A Call to Habermas

Habermas vs Foucault - Is Modernity an Incomplete Project?

I laughed a lot, what do you think?

France: à bout de souffle

Hardt writes in political thought in italy's opening lines:

In Marx's time revolutiionary thought seemed to rely on three axes: german philosophy, english economics and french politics. In our time axes shiftedso that if we remain the same euro-american framework, revolutionary thinking might be said to draw on french philosophy, U.S. economics and italian politics.

I will try to provide books in this milieu. there will be several issues on french's post-war flourishing.

I tried to bring leading intellectuals' responses together to the new world of post-45 capitalism and socialism. here we have lyotard, barthes, baudrillard, de Certeau, Castoriadis .

two books on movements: Ffrench's book on Tel Quel which is one of the most original editorials of the century. the other is on existential marxism book, it would be helpful for you to read generation existential for a better understanding of Heidegger's conquest.

Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity And The Persistence Of The Subject & Biography and the Question of Literature in France are very rich books indeed both questioning the agency which was probably the most prominent subject matter in an age when capitalism asserted itself as nature.

some books on early modern france. some music. too much boredom (kracacuer!)

that is all. istanbul is too hot. sorry for making you wait too much. adieu.

artwork: Salvatore Puglia - L'Art de la radiographie

türkçe bilenlere: cumhuriyetimize gelsin: ...dan sonra

The Possessed Individual: Technology and the French Postmodern

The Possessed Individual: Technology and the French Postmodern
by Arthur Kroker

# Paperback: 250 pages
# Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (December 15, 1991)

Taking as his starting point the failure of Sartre and Camus to resolve the problem of individual freedom and public duty, Kroker surveys French postmodernist theory as an approach to understanding the relationship between politics and technology in North America. The work of Virilio, Baudrillard, Barthes, Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard, and Foucault offers both an analysis and an indictment of the cynical reason underlying terminal culture. Influenced by Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason, this is a suggestive, if at times facile, fluent, and occasionally trendy, introduction to the French postmodernist thinkers and their importance to understanding modern so ciety.

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[a novel in turkish "I loved a postmodern girl"]

The Image in French Philosophy

The Image in French Philosophy
(Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 5) (Conciousness Literture and the Arts)
by Temenuga Trifonova

# Paperback: 316 pages
# Publisher: Editions Rodopi BV (February 28, 2007)

'The Image in French Philosophy' challenges dominant interpretations of Bergson, Sartre, Lyotard, Baudrillard and Deleuze by arguing that their philosophy was not a critique but a 'revival' of metaphysics as a thinking pertaining to impersonal forces and distinguished by an aversion to subjectivity and an aversion of the philosophical gaze away from the discourse of vision, and thus away from the image. Insofar as the image was part of the discourse of subjectivity/representation, getting rid of the subject involved smuggling the concept of the image out of the discourse of subjectivity/representation into a newly revived and ethically flavored metaphysical discourse - a metaphysics of immanence, which was more interested in consciousness rather than subjectivity, in the inhuman rather than the human, in the virtual rather than the real, in Time rather than temporalization, in Memory rather than memory-images, in Imagination rather than images, in sum, in 'impersonal' forces, de-personalizing experiences, states of dis-embodiment characterized by the breaking down of sensory-motor schemata (Bergson's pure memory, Sartre's image-consciousness, Deleuze's time-image) or, more generally, in that which remains beyond representation i.e. 'beyond' subjectivity (Lyotard's sublime, Baudrillard's fatal object). The book would be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy, aesthetics, and film theory. Contents -- Introduction: The New Metaphysics of Immanence -- Bergson's Matter-Image: The Degradation of the Impersonal -- Sartre's Image-Consciousness: The Allergic Reaction to Matter -- Lyotard's Sublime: The Ontologization of the Image -- Baudrillard's Simulacrum: The End of Visibility -- Deleuze's Time-Image: Getting Rid of Ourselves -- Imaginary Time in Contemporary Cinema -- Bibliography -- Index

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Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate

Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate
(Berg French Studies Series)
by David L. Looseley

