Alan D. Schrift has hereby done a great service to anyone interested in French thinkers and their thought. Twentieth-Century French Philosophy (Blackwell) chronicles the lineage, the history, and the context of all of the major thinkers and thought of France in the last hundred years. This includes a succinct chronology, brief biographies, and a lengthy… Continue reading Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes and Thinkers
Even with as many texts as have come out exploring and explicating our so-called information age, there has yet to be a more exhaustive account of just what the hell has happened than Alan Liu’s The Laws of Cool (University of Chicago Press). Nevermind the misleading title. This isn’t another exposé on “cool hunting” and… Continue reading The Laws of Cool by Alan Liu
A Hacker Manifesto is the Big Picture of not only where we are in the “information age,” but where we’re going as well. Adopting the epigrammic style of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, as well as updating its ideas, Ken Wark establishes so-called “knowledge workers” as an unrecognized social class: “the hacker class.” Wark… Continue reading A Hacker Manifesto by McKenzie Wark
In short, that contradictions must be accepted. — David Jones To unify the thing that is postmodernism might sound futile at the outset, but Lawrence Cahoone’s anthology From Modernism to Postmodernism (Blackwell) sets out to do just that. The very term “postmodernism” is fraught with misconception, misuse, and implies an adherence to fragmentation over unity.… Continue reading From Modernism to Postmodernism and Philosophy of Technology
Jacques Derrida is the founding father of deconstruction. Focusing on our use of language, Derrida (Jane Doe Films) shows the multiple layers of meaning at work. By deconstructing previous works of scholars, Derrida shows that language is a constantly shifting thing. Roy ChristopherI marshal the middle between Mathers and McLuhan. Editor of Boogie Down Predictions… Continue reading Derrida Directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman
