ASCP Members' Books 2019

Ali Alizdeh, Marx and Art, (Rowman & Littlefield: 2019)

This book argues that a renewed consideration of artistic value should both critique contemporary bureaucratic misunderstandings of what art is and address the complexities and questions of contemporary philosophers in new and provocative ways. Writer and poet Ali Alizadeh focusses on the artistic theories of the key Western philosopher of value, Karl Marx. He explores Marx’s thoughts on art and literature and provides a new account of his revolutionary view of why we make art and how we understand art’s value.

By returning to Marx’s writings, from his juvenile poetry and earliest journalism to his final publications, Alizadeh proposes a theory which not only challenges many tenets of contemporary Marxist literary or cultural theory, but one which also presents us with a profound, coherent and stimulating theory of art that defines, values and demonstrates artistic practice. By mapping Marx’s intellectual development from the ideals of a young Hegelian to the polemics of a seasoned internationalist communist he shows that Marx never lost sight of art as a key aspect of human activity.

https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/marx_and_art/3-156-6a85e135-4123-43c2-9e27-3ea1a0573688

Review: https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/marx_and_art/3-156-6a85e135-4123-43c2-9e27-3ea1a0573688

J.F. Dorahy, The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism (Brill: 2019)

The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism represents the first systematic and comprehensive study of the post-Marxist writings of the Budapest School to be published in English. The School itself has long been known in English-speaking circles for its neo-Marxist critique of the now-defunct Soviet system. The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism enriches this understanding by situating the confrontation with ‘actually existing socialism’ as but one moment, however formative, within a much richer and much more theoretically relevant philosophical itinerary. From the early critique of alienation through to the contemporary critical theories of modernity, The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism charts the evolution of the School’s thinking with a specific emphasis on the themes of culture, critique, history and the contingency of modern subjectivity. 

https://brill.com/abstract/title/54562

Marguerite La Caze & Magdalena Zolkos (eds.), Contemporary Perspectives on Vladimir Jankélévitch: On What Cannot be Touched (Lexington: 2019)

CONTRIBUTIONS BY: Giulia Maniezzi, José Manuel Beato, Marguerite La Caze, Tim Flanagan, Aaron T. Looney, Francesco Ferrari, Andrew Kelley, Magdalena Zolkos, Clovis Salgado Gontijo, and Paul Atkinson. 

Contemporary Perspectives on Vladimir Jankélévitch: On What Cannot Be Touched performs a cross-disciplinary theoretical analysis of the philosophy of Vladimir Jankélévitch. An international group of contributors, including both established and emerging scholars, engage with his writings from diverse disciplinary angles and consider his importance for contemporary political and cultural contexts. Edited by Marguerite La Caze and Magdalena Zolkos, the collection provides a holistic and multi-perspectival approach to Jankélévitch’s writings, one that illuminates nuanced and complex connections across the five sub-fields of philosophy to which Jankélévitch contributed: moral philosophy, virtue theory, metaphysics, philosophy of music, and philosophy of religion. The book addresses different aspects of and problems in Jankélévitch’s philosophy, with all chapters unified by a preoccupation with the motif of intangibility—that which cannot be touched. 

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498593502/Contemporary-Perspectives-on-Vladimir-Jank%C3%A9l%C3%A9vitch-On-What-Cannot-Be-Touched

David Newheiser, Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and the Future of Faith (CUP: 2019)

This book argues that hope is the indispensable precondition of religious practice and secular politics. Against dogmatic complacency and despairing resignation, David Newheiser argues that hope sustains commitments that remain vulnerable to disappointment. Since the discipline of hope is shared by believers and unbelievers alike, its persistence indicates that faith has a future in a secular age. Drawing on premodern theology and postmodern theory, Newheiser shows that atheism and Christianity have more in common than they often acknowledge. Writing in a clear and engaging style, he develops a new reading of deconstruction and negative theology, arguing that (despite their differences) they share a self-critical hope. By retrieving texts and traditions that are rarely read together, this book offers a major intervention in debates over the place of religion in public life.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hope-in-a-secular-age/6B637AB2CF72721977785992DF6C69CE

Laura Roberts, Irigaray and Politics: A Critical Introduction (EUP: 2019)

Irigaray and Politics positions Luce Irigaray as one of the most important and radical political thinkers alive today and weaves together the ontological, political and ethical dimensions of Irigaray's philosophy of sexuate difference in imaginative ways. Laura Roberts argues that Irigaray's philosophical-political project must be read as a critique of constructions of western modernity and rationality. When appreciated in this way, it becomes clear how Irigaray's thought makes profound interventions into contemporary political movements and decolonial thought— themes that have never been covered before in Irigaray scholarship. This enables readers to recognise that the question of sexual difference in Irigaray's philosophy is concerned not only with refiguring politics and political action, but with the foundational structures that govern existence itself. 

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-irigaray-and-politics.html

Jon Roffe, The Works of Gilles Deleuze I: 1953-1969, (Re Press: 2019)

‘The first of two volumes, The Works of Gilles Deleuze I: 1953-1969 introduces, book by book, the philosopher’s daunting corpus, from his early monographs on Hume, Nietzsche, Kant, and Bergson; to the “literary clinic” he creates in relation to Proust and Masoch; and, finally, to the landmark publication of Difference and Repetition (1968) and Logic of Sense (1969). Perhaps no one is better suited to this ambitious undertaking than Jon Roffe. Possessing an encyclopedic knowledge Deleuze’s work, he also claims an intimate familiarity with so many of the philosopher’s sources, subjects, and conceptual personae. With enviable clarity, Roffe’s eight substantial chapters adroitly elaborate the circumstances and argument, problems and concepts all but one of the nine books from this period. Indeed, the uniqueness of this volume consists in forgoing any reductive synthesis of Deleuze in order to elaborate each of his major publications on its own terms. The Works of Gilles Deleuze I is incredibly useful, deeply pedagogical, and structurally ingenious.’ — Gregory Flaxman, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

https://re-press.org/books/the-works-of-gilles-deleuze-i-1953-1969/

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism (Verso: 2019)

The fatal embrace of human rights and neoliberalism

Drawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, Jessica Whyte uncovers the place of human rights in neoliberal attempts to develop a moral framework for a market society. In the wake of the Second World War, neoliberals saw demands for new rights to social welfare and self-determination as threats to “civilisation”. Yet, rather than rejecting rights, they developed a distinctive account of human rights as tools to depoliticise civil society, protect private investments and shape liberal subjects. 

https://www.versobooks.com/books/3087-the-morals-of-the-market