Each of the contributions in this book addresses - through its own peculiar perspective, method and experimental style - a new way to approach the role of transcendence in socio-cultural life.In the Occidental history of ideas, the notion of transcendence has received at least three canonical articulations that are challenged by this book: religious (Judeo-Christian traditions), philosophical (Platonic-intellectual universality of ideas), and scientific (the objective and technological turn of knowledge). Nonetheless, it is with the rise of cybernetics, with its digital and virtual modalities of systems, networks, and knowledge, that our human environment emerges as a source of knowledge in itself --.
Perspectives from philosophy, aesthetics, and art on how to envisage the construction site of possible worlds. Given the highly coercive and heavily surveilled dynamics of the present moment, when the tremendous pressures exerted by capital on contemporary life produces an aggressively normative “official reality,” the question of the construction of other possible worlds is crucial and perhaps more urgent than ever. This collection brings together different perspectives from the fields of philosophy, aesthetics, and art to discuss the mechanisms through which possible worlds are thought, constructed, and instantiated, forcefully seeking to overcome the contemporary moment's deficit of conceptualizing alternate realities—its apparent fear of imagining possible new and compelling futures—to begin the arduous task of producing the political dynamics necessary for actual construction. Implicit in this dynamic between the imaginary and the possible is the question of how thinking intertwines with both rationality and the inherited contingencies and structures of the world. With no ascertainable ground on which to build, with no confidence in any given that could guarantee our labors, how do we even envisage the construction site(s) of possible worlds, and with what kind of diagrams, tools, and languages can we bring them into being?
This volume gathers Alessandro De Francesco's essays and theoretical writings produced from 2015 to 2022. It follows the first volume Continuum: Writings on Poetry as Artistic Practice, reuniting essays written between 2007 and 2015. The title of this new volume could only be Continuum 2, given that the underlying concept remains the same: to testify to the seamless continuity of the author's commitment to poetry and art over the years, and to reaffirm at the same time, on a theoretical level, a model of creation and thinking as a continuous flow, not discretized, not quantized, but organic, liquid, without end or beginning; a kind of linguistic translation of the space-time in which every text, like every other object, is necessarily immersed. Continuum 2 is a trilingual book, containing writings in English, French, and Italian, and it is particularly focused on two lines of inquiry: the author's ongoing meditation on the poetic practice, and the first steps of his new investigation into seventeenth-century art, poetry, and forms of thought.
CRIME / DRAMA / LOVE STORY Fletcher was taught from a young age to shut up and follow orders. Sit. Stand. Walk. Run. Climb. Jump. Fight. Stop. Sleep. When he’s not fighting the good fight with the S A S R, he’s living for the Chess Club in Sydney. He thinks he’s ready to join the ranks of husband and father like many of his friends have done, but maybe he’s committing to a fantasy that will never be realised. Taking the time to ponder life in the face of death, through conversations and memories, he’s reminiscing his way to an epiphany. He has to decide if the feisty sex worker who stole his heart is truly his happily ever after or the thorn in his side that needs to go for good.
Hephaestus Reloaded / Efesto Reloaded, presented in a bilingual (English/Italian) publication, and whose five authors are from Greece, Italy, and the US, invokes as its first inspiration the myth of Hephaestus who embodied a twofold entity: both disabled and technically capacious. The myth of Hephaestus has been passed across the centuries as an ancient metaphor signifying the idea of becoming-world, in which any distinction between the natural and the artificial, or the organic and the technical, is blurred. Human beings, by virtue of their physical vulnerabilities and limits, have enhanced their technological powers to the point of transcending their own given nature. At present, a variety of critical discourses in disciplines such as philosophy, history, aesthetics, and cognitive sciences pay attention to our becoming-hybrid (organic and mechanical beings) - unleashing a space for research that probes the concept of transcendence. Each of the contributions in this book addresses - through its own peculiar perspective, method and experimental style - a new way to approach the role of transcendence in socio-cultural life.In the Occidental history of ideas, the notion of transcendence has received at least three canonical articulations that are challenged by this book: religious (Judeo-Christian traditions), philosophical (Platonic-intellectual universality of ideas), and scientific (the objective and technological turn of knowledge). Nonetheless, it is with the rise of cybernetics, with its digital and virtual modalities of systems, networks, and knowledge, that our human environment emerges as a source of knowledge in itself -- not simply as an object but rather as an immersive agency in which nature, knowledge, technique merge. The transcendence of the actual and the virtual into a "third" element is construed and analyzed in this book through conceptual schemes that rely on a post-binary or non-binary understanding of coincidences, triangulations, hybrids, or post-human combinatorics. What is ultimately explored is how transcendence is ejected from strictly theological, philosophical, or scientific groundings and emerges as a germinating point of becoming (something else).
