Bloomsbury Philosophy News

Bloomsbury Holiday Wish Lists - Featuring Carol J. Adams

Is there any better gift to give or receive than books? We don’t think so! So we’ve asked some of our authors to share with us their Bloomsbury Holiday Wish Lists, to help inspire your gift-giving this season!

Today’s Wish List is from Carol J. Adams, author of numerous books including The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, which is now available in our Bloomsbury Revelations Series.

Bloomsbury Academic books I’d like in my Christmas stocking this year, include:

Jennifer Good’s Photography and September 11^th: Spectacle, Memory, Trauma and Melvyn Stokes’s American History through Hollywood Film: From the Revelation to the 1960s. In The Sexual Politics of Meat, I am concerned with the relationship between representation and oppression, so I am always on the watch for books that help me think about the function of representation in shaping the stories we tell.

Chad Montrie’s A People's History of Environmentalism in the United States recasts the familiar story, and as a feminist aware of how often the disenfranchised are often left out of the story, I know how important Montrie’s approach restoring activists lost from the dominant narrative is.

I want to read Francis O'Gorman’s Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History for the very reason that I think he wrote it: to come to understand this common phenomenon from the inside out and the outside in.

And Laura Lee Downs' Writing Gender History, a project near and dear to my heart.

Because every volume sounds fascinating, I’d like the entire set of A Cultural History of The Human Body  (from Antiquity through to the Modern Age), covering birth and death, health and Disease, sex& sexuality, “marked bodies” from Gender, Race, Class, Age, Disability and Disease  to the Bestial, the Divine and the Natural and much else!

Ditto with A Cultural History of Animals which I don’t understand how I have done without all these years.

I am going to cheat and list “Object Lessons” as a choice, when it is actually a series. I want every single one of them from the published ones Golf Ball, Remote Control, Silence, Drone, Glass, Phone Booth, Refrigerator, Waste, and Hotel to the forthcoming ones: Cigarette Lighter, Dust, Shipping Container, Hood, Bookshelf, Bread, Hair, Password, and Questionnaire.

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These books, and Carol Adams’ book The Sexual Politics of Meat are all on sale as part of our Holiday Sale until December 12!

Also by Carol J. Adams:

Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian's Survival Handbook

The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Jane Austen

The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Frankenstein

Help! My Child Stopped Eating Meat! An A-Z Guide to Surviving a Conflict of Diets

Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals

 

 

30 seconds with Will Viney, author of Waste: A Philosophy of Things

 

Why are we here? What is the good life? How can I attain blissful happiness? These are some of the perennial questions of philosophy. Forget them. Here is finally a book that seeks to answer a truly pressing contemporary question: What is the philosophy of waste? Am I pulling your leg? Maybe a little. Nonetheless, waste — essentially things we humans discard — has a cultural, historical and philosophical significance that is often neglected. A few weeks ago, we published Will Viney’s Waste: A Philosophy of Things: the first title to offer a comprehensive look at the philosophy of waste.

 

Why are people so interested in what they and others throw away? Waste shows how this interest in what we discard is far from new — it is integral to how we make, build and describe our lived environment. As Will Viney’s wide-ranging new study reveals, waste has been a polarizing topic for millennia and has been treated as a rich resource by artists, writers, philosophers and architects. Drawing on the works of Giorgio Agamben, T.S. Eliot, Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, James Joyce, Bruno Latour and many others, Waste investigates the complexities of waste in sculpture, literature and architecture. It traces a new philosophy of things from the ancient to the modern and will be of interest to those working in cultural and literary studies, archaeology, architecture and continental philosophy.

 

Will Viney is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of English Studies and Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham University. While usually at the busy intersection of literary and cultural studies, philosophy and medical humanities, Will Viney has found the time to answer a few questions.

 

1. What particular areas of philosophy interest you and why?

I am currently working on a project about human twins, so I am concerned about how the sciences meet one another over particular bodies. The thing about Waste is that it also stages a kind of meeting between the sciences but over particular objects that ‘we’ call ‘waste’. So I am interested in how language performs in and works across objects.

 

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

Why are people so interested in things that they and others throw away?

 

3. When did you start researching for this book?

In May 2007.

                                                                                                       

4. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

I’ve enjoyed seeing people read it. That’s the most pleasurable part of all.

 

5. Any tips for people reading the book?

No.

