Freedom of the Migrant

VilÉm Flusser (1920-91) was a German-Jewish philosopher from Prague who fled in 1940 to Brazil, where he was a professor of philosophy of communication and wrote a daily newspaper column. In 1972, he moved to France and wrote books in both German and Portuguese, including The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design, Toward a Philosophy of Photography, and From Subject to Project: Becoming Human.Anke K. Finger is an associate professor of German studies and comparative literature at the University of Connecticut. Kenneth Kronenberg is a professional translator and the author/translator of Lives and Letters of an Immigrant Family.

"A smooth, fluid translation of an excellent collection of essays by this timely and necessary thinker."--Andreas StrÖhl, editor of VilÉm Flusser's Writings "Flusser emerges out of these writings as an engaging and playful thinker, one who moves deftly from deeply personal reflections to abstract theory often within the same paragraph. This is at once part of the charm and the difficulty of his writing; his simple observations gesture toward rich layers of meaning that lie beneath the surface awaiting excavation."--Canadian Literature

• The challenge of the migrant; on the alien; we need a philosophy of emigration; to be unsettled - one first has to be settled; planning the unplannable; from guest to guest worker; thinking about nomadism; nomads; building houses; "How goodly are your tents - Jacob"; ex-perience; reunification or networking?; does the French nation still exist?; exile and creativity; conversation between Vil em Flusser and Patrick Tschudin.