Manuel DeLanda is a distinguished writer, artist and philosopher. In his new book, he offers a fascinating look at how the contemporary world is characterized by an extraordinary social complexity. Since most social entities, from small communities to large nation-states, would disappear altogether if human minds ceased to exist, Delanda proposes a novel approach to social ontology that asserts the autonomy of social entities from the conceptions we have of them.
Clarifies and systematises the concepts and presuppositions behind the influential new field of assemblage theoryRead and download the preface, by series editor Graham Harman, and the Introduction to Assemblage Theory for free nowManuel DeLanda provides the first detailed overview of the assemblage theory found in germ in Deleuze and Guattari's writings. Through a series of case studies DeLanda shows how the concept can be applied to economic, linguistic and military history as well as to metaphysics, science and mathematics.DeLanda then presents the real power of assemblage theory by advancing it beyond its original formulation allowing for the integration of communities, institutional organisations, cities and urban regions. And he challenges Marxist orthodoxy with a Leftist politics of assemblages.Key FeaturesCritically connects DeLanda with more recent theoretical turns in speculative realismMakes sense of the fragmentary discussions of assemblage theory in the work of Deleuze and GuattariOpens up assemblage theory to sociology, linguistics, military organisations and science so that future researchers can rigorously deploy the concept in their own fields"e;
The Philosophy of Society (1978) examines no less a weighty subject than human society. In fifteen essays, it analyses a series of fundamentally important questions about how human beings organise themselves.
In A New Philosophy of Society Manuel DeLanda offers a fascinating look at how the contemporary world is characterized by an extraordinary social complexity. Since most social entities, from small communities to large nation-states would disappear altogether if our cognitive abilities ceased to exist, DeLanda proposes a novel approach to social ontology that asserts the autonomy of social entities from the conceptions we have of them. He argues that Gilles Deleuze's theory of assemblages provides a framework in which sociologists and geographers studying social networks and regions can properly locate their work and fully elucidate the connections between them. Indeed, assemblage theory, as DeLanda argues, can be used to model any community, from interpersonal networks and institutional organizations, to central governments, cities and nation states.
With the eclipse of the New Right, politicians now admit that society is in crisis. Something must be done, but, explain the authors, governments will fail again unless they shake off the economic orthodoxy that is now one of the problems rather than the means to a solution. This book investigates the roots of the problem, both historically and theoretically. Dr Michael Hudson draws on archaeology and history, from Bronze Age Mesopotamia through Rome to Byzantium, to show how a destructive virus crept into the body politic. This led to a breakdown in man's relation to the environment and divided society into a wealthy ruling oligarchy and an impoverished majority.
Bringing together phenomenology and materialism, two perspectives seemingly at odds with each other, leading international theorist, Manuel DeLanda, has created an entirely new theory of visual perception. Engaging the scientific (biology, ecological psychology, neuroscience and robotics), the philosophical (idea of 'the embodied mind') and the mathematical (dynamic systems theory) to form a synthesis of how to see in the 21st century. A transdisciplinary and rigorous analysis of how vision shapes what matters.
Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies in particular three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time. According to Rosa, both the structural and cultural aspects of our institutions and practices are marked by the "shrinking of the present," a decreasing time period during which expectations based on past experience reliably match future results and events. When this phenomenon combines with technological acceleration and the increasing pace of life, time seems to flow ever faster, making our relationships to each other and the world fluid and problematic. It is as if we are standing on "slipping slopes," a steep social terrain that is itself in motion and in turn demands faster lives and technology. As Rosa deftly shows, this self-reinforcing feedback loop fundamentally determines the character of modern life.
2008 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine In recent years, the recognition of Gilles Deleuze as one of the major philosophers of the twentieth century has heightened attention to his brilliant and complex writings on film. What is the place of Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 in the corpus of his philosophy? How and why does Deleuze consider cinema as a singular object of philosophical attention, a specific mode of thought? How does his philosophy of film combine and further his approaches to time, movement, and perception, and how does it produce an escape from subjectivity and a plunge into the immanence of images? How does it recode and utilize Henri Bergson's thought and André Bazin's film theory? What does it tell us about perceiving a world in images—indeed about our relation to the world? These are the central questions addressed in Paola Marrati's powerful and clear elucidation of Deleuze's philosophy of film. Humanities, film studies, and social science scholars will find this book a valuable contribution to the philosophical literature on cinema and its pertinence in contemporary life.
The Das Kapital of the 20th century,Society of the Spectacle is an essential text, and the main theoretical work of the Situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960's, in particular the May 1968 uprisings in France, up to the present day, with global capitalism seemingly staggering around in it’s Zombie end-phase, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life in the late 20th century. This ‘Red and Black’ translation from 1977 is Introduced by Notting Hill armchair insurrectionary Tom Vague with a galloping time line and pop-situ verve, and given a more analytical over view by young upstart thinker Sam Cooper.
In 1980, at the end of the most intensely political period of his work and life, Louis Althusser penned Philosophy for Non-philosophers. Available here for the first time in English, Philosophy for Non-philosophers constitutes a rigorous and engaged attempt to address a wide reading public unfamiliar with Althusser's project. As such, the work is a concentration of the most fundamental theses of Althusser's own ideas, and presents a synthesis of his sprawling and disparate philosophical and political writings. Nowhere else does Althusser push the distinction between philosophy and other disciplines as far, or develop in such detail the concept of 'practice'. Rather than a work of 'popular philosophy', Philosophy for Non-philosophers is a continuation and conglomeration of Althusser's thought; a thought whose radicality is still perceptible in those that have followed since. Philosophy for Non-philosophers thus provides a vivid encapsulation of Althusser's seminal influence on the leading thinkers of today, including Ranciere, Badiou, Balibar, and Žižek.
