-
Forging Late Roman Italy
Read more: Forging Late Roman Italyby Jeroen Wijnendaele (This text incorporates my introduction for the book launch of Late Roman Italy at Hamburg’s RomanIslam centre […]
Extract: Seeing Degree Zero: Barthes/Burgin and Political Aesthetics
Enjoy a sneak peek of the Introduction to Seeing Degree Zero: Barthes/Burgin and Political Aesthetics edited by Ryan Bishop and Sunil Manghani An unfolding line of enquiry has been the revisiting of Barthes’ term ‘zero degree’, which dates back to…
Freedom of Speech as Well as Listening: From Thinking with Words to Listening Through Language
By Igor R. Reyner It is evident that we are living in a particularly challenging time, where transformative and empathic ways of listening, as well as of understanding, are much needed. Surrounded by fake news and intransigent behaviour, isolated in…
A Sociologist and a Philosopher Attempt to Learn from COVID
Edward Avery-Natale, interviewed by Colin C. Smith My childhood friend Dr. Edward Avery-Natale is a professor of contemporary sociology, while I am a lecturer in ancient philosophy. Although Ed studies the modern world and I the ancient, we are often…
Spinoza and democracy in peril
By Dan Taylor In October 2020, in the days leading up to the US Presidential Election, over 130 leading historians of fascism signed an open letter. They warned that democracy today is deeply imperilled. It is either ‘withering or in…
The world of Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise
By Dan Taylor Baruch Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise, published anonymously in 1670, quickly turned Europe upside-down. Dismissed by one contemporary as a book ‘forged in hell by the Devil himself’, it argued that for societies to endure conflict and flourish, they…
About William S. Burroughs
By Stanley Gontarski American outlier writer, William S. Burroughs, was a creative force, as a writer in his own right, and as a cultural theorist, particularly his anticipation of what we now regularly call “a society of control” or “a…
Stoic advice on the coronavirus crisis
By Christopher Gill Many of the themes regularly used for life-guidance based on Stoic philosophy can help with responding to the current coronavirus crisis; here are a few suggestions. Drawing a clear distinction between what we can and cannot control,…
The Radical Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard
Explore the ideas behind writing the newly published book The Radical Philosophy of Søren Kierkegard by Saitya Brata Das. It is difficult to read Kierkegaard, not to speak of writing about him. The difficulty of reading Kierkegaard and writing about…
Esprit de Corps and the Right (Not) To Belong
I have always liked in French the word esprit, and this is not very surprising for a philosopher. In 2014, I wondered what Deleuze and Guattari had to say about the word esprit in A Thousand Plateaus. I possessed a…