, is due out in September 2014. The translators are William McNeill and Julia Ireland, also responsible for the translation of Heidegger’s course on Hölderlin’s Hymn ‘The Ister’. Thanks to Chathan Vemuri for the link.

9780253014214_medMartin Heidegger’s 1934–1935 lectures on Friedrich Hölderlin’s hymns “Germania” and “The Rhine” are considered the most significant among Heidegger’s lectures on Hölderlin. Coming at a crucial time in his career, the text illustrates Heidegger’s turn toward language, art, and poetry while reflecting his despair at his failure to revolutionize the German university and his hope for a more profound revolution through the German language, guided by Hölderlin’s poetry. These lectures are important for understanding Heidegger’s changing relation to politics, his turn toward Nietzsche, his thinking about the German language, and his breakthrough…

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On Michel Serres’ Paper at SEP-FEP: Plato, Jules Verne, and the Johannine Counterpoint

A report from Christopher Watkin on a paper from Michel Serres.

Christopher Watkin's avatarChristopher Watkin

There was a great sadness this morning at the conference that Michel Serres’ health has not permitted him to travel to Utrecht in person, but also a deep thankfulness and appreciation that, despite his failing health, he had taken the time to pre-record his address. The discussion that followed his paper (recorded at his house in Vincennes and played to the conference on a series of television screens around the meeting room in St Martin’s Cathedral, pictured below) certainly lacked for nothing in terms of liveliness.

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Serres delivered his address in French, and English translation (entitled ‘Information and Thinking’) was handed round to the delegates.

In the address Serres elaborates upon a theme that punctuates his work from the Hermes series onward: information. It strikes me that Serres’ notion of information and communication circulating between all entities (human, animal, vegetable and mineral) could be interestingly and profitably compared with Jean-Luc…

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Heidegger Black Notebooks conference – New York, Sept 11-12 2014

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Peter Trawny, Richard Wolin, Thomas Sheehan, Emmanuel Faye, Karsten Harries and others – conference at CUNY, 11-12 September 2012. Thanks to Philippe Theophanidis for the link. Details of another conference on this theme in Atlanta the week before are here.

 

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A map of all the devices on the internet

A map of all the devices connected on the internet – that’s what it claims at least, but it’s a beautiful and striking image anyway: clicking on the image leads to a larger version.

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Basel ‘New Developments in Theory’ lecture and ‘Space, Territory, Literature’ seminar

Ridvan Askin has sent me the flyers for the ‘New Developments in Theory’ lecture and the ‘Space, Territory, Literature’ seminar at the University of Basel in November. Looking forward to these days in Basel – a city I have only ever passed through, not visited, before.

Gastvortrag_GeometricsWorkshop_SpaceTerritoryLiterature

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