Author: Charles Heflin File Type: pdf

Author: Anna Bonola File Type: pdf Vasily Grossman (19051964) was a successful Soviet author and journalist, but he is more often recognized in the West as Russian literatures leading dissident. How do we account for this paradox? In the first collection of essays to explore the Russian authors life and works in English, leading experts present recent multidisciplinary research on Grossmans experiences, his place in the history of Russian literature, key themes in his writing, and the wider implications of his life and work in the realms of philosophy and politics. Born into a Jewish family in Berdychiv, Grossman was initially a supporter of the ideals of the Russian Revolution and the new Soviet state. During the Second World War, he worked as a correspondent for the Red Army newspaper and was the first journalist to write about the Nazi extermination camps. As a witness to the daily violence of the Soviet regime, Grossman became more and more aware of the nature and forms of totalitarian coercion, which gradually alienated him from the Soviet regime and earned him a reputation for dissidence. A survey of the remarkable accomplishments and legacy left by this controversial and contradictory figure, Vasily Grossman reveals a writers power to express freedom even under totalitarianism. **Review This is a really interesting book. An important and distinctive addition to Grossman studies in English, it addresses fascinating themes surrounding human freedom that pertain to the writers life, political thought, literary technique, and philosophy. Philip Boobbyer, University of Kent About the Author Anna Bonola is professor of Slavic studies at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. Giovanni Maddalena is professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Molise and author of The Philosophy of Gesture.

Author: Calvin L. Warren File Type: pdf In Ontological Terror Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the Negro question is intimately imbricated with questions of Being. Warren uses the figure of the antebellum free black as a philosophical paradigm for thinking through the tensions between blackness and Being. He illustrates how blacks embody a metaphysical nothing. This nothingness serves as a destabilizing presence and force as well as that which whiteness defines itself against. Thus, the function of blackness as giving form to nothing presents a terrifying problem for whites they need blacks to affirm their existence, even as they despise the nothingness they represent. By pointing out how all humanism is based on investing blackness with nonbeinga logic which reproduces antiblack violence and precludes any realization of equality, justice, and recognition for blacksWarren urges the removal of the human from its metaphysical pedestal and the exploration of ways of existing that are not predicated on a grounding in being. **Review Calvin L. Warren recalibrates afro-pessimism in new directions while he seriously deepens, extends, and requires that we pay closer and better attention to the claims made by afro-pessimist thinkers. He turns toward a new philosophy of the Americas that requires a re-reading of philosophy insofar as it is founded in producing the absence of blackness and black people as the foundation of its very possibilities. Poised to re-animate Black studies in an important way, Ontological Terror will be a foundational text of afro-pessimist thought, even as it exceeds the term. This is a work of accomplishment.--Rinaldo Walcott, author of Queer Returns Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora, and Black Studies Calvin L. Warren recalibrates Afro-pessimism in new directions while he seriously deepens, extends, and requires that we pay closer and better attention to the claims made by Afro-pessimist thinkers. He turns toward a new philosophy of the Americas that requires a re-reading of philosophy insofar as it is founded in producing the absence of blackness and black people as the foundation of its very possibilities. Poised to re-animate Black studies in an important way, Ontological Terror will be a foundational text of Afro-pessimist thought, even as it exceeds the term. This is a work of accomplishment.--Rinaldo Walcott, author of Queer Returns Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora, and Black Studies In this careful and cogent account of the metaphysical structures of antiblack violence, Calvin L. Warren introduces a much-needed philosophical intervention in the claims and propositions of Afro-pessimism. His superb intellectual skills and beautiful philosophizing make this magnificent work important to a whole generation of scholars.--Denise Ferreira da Silva, author of Toward a Global Idea of Race Review Calvin L. Warren recalibrates Afro-pessimism in new directions while he seriously deepens, extends, and requires that we pay closer and better attention to the claims made by Afro-pessimist thinkers. He turns toward a new philosophy of the Americas that requires a re-reading of philosophy insofar as it is founded in producing the absence of blackness and black people as the foundation of its very possibilities. Poised to reanimate Black studies in an important way, Ontological Terror will be a foundational text of Afro-pessimist thought, even as it exceeds the term. This is a work of accomplishment. (Rinaldo Walcott, author of Queer Returns Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora, and Black Studies) In this careful and cogent account of the metaphysical structures of antiblack violence, Calvin L. Warren introduces a much-needed philosophical intervention in the claims and propositions of Afro-pessimism. His superb intellectual skills and beautiful philosophizing make this magnificent work important to a whole generation of scholars. (Denise Ferreira da Silva, author of Toward a Global Idea of Race)

Author: Bruce Fink File Type: pdf This text presents the theory of subjectivity found in the work of Jacques Lacan. Against the tide of post-structuralist thinkers who announce the death of the subject, the book explores what it means to come into being as a subject where impersonal forces once reigned, subjectify the alien roll of the dice at the beginning of our universe, and make our own the knotted web of our parents desires that led them to bring us into the world. Guiding readers through the labyrinth of Lacanian theory - unpacking such central notions as the Other, object a, the unconscious as structured like and language, alienation and separation, the paternal metaphor, jouissance and sexual difference - the author demonstrates in-depth knowledge of Lacans theoretical and clinical work. Fink leads the reader step by step into Lacans conceptual system to explain how one comes to be a subject, the analytic techniques employed to foster subjectification (punctuation, the short session and oracular speech) and the conditions responsible for the failure to become a subject - leading to psychosis.From Scientific AmericanFink provides the first clear, comprehensive, systematic account of Lacans work in English. The influence of this book is certain to be immense on theorists and therapists alike as it provides the fully articulated foundations for a Lacanian pedagogy, and makes generally available a radically new understanding of the analysts role. A magnificent piece of intellectual synthesis, an imposing and original contribution to psychoanalytic thought. ReviewThe Lacanian Subject not only provides an excellent introduction into the fundamental coordinates of Jacques Lacans conceptual network it also proposes original solutions to (or at least clarifications of) some of the crucial dilemmas left open by Lacans work. -- Slavoj Zizek, Journal for Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society