 

6. Where will your research go from here?

To the laboratory and the vexed status of the molecular in animal life.

 

7. If you could have dinner with one philosopher, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Peter Sloterdijk. Can you imagine trying to order the wine?!

 

 

Waste: A Philosophy of Things is published by Bloomsbury Academic on 22 May 2014. Please use the discount code ‘GLR D3D’ for a 35% discount on your purchase.

Interview with Gary Cox, author of The God Confusion

Straddling the gulf between the contemporary New Atheist proclamation of the power of rationalist argumentation, and an overwhelming rival of religious sentiment (both in the West and the rest of the world), Gary Cox addresses one of the most fundamental questions that faces us today, both individually and collectively: what does ‘God’ mean in our lives? Cox asserts a bold reconfiguration of our approach to religion that seeks to displace the age-old binary of theism v. atheism, and in the process opens up the means of thinking our moral and social lives anew.

The God Confusion makes the bold claim that in the face of endless searching, speculation and stagnation, the only credible philosophical position is agnosticism. Concluding that God may or may not exist, on the grounds that science, philosophy and theology are inherently incapable of proving or disproving his existence, The God Confusion acknowledges that religious faith based on a deliberate commitment to live as though there is a moral God is a coherent notion and a worthwhile, even prudent enterprise.

Gary Cox has written extensively on existentialism and Jean-Paul Sartre, and other key Bloomsbury titles include: The Existentialist’s Guide to Death, the Universe and Nothingness, How to Be a Philosopher, or How to Be Almost Certain that Almost Nothing is Certain, How to Be an Existentialist, or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses, Sartre and Fiction and The Sartre Dictionary.

"My particular focus has been existentialism. It fascinates me because it is such an honest philosophy that sees the big picture instead of getting lost in the minutiae that too many logic-chopping philosophers are obsessed with."

1. What particular areas of philosophy interest you and why?

I'm interested in all areas of philosophy really because, in the end, they are all connected and shed light on each other. My particular focus has been existentialism. It fascinates me because it is such an honest philosophy that sees the big picture instead of getting lost in the minutiae that too many logic-chopping philosophers are obsessed with. It really gets to grips with the fundamentals of the human condition.

2. How would you describe The God Confusion in one sentence?

A clear, no nonsense explanation of why agnosticism is the only credible philosophical position, and that exposes the confusions of both theism and atheism.

3. When did you start researching The God Confusion?

Like everything I write I've been thinking about the issues for years. I've studied and taught philosophy of religion, and I've had countless debates with religious and irreligious people. So it was just a case knuckling down to it and bringing all those thoughts and arguments together in one book and finally saying everything I wanted to say.

4. What’s the meaning behind the title?

To make the point that a lot of people, some of them who claim to be philosophers and ought to know better, are philosophically confused about the God question. As for the sub-title, it speaks for itself, as sub-titles tend to do.

5. Which part of writing the book have you enjoyed most?

It is hard to relate the word 'enjoy' to writing philosophy. It is challenging and engaging and I'm compelled to do it for complex psychological reasons, and the end result is rewarding and satisfying when it goes well. But it is always difficult. Grappling with language, trying to get it to do your bidding, trying to work out what the hell it is you are trying to say, constantly thinking about where you are in the broader structure of the thing and the constant exertion of trying to make it all look effortless. I am particularly pleased with the way The Sartre Dictionary LINK turned out, and it was particularly enjoyable, if you can call it that, to write How to Be an Existentialist LINK. A book where I allowed myself free reign to say what I wanted to say after writing several far more formal and restrained books prior to it. I enjoyed writing the humour I put into that book.

6. Any tips for people reading The God Confusion?

Please read it all with an open mind, otherwise you won't get the full picture. People tell me I'm very readable. I certainly try to be.

7. Where will your research go from here?

I'm currently working on a book for Bloomsbury explaining a range of fantastic philosophy quotes from many of the great philosophers. Then it might have to be another book on existentialism, or a book on existentialism and cycling, although I'm not sure how that will work.

8. If you could have dinner with one philosopher, living or dead, who would it be and why?

I'm inclined to say Sartre as I feel I already know him personally, I've spent so much of my life in his company. And he'd be up for a pub crawl afterwards, unlike Plato, who would be my second choice.

Interview with Stefan Herbrechter, author of Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis

Today we’re delighted to present an interview with Stefan Herbrechter, the author of Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis, a book that addresses the question of what it means to be human today.