# Paperback: 256 pages
# Publisher: Berg Publishers (March 1, 2003)

While music lovers from all over the world have tried to recreate the ambience of French cafés by playing music from stars such as Piaf, Trénet and Chevalier, intellectuals, sociologists and policy makers in France have been embroiled in passionate debate about just what constitutes 'real' French music. In the late 1950s and 1960s a wave of Anglo-American rock 'n' roll and pop hit Europe and disrupted French popular music forever. The cherished sounds of the chanson were sidelined, fragmented or merged with pop styles and instrumentation. From this point on, French music and music culture have been splintered into cultural divides - pop culture vs high culture; mass culture vs 'authentic' popular culture; national culture vs Americanization. This book investigates the exciting and innovative segmentation of the French music scene and the debates it has spawned. From an analysis of the chanson as national myth, to pop, rap, techno and the State, this book is the first full-length study to make sense of the complexity behind the history of French popular music and its relation to 'authentic' cultural identity.

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Political Writings by Lyotard

Political Writings
by Jean-Francois Lyotard

Bill Readings, Kevin Paul Geiman (Translator)

# Paperback: 352 pages
# Publisher: University of Minnesota Press (June 1993)

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Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves: Early Modern French Thought II

Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves: Early Modern French Thought II
by Michael Moriarty

# Hardcover: 448 pages
# Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (July 27, 2006)

From the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries, French writing is especially concerned with analyzing human nature. The ancient ethical vision of man's nature and goal (we achieve fulfillment by living our lives according to reason, the highest and noblest element of our nature) survives, even, to some extent, in Descartes. But it is put into question especially by the revival of St. Augustine's thought, which focuses on the contradictions and disorders of human desires and aspirations. Analyses of behavior display a powerful suspicion of appearances. Human beings are increasingly seen as motivated by self-love: they are driven by the desire for their own advantage, and take a narcissistic delight in their own image. Moral and religious writers re-emphasize the traditional imperative of self-knowledge, but in such a way as to suggest the difficulties of knowing oneself. Operating with the Cartesian distinction between mind and body, they emphasize the imperceptible influence of bodily processes on our thought and attitudes. They analyze human beings' ignorance (due to self-love) of their own motives and qualities, and the illusions under which they live their lives. Their critique of human behavior is no less searching than that of writers who have broken with traditional religious morality, such as Hobbes and Spinoza. A wide range of authors is studied, some well-known, others much less so: the abstract and general analyses of philosophers and theologians (Descartes, Jansenius, Malebranche) are juxtaposed with the less systematic and more concrete investigations of writers like Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld, not to mention the theatre of Corneille, Moliere, and Racine.

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moriarty

France since 1945

France since 1945
by Robert Gildea

# Paperback: 368 pages
# Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Updated edition (May 2, 2002)

The last fifty years of French history have seen immense challenges for the French: constructing a new European order, building a modern economy, searching for a stable political system. It has also been a time of anxiety and doubt. The French have had to come to terms with the legacy of the German Occupation, the loss of Empire, the political and social implications of the influx of foreign immigrants, the rise of Islam, the destruction of rural life, and the threat of Anglo-American culture to French language and civilization.

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The Time of Theory: A History of Tel Quel (1960-1983)

The Time of Theory: A History of Tel Quel (1960-1983)
by Patrick Ffrench

# Hardcover: 320 pages
# Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (January 25, 1996)

This is the first full-length study in any language of one of the most important elements in post-war French intellectual and cultural life. The journal Tel Quel was the focus of much of the intense theoretical activity of Paris in the 1960s and 1970s and played a vital role in the development of the key thinkers of the time, including Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers. Patrick ffrench traces its history, across the "time of theory" and the catastrophe of May 1968, to the review's controversial affirmation of literature as akin to theology in the late 1970s.

