The Instinct for Cooperation
The Instinct for Cooperation

Author: Jeffrey Wilson

Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Published: 2018-07-10

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 1609808177

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In the tradition of Joe Sacco's graphic journalism comes the first interview-based graphic novel treatment of Noam Chomsky's political ideas and activism. An astonishing graphic novel that brings Chomsky's political analysis to bear on real people's stories on the frontlines of America's struggle for economic justice and human dignity. The Instinct for Cooperation innovatively balances those real-life stories of struggle with conversations the author has had with Chomsky on how best to understand them. Although the themes are wide-ranging, this book is ultimately about the importance and need for spaces of resistance in countering state and other institutional forms of violence. For example, when discussing the removal of books by police and sanitation workers from Zuccotti Park in November of 2011, Chomsky paused to say "Arizona knows all about that," referring to the 2010 ban of Mexican American Studies in Tucson schools under Arizona House Bill 2281, which deemed classes that taught "ethnic solidarity" to be illegal. Rather than footnote the reference, Wilson tells that story. Like Joe Sacco's animated political journalism, this book offers a unique perspective on current issues, while providing a major contribution to the understanding of Chomsky's political theories.

Introducing Barthes
Introducing Barthes

Author: Philip Thody

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1848319754

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INTRODUCING guide to the cult author, semiologist and analyzer of advertising, Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes is best known as a semiologist, a student of the science of signs. This sees human beings primarily as communicating animals, and looks at the way they use language, clothes, gestures, hair styles, visual images, shapes and colour to convey to one another their tastes, their emotions, their ideal self-image and the values of their society. Introducing Barthes brilliantly elucidates Barthes' application of these ideas to literature, popular culture, clothes and fashion, and explains why his thinking in this area made him a key figure in the structuralist movement of the 1960s. It goes on to describe how his later insistence on pleasure, the delights of sexual non-conformity, and the freedom of the reader to interpret literary texts in the light of ideologies such as existentialism, Marxism and Freudianism, as well as structuralism itself, continues to make him one of the most dynamic and challenging of modern writers. This is the perfect companion volume to Introducing Semiotics.

Introducing Mathematics
Introducing Mathematics

Author: Jerry Ravetz

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 184831969X

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What is mathematics, and why is it such a mystery to so many people? Mathematics is the greatest creation of human intelligence. It affects us all. We depend on it in our daily lives, and yet many of the tools of mathematics, such as geometry, algebra and trigonometry, are descended from ancient or non-Western civilizations. Introducing Mathematics traces the story of mathematics from the ancient world to modern times, describing the great discoveries and providing an accessible introduction to such topics as number-systems, geometry and algebra, the calculus, the theory of the infinite, statistical reasoning and chaos theory. It shows how the history of mathematics has seen progress and paradox go hand in hand - and how this is still happening today.

Introducing Chomsky
Introducing Chomsky

Author: John Maher

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 1848319673

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Can it be that the human brain possesses an in-built faculty for language? Noam Chomsky, one of the most brilliant linguists of the 20th century, believes that it does- that there exists a 'universal grammar' common to all languages. Around the world children learn, in very similar ways, languages that seem entirely different. This is possible, Chomsky argues, because all human languages and their grammatical structures are linked in the human brain. Chomsky is controversial and yet highly influential, both in his pioneering work in linguistics and in his unrelenting critique of international power and his commitment to freedom and justice. These two 'Chomskys' are heirs to the Enlightenment tradition, and this book is the ideal introduction to them both.

Introducing Kant
Introducing Kant

Author: Christopher Kul-Want

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1848319681

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Immanuel Kant laid the foundations of modern Western thought. Every subsequent major philosopher owes a profound debt to Kant's attempts to delimit human reason as an appropriate object of philosophical enquiry. And yet, Kant's relentless systematic formalism made him a controversial figure in the history of the philosophy that he helped to shape. Introducing Kant focuses on the three critiques of Pure Reason, Practical Reason and Judgement. It describes Kant's main formal concepts: the relation of mind to sensory experience, the question of freedom and the law and, above all, the revaluation of metaphysics. Kant emerges as a diehard rationalist yet also a Romantic, deeply committed to the power of the sublime to transform experience. The illustrated guide explores the paradoxical nature of the pre-eminent philosopher of the Enlightenment, his ideas and explains the reasons for his undiminished importance in contemporary philosophical debates.

Introducing Modernism
Introducing Modernism

Author: Chris Rodrigues

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 1848319649

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Modernism is usually thought of as a shock wave of innovations hitting art, architecture, music, cinema and literature - the work of Picasso, Joyce, Schoenberg, movements like Futurism and Dada, the architecture of Le Corbusier, T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and the avant-garde theatre of Bertolt Brecht or Samuel Beckett. But what really defines modernism? Why did it begin and how long did it last? Is Modernism over now? Chris Rodriguez and Chris Garratt's brilliant graphic guide is a brilliant exploration of the last century's most thrilling artistic work - and what it's really all about.

Introducing Evolution
Introducing Evolution

Author: Dylan Evans

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 1848319738

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In 1859, Charles Darwin shocked the world with a radical theory - evolution by natural selection. One hundred and fifty years later, his theory still challenges some of our most precious beliefs. Introducing Evolution provides a step-by-step guide to 'Darwin's dangerous idea' and takes a fresh look at the often misunderstood concepts of natural selection and the selfish gene. Drawing on the latest findings from genetics, ecology and animal behaviour- as well as the work of best-selling science writers such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker- this book reveals how the evidence in favour of evolutionary theory is stronger than ever.

Introducing Consciousness
Introducing Consciousness

Author: David Papineau

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2015-03-14

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 184831972X

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'An excellent book' - Ted Honderich, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London (UCL) Introducing Consciousness provides a comprehensive guide to the current state of consciousness studies. It starts with the history of the philosophical relation between mind and matter, and proceeds to scientific attempts to explain consciousness in terms of neural mechanisms, cerebral computation and quantum mechanics. Along the way, readers will be introduced to zombies and Chinese Rooms, ghosts in machines and Erwin Schrodinger's cat.

Introducing Linguistics
Introducing Linguistics

Author: R. L. Trask

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

Published: 2014-06-05

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1848317719

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Covering thinkers from Aristotle to Saussure and Chomsky, "Introducing Linguistics" reveals the rules and beauty that underlie language, our most human skill.