The answer to this question, which is as old as the human species itself, is becoming less and less certain. Current technological developments increasingly erode our traditional humanist reflexes: consciousness, emotion, language, intelligence, morality, humour, mortality - all these no longer demonstrate the unique character and value of human existence. Instead, the spectre of the 'posthuman' is now being widely invoked as the 'inevitable' next evolutionary stage that humans are facing. Who comes after the human? This is the question that posthumanists are taking as their starting point.

Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis understands posthumanism as a discourse, which, in principle, includes everything that has been and is being said about the figure of the 'posthuman'. It outlines the genealogy of the various posthuman 'scenarios' in circulation and engages with their theoretical and philosophical assumptions and social and political implications.

Stefan Herbrechter is reader in Cultural Theory in the Department of Media, School of Art and Design, Coventry University, UK. He talked to us about theory, the figure of the posthuman and the state of modern technology.

'Don’t believe the swan song you hear everywhere about the end of the humanities. A critical engagement with posthumanism – or the “deconstruction of humanism and anthropocentrism” – makes the humanities more important, not less.'

Who is the philosopher who has most influenced you, and how?

In my case I started asking questions that are usually the domain of philosophy, like “what does it mean to be human?” or “what is the relationship between language, culture and media?” or “what is technology?” during my PhD in Cardiff, at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory.

For me, theory and philosophy are therefore virtually interchangeable, except maybe for the way in which theory (and by that I mean poststructuralism and deconstruction and their legacies) takes the discursive level of language and writing in their widest sense seriously, even literally.

I believe therefore that in order to remain critically engaged with one’s time one has to pay close attention (through reading) to the discursive, ideological, figurative and literal use of language, especially in dealing with a paradoxical figure like the posthuman and with a political discourse like posthumanism. The theorist or philosopher who I admire most for having achieved this is probably Jacques Derrida.

How would you describe your book in one sentence?

It’s an analysis of how people currently speak about this more or less imaginary figure of the posthuman and what serious post-anthropocentric consequences might be drawn from that.

What prompted you to write the book?

I think it was the puzzling “disconnect” (a horrible word, and probably in itself a symptom of the technocultural problem we’re facing) between the desire to somehow “transcend” our “human condition” and the apocalyptic dystopian scenarios this provokes. That and the absolutely bizarre role that technology plays within Western modernity. We still have no idea what technology actually is.

Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

I particularly enjoyed collecting symptoms of technoutopian post- or transhuman idealism (describing scientific “advances” or technological “gadgets” that are supposed to make us posthuman, superhuman, inhuman, unhuman, ahuman…) in popular science magazines, newspapers, online sources, science reports etc.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of the work involved the insight to what extent science “fiction” has now become more or less interchangeable with science “fact”.

Any tips for people reading the book?

Suspend your judgement about theory and the bad press it sometimes gets – it’s really a kind of philosophy under a different name, which allows it to read philosophy differently and alongside other texts (film, media, science etc).

Also, don’t believe the swan song you hear everywhere about the end of the humanities. A critical engagement with posthumanism – or the “deconstruction of humanism and anthropocentrism” – makes the humanities more important, not less. Not with a few necessary transformations, however…

Where will your research go from here?

There are a number of fallouts from this book. One is the relationship between the media, technology and posthumanism. Since I work in a media department I guess this is something I have to address, maybe under the title (as an echo of Katherine Hayles’s book) How the Media Made Us Posthuman. Another aspect I’ve been working on in the last couple of years concerns the “proliferation” (or “proliferation” maybe) of discussions about “life” – biopolitics, (neo)vitalism, lifewriting, what is a good life, future life forms etc.

Finally, I’m also trying not to neglect my literary origins. I’ve been trying to perform posthumanist readings of literature (Shakespeare and Borges, in particular, so far) to show to what extent literature can tell us something about what it means to be (post)human (even without technology). I’m thinking of writing a history of literature from a posthumanist perspective.

What is the importance of philosophy today?

As I said before, I don’t really consider myself a philosopher, but I think asking questions to position yourself both at the forefront but also critical of your time is a philosophical approach everyone should engage in. In “What is Called Thinking/What Calls for Thinking?”, Heidegger more or less suggests that thinking (or philosophy, or theory) always needs to tackle what is the most “unthinkable” of one’s time.