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go for the prof

Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser

Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser
by Mark Poster

# Hardcover: 415 pages
# Publisher: Princeton Univ (January 1977)


from a committed amazon reviewer:

Mark Poster walks the reader through sections of the history of 20th century French philosophy, delving a bit into other times and nations as well, in order to tell a story about what he terms "existential marxism". The sections on the influence of Hegel, as mediated by Kojeve and Hyppolite, are fairly good, though Vincent Descombes _Modern French Philosophy_ is better. Considering the importance that the early Marx has in Poster's narrative, Poster's handling of Marx and his French reception is a little quick, and doesn't offer as much as it should to readers unfamiliar with the _1844 Manuscripts_. Poster's discussion of existentialism is a little better, though the almost complete lack of attention to the philosophy Kierkegaard and Heidegger was a little puzzling. Poster's treatment of Merleau-Ponty is quite interesting, as is the relatively in depth section on Henri Lefebvre. Though it may not have been his intention, Poster demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty and Lefebvre prefigure a lot of ideas in parlance among 'postmodern' theorists, like the focus on ambiguity and open-endedness in M-P's case, and an analysis on the loss of signification and the alienation of every day life in Lefebvre's writing. Given Merleau-Ponty and Lefebvre's anticipation of and contributions to much of what are now considered 'postmodern' ideas, it's a shame the two are not more widely read. Hopefully Poster's sympathetic treatment will go a little ways to rectifying this.

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The Universal (in the Realm of the Sensible) by Olkowski

The Universal (in the Realm of the Sensible)
Beyond Continental Philosophy
by Dorothea Olkowski

# Hardcover: 256 pages
# Publisher: Edinburgh University Press (April 2007)

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here is the m'lady

The Practice of Everyday Life by de Certeau

The Practice of Everyday Life
by Michel de Certeau

# Paperback: 260 pages
# Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (December 2, 2002)

Priscilla P. Clark, Journal of Modern History
"The Practice of Everyday Life, published in 1974 and now the first of his books available in English translation, offers ample evidence why we should pay heed to de Certeau and why more of us have not done so. For one, the work all but defies definition. History, sociology, economics, literature and literary criticism, philosophy, and anthropology all come within de Certeau's ken. . . The Practice of Everyday Life marks a turning point in studies of culture away from the producer (writer, scientist, city planner) and the product (book, discourse, city street) to the consumer (reader, pedestrian). . . . In sum, de Certeau acts very much like his own ordinary hero, manipulating, elaborating, and inventing on the scientific authority that he both denies and requires."

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The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity

Enemies of the Enlightenment:
The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity
by Darrin M. McMahon

# Paperback: 288 pages
# Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (July 18, 2002)

History has often overlooked the men and women who resisted the triumphal progress of Western society toward Reason: spiritual Luddites, it seems at first glance, hoping to smash the ideological machinery of atheism and democracy. But in this sophisticated deconstruction of conservative opposition to the Enlightenment, McMahon, a fellow in history at NYU, re-envisions intellectual history from 1750 to 1830 as an ideological dialectic foreshadowing the culture wars of our own time and helping to define modernity. As McMahon shows, many Catholics saw Voltaire and his ilk as harbingers of degenerate hedonism, a diabolical menace to church, state and family. These anti-philosophes accused their enemies of practicing the very intolerance they condemned, and were convinced that danger lurked in philosophic fanaticism. Their horrified voices, audible from the mid-18th century on, became louder as the Enlightenment gathered momentum. Unable to stop the French Revolution, their protests seemed prophetic to many when idealism turned to terror. The ghost of Counter-Enlightenment ideology has been conspicuous in more recent times in Spain, Italy and Latin America, just as the specter of leftist violence has been repeatedly invoked. McMahon's argument is deeply versed in recent scholarship; his prose is polished, and the book is illustrated with compelling examples of visual propaganda (notably, Voltaire caught in flagrante delicto). While this title lacks the mass appeal of Simon Schama's Citizens or other narrative-oriented histories of the revolution, its relevance to conservative-liberal tensions in the U.S. make it worthy of broad intellectual discussion.

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Figures of the Thinkable by Castoriadis

Figures of the Thinkable
(Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)
by Cornelius Castoriadis
Helen Arnold (Translator)

# Paperback: 304 pages
# Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (July 18, 2007)

In this posthumous collection of writings, Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997) pursues his incisive analysis of modern society, the philosophical basis of our ability to change it, and the points of intersection between his many approaches to this theme. His main philosophical postulate, that the human subject and society are not predetermined, asserts the primacy of creation and the possibility of creative, autonomous activity in every domain. This argument is combined with penetrating political and social criticism, opening numerous avenues of critical thought and action.

