Verso’s Reading List on Christianity

As a riposte to David Cameron’s comments about Christianity (or just to sell some books), Verso have put together a list of their studies of Christianity. Régis Debray, Slavoj Žižek, Simon Critchley, Ernst Bloch, Terry Eagleton, Wu Ming…

Posted in Books, Politics, Simon Critchley, Slavoj Zizek, Wu Ming | Leave a comment

Amador Fernández-Savater, “Notes for a Non-​Statocentric Politics”

fishAmador Fernández-Savater, “Notes for a Non-​Statocentric Politics” at Critical Legal Thinking.

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment

Shakespeare’s annotated dictionary?

AlvearieTitlePage-001An interesting story from the Folger Shakespeare Library about the claimed discovery of Shakespeare’s dictionary – an annotated copy of John Baret’s Alvearie. The claim is not just that Shakespeare used the dictionary, which is well-known, but that this was his personal copy.

You can read more about the project of publishing this dictionary at the Shakespeare’s Beehive website, and read the book itself – Shakespeare’s Beehive: An Annotated Elizabethan Dictionary Comes to Light – there too. The hardcopy is expensive, but there is a reasonably priced e-book.

Thanks to Jeffrey Jerome Cohen for the link.

Posted in Publishing, William Shakespeare, Writing | Leave a comment

WMD V: Warwick Manuscript Development Sessions 2014

A good opportunity for book publishing advice – contact Leonard Seabrooke: ls.dbp@cbs.dk for more information.

In 2009 the Centre for the Study for Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR) at the University of Warwick held its first Warwick Manuscript Development (WMD) workshop with first-time authors, discussants with single-authored book experience, and publishers. At WMD the discussants provided their thoughts on a book proposal and introductory chapter from the authors, acting as a reviewer for an established academic press and raising questions of the audience for the book, its market, and what could obviously be improved.

WMD V returns to CSGR this October 6th and 7th 2014.

Schedule: 10.00-22:00, Monday, October 6. (Dinner from 19.00-22.00); 09:00-12:00, Tuesday, October 7.

Location: S150, Social Sciences Building 53, University of Warwick, dinner and accommodation at Scarman House, on campus.

The format is that authors have 5-10 minutes to present the key idea and argument from their book, discussants then have 15 minutes to provide comments. No PowerPoint is permitted. We then open it up for general discussion. The dinner includes short presentations from commissioning editors on how the market for academic books works.

CSGR is covering the dinner and accommodation costs for participants for the Monday night. All costs will be covered for the discussants. The authors pay their own travel and any additional costs that may be necessary. The event in previous years has been a stimulating ego-free zone that provided first-time authors with a lot of feedback and insight into the business of academic publishing. WMD V promises a repeat of these positive experiences.

The WMD sessions are open to all authors in the fields of International Political Economy and International Relations. Interested authors should write to Professor Leonard Seabrooke: ls.dbp@cbs.dk

Posted in Books, Publishing | Leave a comment

The Geography of Poverty – Images, Maps and Text

Nails

A beautifully designed website, blending images, maps and text – The Geography of Poverty. Thanks to David Campbell for the link.

Posted in Politics | Leave a comment

Capital in the Twenty-First Century: A Reading List

As Piketty’s book is the top-seller on amazon.com, and sells out in bookstores, some other reading suggestions to sit in place or alongside it…

Elliott Bay Book Company's avatarThe Ship's (B)log

Were you hoping to read Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, but weren’t able to get a copy before we sold out of our first batch?

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Rest assured, we expect more copies to be in stock as soon as they become available from Harvard University Press, probably around mid-May.

But!

We know waiting is hard…especially for a book that riveting, so, in the meantime, our bookseller Jacob has created a list of recommended titles that are on our shelves now to read while we await the next printing of Thomas Piketty’s knockout debut:

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

 by David Graeber

“Anthropologist David Graeber casts a wide net, and this much longer view of human culture uncovers the moral and philosophical assumptions that are so deeply ingrained in our conceptions of debt that they usually remain invisible. By exploring the enormous variety of human relationships, exchanges, and…

View original post 386 more words

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Red Velvet at St Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn

redvelvet2014_feaLast night Susan and I went to see the remarkable play Red Velvet at St Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn. It’s the story of Ira Aldridge, the first African-American actor to play Othello in London, among a host of other roles. Steve Mentz recommended this to me, and does a much better job than I can of saying why it was so good on his blog. Steve went for a second time last night, which was the closing night of this run, after opening in London.

Posted in William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Japhy Wilson’s critical study of Jeffrey Sachs from Verso

sachsAnother book picked up in the Verso sale, Japhy Wilson’s Jeffrey Sachs: The Strange Case of Dr. Shock and Mr. Aid. [Update: An abridged version of Chapter Five is available here.]

It’s a powerful and nuanced critique of his work and involvement in neoliberal projects, and a careful analysis of his development projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

Sachs spoke at the AAG in Boston in 2008 (video below). I expressed some of my doubts about this invitation to a senior member of the profession who told me I was wrong, and that “Sachs was one of the good guys”. Reading this book makes me think I wasn’t wrong after all, and I now know a lot more about why that is the case.

I examined Japhy‘s PhD thesis some years ago (on a completely different topic). It’s great to see him make this carefully researched and politically engaged contribution. A more theoretical approach to Sachs can be found in an article by Japhy in Antipode from earlier this year (requires subscription).

Posted in Books, Politics | 4 Comments

Ernesto Laclau, The Rhetorical Foundations of Society – forthcoming collection from Verso

 

Laclau’s The Rhetorical Foundations of Society – forthcoming in May from Verso. Sad this is, now, a posthumous collection…

Verso-Sketch-20130213-KM.indd

Coauthor of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy shows how rhetoric constitutes the social order
The essays collected in this volume develop the theoretical perspective initiated in Laclau and Mouffe’s classic Hegemony and Socialist Strategy,
taking it in three principal directions. First, this book explores the specificity of social antagonisms and answers the question “What is an antagonistic relation?”—an issue which has become increasingly crucial in our globalized world, where the proliferation of conflicts and points of rupture is eroding their links to the social subjects postulated by classical social analysis. This leads Laclau to a second line of questioning: What is the ontological terrain that allows us to understand the nature of social relations in our heterogeneous world?” This is a task he addresses with theoretical instruments drawn from analytical philosophy and from the phenomenological and structuralist traditions. Finally, central to the argument of the book is the basic role attributed to rhetorical tropes—metaphor, metonymy, catachresis—in shaping the “non-foundational” grounds of society.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Althusser’s On the Reproduction of Capitalism reviewed

300Althusser’s On the Reproduction of Capitalism is reviewed at Review 31.

Posted in Louis Althusser, Politics | Leave a comment