Unpolitical

Massimo Cacciari has been Dean of Philosophy at the Universita San Raffaele in Milan and has served three times as mayor of Venice. He was also a member of the European Parliament in 1999. His books in English include Architecture and Nihilism, Posthumous People, The Necessary Angel, and The Unpolitical. Alessandro Carrera is Director of Italian Studies and Graduate Director of World Cultures & Literatures at the University of Houston. He has edited Italian Critical Theory (Annali d'Italianistica, 29), and Music and Society in Italy (Forum Italicum, 49). Massimo Verdicchio is professor of Italian and comparative literature at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Naming Things, Reading Dante Reading, and The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso.

"A fascinating glimpse into one of the most complex thinkers in Italy today." -- -Thomas Harrison University of California, Los Angeles "In a time like ours, when disaffection with politics is widespread among the younger generation, the idea of the 'unpolitical' pursued by Cacciari-as a way not to neglect the value of political discourse but to set and control its limits-may become an important tool to counteract the growing indifference to politics and detachment from the public sphere." -- -Massimo Lollini University of Oregon "With this publication of Massimo Cacciari's The Unpolitical: On the Radical Critique of Politcal Reason, the non-Italian speaking reader is introduced to an integral part of Massimo Cacciari's socio-political thought process and, especially, how it developed over the years. We see how Cacciari, in his readings and analysis of the various philosophers and political thinkers he tackles over the years, is able to anticipate to a certain degree the current state of political affairs in Italy and, perhaps, as well as elsewhere. Alessandro Carrera provides an exhaustively substantial introduction, and Massimo Verdicchio offers the English reader a lucid and smooth translation." -- -Anthony Julian Tamburri Queens College, CUNY "Massimo Cacciari offers a paradoxical new alternative to our view of governamentality: neither the classical politics of Grand Narratives, Great Reforms and Ultimate Utopias, nor the post-modern anti-politics of cynical self-interest and petty calculations, __The unpolitical__ is a critical look at the very limits of politics. The unpolitical is not, like the anti-political, opposed to politics: it re-thinks, in fact, its myths and utopias, but now from the perspective of daily praxis and techniques of governance. In this elegant and precise translation, supplemented by an original and informative introduction, Alessandro Carrera puts forward a coherent genealogy of the "unpolitical" in the writings of one of today's most important philosophers. This is a book to be treasured by all those who care about the future of politics." -- -Roberto M. Dainotto Duke University "An excellent English-language intoduction to Cacciari's thought." -- -Luca Somigli University of Toronto