The book’s wide-ranging topics include the core worldview of ancient Athens, where the idea of self-creation and self-limitation made democracy possible; the wealth of poetic resources; a deconstruction of the so-called rationality of capitalism and of the current conception of democracy, along with a discussion of what a radical, revolutionary project means today; the role of what he calls the radical imagination in the creation of both societal institutions and history; the roots of hate; a psychoanalytic view of human development torn between heteronomy and autonomy; the role of education in forming autonomous individuals; and notions of chaos, space, and number.

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The Imaginary Institution of Society by Castoriadis

The Imaginary Institution of Society
by Cornelius Castoriadis
Kathleen Blamey (Translator)

# Paperback: 426 pages
# Publisher: The MIT Press (January 9, 1998)

Thirty years ago Castoriadis founded the French journal Socialisme ou Barbarie, the title of which stated the alternatives he then saw confronting capitalism. Like Bruno Rizzi, James Burnham, and Milovan Djilas, who worked through an early belief in Marxism to develop a critique of Marxism from the Left, Castoriadis came to conclude that Marxism itself ends in the barbarism of a new class of bureaucrats. The first half of the present work consists of Castoriadis's trenchant critique, while the second half attempts to explain society's origin and function from a new viewpoint. Castoriadis's social theory, a product of more recent years, holds that society arises from the creative imagination, especially in language. Although his presentation is abstract, it is often punctuated by striking examples. This title belongs in most academic collections. Brent A. Nelson, Univ. of Arkansas, Technology Campus Lib., Little Rock
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"[T]he most original, ambitious, and reflective attempt to think through the liberating mediation of history, society, external and internal nature once again as praxis."
-- Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity

"Castoriadis's The Imaginary Institution of Society is a work of great power and originality. As a work of social theory, I would argue that it belongs in a class with the writings of Habermas and Arendt."
-- Jay Bernstein, University of Essex

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Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity And The Persistence Of The Subject

Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity And The Persistence Of The Subject
(Continuum Collection)
by Caroline Williams

# Paperback: 254 pages
# Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (May 2005)

an amazon reviewer called desire
"An ambitious but successful project. This critical overview of contemporary french thought focuses on the continuing role of the subject and traces the overlap and the distance between the theories of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault and situates them in relation to the thought of Spinoza, Hegel and brings in the works of many other contemporary figures. This study is great for bringing out key themes in an instructive and critical manner, especially for the student who is advanced in philosophy but lacks specialized knowledge in this area of thought. A great introduction into current debates on subjectivity, the unconscious, language and social structures, etc... and surely of interest to those with a deeper background as well."

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Biography and the Question of Literature in France

Biography and the Question of Literature in France
by Ann Jefferson

# Hardcover: 438 pages
# Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 1, 2007)

This book takes a fresh look at the relations between literature and biography by tracing the history of their connections through three hundred years of French literature. The starting point for this history is the eighteenth century when the term "biography" first entered the French language and when the word "literature" began to acquire its modern sense of writing marked by an aesthetic character. Arguing that the idea of literature is inherently open to revision and contestation, Ann Jefferson examines the way in which biographically-orientated texts have been engaged in questioning the definition of literature. At the same time, she tracks the evolving forms of biographical writing in French culture, and proposes a reappraisal of biography in terms not only of its forms, but also of its functions.
Although Ann Jefferson's book has powerful theoretical implications for both biography and the literary, it is first and foremost a history, offering a comprehensive new account of the development of French literature through this dual focus on the question of literature and on the relations between literature and biography. It offers original readings of major authors and texts in the light of these concerns, beginning with Rousseau and ending with "life-writing" contemporary authors such as Pierre Michon and Jacques Roubaud. Other authors discussed include Mme de Stael, Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Nerval, Mallarme, Schwob, Proust, Gide, Leiris, Sartre, Genet, Barthes, and Roger Laporte.