That seems like a good reason for the continued relevance of philosophy, provided it can engage with all the other discourses that also engage with this unthinkable: science, theology, politics, literature, art, film, music and so on.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the field?

Just start reading, thinking with and writing about (with, and sometimes against) the philosophical texts that are important to you. Don’t have too much respect for the authors, instead do justice to what they’ve said and make them relevant for your time.

You can order a copy of Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis online, and be sure to visit Bloomsbury Philosophy to find more great offers on our latest philosophy titles.

Interview with J. Aaron Simmons, co-author of The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction

We’re pleased to present an interview with J. Aaron Simmons who, along with Bruce Ellis Benson, is the author of The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction.

The New Phenomenology is the first available introduction to the group of philosophers associated with the so-called ‘theological turn’ in contemporary French thought. Simmons and Benson offer a compelling introduction to the topic, and argue that there has not actually been a ‘turn’ to theology in recent French phenomenology, but instead a decidedly philosophical reconsideration of phenomenology itself. The book is an exciting and much-needed addition to contemporary phenomenological debate.

J. Aaron Simmons is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Furman University, USA. He is the author of God and the Other: Ethics and Politics After the 'Theological Turn' (Indiana, 2011), and the co-editor of Reexamining Deconstruction and Determinate Religion (Duquesne, 2012) and Kierkegaard and Levinas: Ethics, Politics and Religion (Indiana, 2008). He talked to us about phenomenology, the perennial influence of Kierkegaard and the importance of the philosopher today.

'In a time when the liberal arts in general are being defunded and challenged as unimportant to modern life, the importance of philosophy is ironically heightened.'

Price: £18.99/$29.95 (Paperback) £60.00/$120.00 (Hardback)

Publication date: 1st August 2013 (UK), 26th September 2013 (US)

Who is the philosopher who has most influenced you, and how?

Probably Kierkegaard. He has helped me to think about postmodern religious existence in ways that have deeply impacted my work. Though I have written a lot about Kierkegaard, even the stuff I write that doesn’t deal with his thought, were I really honest, also probably shows Kierkegaardian traces.

How would you describe your book in one sentence?

It is an attempt to provide an introduction to recent French phenomenology and argue for its contemporary relevance to various philosophical debates.

What prompted you to write the book?

Bruce Ellis Benson (my co-author) and I teach this material and wished that there were an accessible, yet constructive, book that could be used as an aid to our students. We decided to write the book that we wished we could have them read.

What’s the meaning behind the title?

“New Phenomenology” refers to the group of French phenomenologists who are often considered to have been responsible for a “theological turn” in 20th Century phenomenology: Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chrétien. We subtitled the book “A Philosophical Introduction” because we reject the idea that there has been a turn to theology in their thought.

Accordingly, this book attempts to argue that they rightly remain philosophers and, more specifically, phenomenologists. The book is intended to be an introduction to this philosophical trajectory. That said, although we think it is generally accessible to a wide audience, it hopefully will stand as a contribution to the existing debates themselves and not merely be seen as a summary of those debates.

Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

Working together was a lot of fun. We hit numerous places where disagreements had to be worked out and that process made us both clarify our views and hopefully express our arguments in more compelling ways.

Any tips for people reading the book?

Don’t be intimidated if you don’t have a background in phenomenology. We try to give a basic account of the important aspects in the first couple chapters. Also, we hope that philosophers not working in continental philosophy will find this book to be a resource as well.

Where will your research go from here?

I am currently working on a book dealing with postmodern epistemology as well as a couple of edited volumes on various issues in contemporary phenomenology.

What is the importance of philosophy today?

In a time when the liberal arts in general are being defunded and challenged as unimportant to modern life, the importance of philosophy is ironically heightened. Many philosophers, such as Heidegger, Henry, Husserl, and Kierkegaard, all worried about the cultural and even spiritual implications that result when a society abandons serious thinking about the most complicated and difficult questions of human existence. Accordingly, I hope that more philosophers will begin to see themselves as “public intellectuals” in ways that don’t erase the technical scholarship, but make a case for the relevance of that scholarship to wider social, cultural, religious and educational concerns.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the field?

Make sure that you want to spend your life doing this sort of work. It is difficult and there are few economic/social rewards that come with it. But, if you love doing philosophy, give it everything because philosophy matters and it matters that philosophers take what they do seriously (which is very different than taking oneself seriously, which should always be avoided!). Moreover, devote yourself to questions that matter to you rather than questions that matter to your advisor or peers, etc. If you think that the questions are worth asking then spending your life asking (and hopefully answering) them is a meaningful existence indeed.