This boxset collects the three books of The Lobdell Chronicles. Every Planet Has a Godschurch The Horde invaded. Demons fought with us. Now, they live among us. Now, they rule us. I work for one of them as a hired assassin. I hate the work, but it's a better life than most. The only thing that keeps me going is my hatred of the gods that allows monsters to escape Hell to begin with... ...and left us to pick up the pieces. The Horde was bad, but at least they would have vaporized us quickly, not kept us as slaves. Luckily, a new contract just came across my desk. The chance to kill a god. Velaska. She deserves to die, and I'm going to put a bullet right between her purple eyes. It won't make my life any better, but at least it will give me some satisfaction, at least for a moment, and that's all you can hope for in this crazy, mixed up world. If you love mythology, space opera, and edge of your seat thrillers, then this book is for you. There's Every Reason to Fear The gods are being hunted. They are dying. The Godless are winning. I've hunted them across the galaxy, but every time I take down one Godless cell, three more take their place. They are relentless, determined, and pissed off, but they are also wrong. The gods are scared. They have never worried about death before, and now death lurks around every corner. I've protected them as best I can, but my best hasn't good enough. I must find the Godless base and destroy them before they kill every god in the universe; before they destroy the Godschurch in the process. If you love portal fantasy, subverting mythology, and magic, then you'll love this book. The End Tastes Like Pancakes The Godschurch is gone. Its members have scattered throughout the galaxy. There is no hope left. The Godless have kept us on the run since destroying our base two years ago. We've hopped from planet to planet, trying our best not to be wiped out. Now, we finally have a lead. We know where they've moved their base, and we're ready to mount an attack. We don't have enough resources. We don't have enough men. We don't have enough gods on our side. But we have to take our shot. It's the last one we might ever have. If we don't stop the Godless now, there will not be another chance. It's all or nothing, and the odds are stacked against us. If you like reinterpretations of mythology, non-stop action, and exciting battles, this is the book for you. Three books in one! Get it now.
Among other stories, this anthology includes Steampunk tales from Australia and the Amazon; there is a Steam Cleansing machine that alters human's souls; a prisoner/maniac who produces bestselling novels and machine schematics; a time portal opened accidentally by a steam powered mechanized band, leaving behind a mastermind's airship and devices; a trio of misfits on a journey across a distant planet's desert who are forced to save their lives by using a time forgotten steampunk technology; and an unusual transportation device to quickly cover distances on the emerging American continent.
In the future mankind has moved into the stars to colonize worlds and systems. Two competing groups of human civilizations must compete and struggle with each other and alien races for their place in the galaxy.
A down on his luck comedian has hit rock bottom. In jail, burned out, drugged out and emotionally spent, Frankie Sparks realizes that Life is Absurd. A burst of creativity produces his best material yet. Honest, open and most importantly-funny! He seizes on the last gasp of a dying career. Can he get the fame and adulation he had been chasing for twenty years? More importantly what type opf human will he be if he does?
She is a child of the gutter, the daughter of a whore. She is the bastard child of the last king of Umaill. With a swift ship and a loyal crew, Mary turns a handsome profit smuggling contraband. Life is good for all until the wretched Síol Faolcháin, a powerful Irish clan jealous of her success, wants what is hers. After Mary takes the head of a clan chieftain, she is forced to flee to the New World. But no one can run from the Síol Faolcháin forever. The clan lures Mary into a trap at an old mill and sets the mill on fire. Mary escapes the flames but her lover, her heart’s true joy, dies saving her. Beset with rage, blood for blood becomes Mary’s daily, ungodly prayer. Mary though is forced to put aside her thirst for revenge while England and Spain are locked in barbarous war. She is honor bound to answer a call-to-arms from the Tudor Queen. Mary gathers her fighting men and warships and sets out with the English fleet to battle the Spanish colossus. After the two great kingdoms have spilt oceans of blood and spent themselves, Mary returns to Ireland to settle her debts. The Síol Faolcháin will kill her, or she will kill them, but Mary will run no more. The sequel to The Butcher’s Daughter, and based on true historical events, this is a tale about war and adventure, about love, betrayal and revenge.