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Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews

Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews
by Mike Gane (ed)

# Paperback: 232 pages
# Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (March 26, 1993)

Baudrillard Live is a superb introduction to the most important and original French thinker of the past 20 years. Here Baudrillard speaks frankly of his modest family background, his apprentice years in the French university system, his continuing sense of himself as an outsider, his dispute with Foucault and his ambiguous response to his sudden fame in America . . . Vast and intriguing.
–J. G. Ballard, author of Empire of the Sun and In Praise of Women

The chief value of the interviews collected by Mike Gane in Baudrillard Live is the challenge they offer to the achieved flatness of Baudrillard's recent work. . . . it is the unsettling voices of the interviewers which make Baudrillard Live a worthwhile addition to the growing number of his books available in translation.
–The Irish Times

This book is--what might sound like a contradiction in terms--an ideal teaching book on Baudrillard.
–Scott Lash, Lancaster University

Product Description
Baudrillard Live gathers together many interviews which have been published in very different locations and publications into a coherent work. New interviews and an introduction make available the conversational thought of one of the leading French intellectuals associated with postmodernism. The scope of the interviews is enormous, from the experience of visiting the cinema, to views on film and photography, on through the Gulf War and the new world order. Baudrillard is well known for his critique of modernity and this work complements his writing, revealing the French theorist's talent for thinking on his feet. The book provides a peerless supplement to his often difficult writing, illuminating many points of contention in his work, particularly those relating to postmodernism.

Baudrillard Live is far more than a supplement. It is in its own right a document of the highest importance in the critique of modern society, as it raises many disturbing issues and problems. The collection is edited by a leading authority on Baudrillard's work.

The book appeals not only to those interested in French intellectual life, but also to those interested in the debate surrounding modernity and postmodernity. It is an essential document in the understanding of one of the most creative and important French thinkers alive today.

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Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings

Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings
by Jean Baudrillard
Mark Poster (Editor), Jacques Mourrain (Translator)

# Paperback: 304 pages
# Publisher: Stanford University Press; 2 edition (May 1, 2002)

This is an expanded edition of the first comprehensive overview of the work of Jean Baudrillard, one of the most fascinating thinkers on the French intellectual scene. To the original selection of his writings from 1968 to 1985, this new edition adds examples of Baudrillard’s work since that time.

Reviews of the First Edition

“This is a good book, and the author of its selected writings, Jean Baudrillard, deserves only a share of the compliment. It is difficult to introduce a difficult author, and Mark Poster has done a brilliant job. He has selected wisely from Baudrillard’s writings. . . . More important, Poster has written what may be, pound for pound, the best introduction to a social theorist I have read. . . . Poster has somehow said everything the uninitiated needs to know before deciding to read Baudrillard.”—Contemporary Sociology

“Following the lead of thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze, Baudrillard engages in a task of pointing away from any traditional sociological themes. His writings demand that one turn away from convenient or customary interpretations of society and, in the process, one is forced to use his or her imagination in new ways.”—Choice

“Poster’s Introduction presents what is probably as clear and intelligent an exposition of Baudrillard’s ideas as you’ll find anywhere.”—Philosophy and Literature

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Mythologies by Roland Barthes

Mythologies
by Roland Barthes
Annette Lavers (Translator)

# Paperback: 159 pages
# Publisher: Hill and Wang (January 1, 1972)

"[Mythologies] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes's progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life . . . For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for 'Einstein's brain' to stand for, be the myth of, 'a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.' Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of manufactured sense."--Edward W. Said

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A Short History of French Literature

A Short History of French Literature
by Sarah Kay, Terence Cave, Malcolm Bowie

# Paperback: 356 pages
# Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 16, 2006)

This book traces the history of French literature from its beginnings to the present. Within its remarkably brief compass, it offers a wide-ranging, personal, and detailed--though selective--account of major writers and movements. Developments in French literature are presented in an innovative way, not as an even sequence of literary events but as a series of stories told at varying pace and with different kinds of focus. Readers can thus take in the broad sweep of historical change, grasp the main characteristics of major periods, or enjoy a close appraisal of individual works and their contexts. The book is written in an accessible and non-technical style that will make it attractive both to students of French and to non-specialist readers.
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