If you could have dinner with one philosopher, living or dead, who would it be?

Probably David Hume because every time I read him I think I should spend more time reading him.

You can order a copy of The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction here, and be sure to visit the Bloomsbury Philosophy page to find more great offers on our latest philosophy titles.

An interview with Robin Attfield, author of Ethics: An Overview

We’re glad to announce the latest in our on-going author interview series. This week we've spoken with Robin Attfield, the author of Ethics: An Overview: the definitive companion to the study of ethics. Though Robin officially retired from his Professorship at Cardiff University in 2009, he has remained very active in the field of Philosophy – he is currently revising his book The Ethics of the Global Environment for a second edition, and this summer he will be presenting a defence of environmental stewardship and a talk on the meta-ethics and meta-politics of climate change. Today he talks to us about his career, his work on Ethics and the importance of philosophy today:

'The age of positivism is over, and the rise of feminism has opened up both the study of philosophy and careers in philosophy to more people than ever before'

Tell us a bit about yourself and your career. How did you come to be the writer of this book?

After taking a theology degree at Oxford in the early 1960s, I became a Lecturer in Philosophy at what later became Cardiff University. I taught philosophy for two spells in Africa (in Nigeria and in Kenya), and in 1975, while in Nairobi, I was introduced to environmental philosophy by the late Henry Odera Oruka.

I began teaching applied philosophy alongside more traditional courses in normative ethics, meta-ethics, and (separately) philosophy of religion in the late 1970s. As student classes grew larger, I ran more seminars alongside lectures, and also trained research students as tutors for first-year undergraduates. The range of teaching materials that I collected during that period is reflected in 'Ethics: An Overview', and particularly in the Companion Website (accessible even to people who have not bought the book!).

There are many Ethics books on the market, including a number of your own. What sets this work apart from the rest?

Ethics: An Overview is distinctive in several ways. One is its comprehensiveness: it covers the history of ethics, value-theory, normative ethics, applied ethics, meta-ethics, and issues surrounding responsibility and free will. Another distinctive feature is the conciseness and focused nature of its sections. Another is the way that it combines clear conclusions with an invitation to be or become one's own philosopher and arrive at different ones. A fourth is the way that difficult issues, such as those surrounding free will, are made accessible through the adoption of an historical approach. A fifth is its up-to-date coverage of no less than six fields of practical areas and issues, from medical ethics to the ethics of war, discussed in the light of the values and principles introduced elsewhere in the book.

Meanwhile, the Companion Website offers additional features that few ethics books can compete with.

What, if anything, would you like to say to the budding philosopher/ethicist at this time in the history of our world?

Much of the most exciting work of recent decades has been done in applied ethics, and I would advise young philosophers and ethicists to pay attention to and take part in some of the relevant fields. Young philosophers who do not yet have a post should consider taking up posts in Colleges for 16-to-18 year-olds, and not only in institutions in North America and Europe: try Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Contemporary trends, such as globalisation, secularisation and the decline of established forms of religion in the West, make this quite a good time to be or become a philosopher. The age of positivism is over, and the rise of feminism has opened up both the study of philosophy and careers in philosophy to more people than ever before. Millions of people are grasping the importance of preserving the natural world and of questioning traditional attitudes of domination.

What do you see as the most urgent and thorny ethical problem facing the world today?

Confronting the issues of poverty and inequality, tackling climate change and taking swift and concerted action to prevent a disastrous increase of more than two degrees Celsius in average atmospheric temperatures.

Do you have any other new projects underway?

A paper of mine on the ethics of geo-engineering is due to be presented at the World Congress of Philosophy at Athens in August 2014; but to travel there would involve too great an increase of my own carbon footprint, and so that paper will be presented by a friend.

Pub date: 8th March 2012 (UK), 10th May 2012 (US)

Price: £65/$130 (Hardback) £19.99/$34.95 (Paperback)

If you'd like to find out more, take a look at Ethics: An Overview on its preview site. The book’s companion website is also available, even without purchase of the book, and includes summaries, reading lists, and PowerPoint presentations for each of the twenty-eight sections. You can purchase a copy of the book, and read about our other great ethics titles, on our website.