Social and Critical Theory - Böcker

Aesthetic Capitalism debates the social aesthetics of contemporary economic processes. The book connects modern cultural dynamics with the workings of contemporary capitalism. It explores art and the new spirit of capitalism; visual culture and the experience economy; aesthetics and organisations; the art of fiscal management; capitalism without myth; and architecture in the age of aesthetic capitalism.Contributors include: Peter Murphy, Eduardo de la Fuente, Antonio Strati, Ken Friedman, Dominique Bouchet, Anders Michelsen, David Roberts, Carlo Tognato

Aesthetics is no longer the preserve of art historians and philosophers of art. Changes in society, culture, economy, urban dynamics and everyday life, push us towards considering the aesthetic components of traditionally non-aesthetic domains. Today it is not only legitimate but necessary to query the relationship between the social as a cohesive and encompassing form of community and human institutions and the aesthetic, that is the sensual, sensory, or, perhaps better, the sensible. Increasingly the social seems to emerge from the sensible and sentient meaning of objects. The volume SocioAesthetics: Ambience – Imaginary collects scholars from social science, aesthetics, arts, and cultural studies in case-driven debate, ranging from biometrics to luxury commodities, on how a new alignment of aesthetics and the social is possible and what the possible prospects of this may be.

Camus, Philosophe: To Return to our Beginnings is the first book on Camus to read Camus in light of, and critical dialogue with, subsequent French and European philosophy. It argues that, while not an academic philosopher, Albert Camus was a philosophe in more profound senses looking back to classical precedents, and the engaged French lumières of the 18th century. Aiming his essays and literary writings at the wider reading public, Camus’ criticism of the forms of ‘political theology’ enshrined in fascist and Stalinist regimes singles him out markedly from more recent theological and messianic turns in French thought. His defense of classical thought, turning around the notions of natural beauty, a limit, and mesure makes him a singularly relevant figure given today’s continuing debates about climate change, as well as the way forward for the post-Marxian Left.

Camus, Philosophe: To Return to Our Beginnings is the first book on Camus to read Camus in light of, and critical dialogue with, subsequent French and European philosophy. It argues that, while not an academic philosopher, Albert Camus was a philosophe in more profound senses looking back to classical precedents, and the engaged French lumières of the 18th century. Aiming his essays and literary writings at the wider reading public, Camus’ criticism of the forms of ‘political theology’ enshrined in fascist and Stalinist regimes singles him out markedly from more recent theological and messianic turns in French thought. His defense of classical thought, turning around the notions of natural beauty, a limit, and mesure makes him a singularly relevant figure given today’s continuing debates about climate change, as well as the way forward for the post-Marxian Left.

This book is a collection of recent lectures by Agnes Heller, delivered all over the world. These essays are edited and introduced by the author of the most significant intellectual biography of her work, John Grumley. In these lectures, Heller engages one of her greatest strengths: to discover philosophy within the very flux of contemporary events. These bring together such timely topics as refugees, human rights, truth in politics and the contemporary university as well as perennial issues like the possibility of artistic representation of the Holocaust, the question whether revolutions are always betrayed, and the possibility of universality in the contemporary multicultural world.

The book situates itself in the fields of philosophy, political theory, aesthetics and theories of art, linking its discussions of fictional dystopias to debates on ongoing crises. It asks: Are dystopias a useful tool for imagining ways out of sombre situations or do they prevent us from engaging in transformative action? The book consists of a thorough introduction and three major sections: 1. Dystopias of Meaninglessness, 2. Techno-Euphoria vs. Terror of Technology, and 3. Dystopias Come True?The individual chapters discuss, among other things, liberalism and conservatism, “luxury communism”, pandemics, technology-induced anxiety, empty speech, ethics, film, literature, architecture and music.

Stranger Cities explores the metaphysics of Australian society and the clash between its competing strands of romantic culture and classic civilization. The social expression, artistic resonance, economic significance, civic character, historic phases, mythic representations, creative antinomies, and imaginative contribution of these metaphysical fundamentals form the background of Australia’s distinctive urban civilization with its bustling stranger populations, ocean-facing portal cities, revealing art and architecture, and cyclical worlds of markets and industries, war and peace. Murphy portrays a classic eudemonic society whose dominant ethos of phlegmatic happiness vies with a subsidiary current of melancholic and choleric romanticism.

The pursuit of justice is an unending journey. It is the name of an impending promise that we always pray for, hope for, and sincerely desire but cannot quite see its fulfilment. Justice always encourages openness to the future and refuses to be confined to a particular definition. It occurs at different times with various demands and perspectives, and it cannot be reduced to a single definition and a single norm. This is precisely why this book consists of philosophical conversations that aim to expose the different faces of justice and to bring together the thoughts and concerns of thinkers talking about justice from different contexts. The interviews address issues such as God, ethics, otherness, anarchism, the refugee crisis, law, democracy and human rights in the framework of their relation to justice. The book is an invitation to everyone who wants to discuss the demands of justice in different contexts and witness the different faces of justice.

Modernity is stuck on an unsustainable course, which poses a challenge to both critical theory and praxis. My book develops a comprehensive diagnosis of the times by reviewing the rapidly growing field of critical theories that focus on structural paradoxes and social suffering. To address the complex challenges of the era of permacrisis, various emancipatory praxes are elaborated from the perspective of intersubjective (e.g., mimetic violence), technological (e.g., algorithmic reification), and discursive (e.g., cynical justification) distortions. In order to provide a synthetic framework, a new social contract is proposed, based on responsibility towards the particularistic other instead of universal justice.