Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)11 reviews Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno Stanford University Press, 2007 Gather the Fragments... + Nothing short of revolutionary + Adorno presents a challenging look at the modern condition + A masterpiece of critical theory + The Black Book of Western Philosophy             The Idea of Form: Rethinking Kant's Aesthetics (Cultural Memory in the Present) Rodolphe Gasche Stanford University Press, 2003 Against the assumption that aesthetic form relates to a harmonious arrangement of parts into a beautiful whole, this book argues that reason is the real theme of the Critique of Judgment as of the two earlier Critiques . Since aesthetic judgment of the beautiful becomes possible only when the mind is confronted with things of nature, for which no determined concepts of understanding are ...             Veils (Cultural Memory in the Present) Helene Cixous, Jacques Derrida Stanford University Press, 2002 Something of a historical event, this book combines loosely “autobiographical” texts by two of the most influential French intellectuals of our time. “Savoir,” by Hélène Cixous, is a brief but densely layered account of her experience of recovered sight after a lifetime of severe myopia, an experience that ends with the unexpected turn of grieving for what is lost. Her ...             Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity (Cultural Memory in the Present) Niklas Luhmann Stanford University Press, 2002 The essays in this volume by Germany’s leading social theorist of the late twentieth century formulate what he considered to be the preconditions for an adequate theory of modern society. The first two essays deal with the modern European philosophical and scientific tradition, notably the ogy of Edmund Husserl. The next four essays concern the crucial notion of observation as defined by ...             Historical Representation (Cultural Memory in the Present) F. Ankersmit Stanford University Press, 2002 This book fully recognizes the aestheticism inherent in historical writing while acknowledging its claim to satisfy the demands of rational and scientific inquiry. Focusing on the notion of representation and on the necessity of distinguishing between representation and description, it argues that the traditional semantic apparatus of meaning, truth, and reference that we use for description must ...             Retroactive Justice: Prehistory of Post-Communism (Cultural Memory in the Present)1 review Istvan Rev Stanford University Press, 2005 Amazing historical travelogue Those who still try to understand our recent common past will not be able to find a better and more unusual book than the "Prehistory of Post-Communism", a dark Swiftian time-travel, which criss-crosses long centuries in order to illuminate that what is just left behind us. The reader enters a ...             The Crossing of the Visible (Cultural Memory in the Present) Jean-Luc Marion Stanford University Press, 2003 Painting, according to Jean-Luc Marion, is a central topic of concern for philosophy, particularly phenomenology. For the question of painting is, at its heart, a question of visibility—of appearance. As such, the painting is a privileged case of the phenomenon; the painting becomes an index for investigating the conditions of appearance—or what Marion describes as ...             The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Cultural Memory in the Present)1 review Reinhart Koselleck Stanford University Press, 2002 Learning guaranteed Reinhart Koselleck has been the best philosopher of history in the last quarter of the twentieh century and the begining of the new millennium, until his death in 2006. Koselleck clearly saw that history needed its own theoretical basis, sprung from the analysis of temporal structures and of the ...             Monolingualism of the Other: or, The Prosthesis of Origin (Cultural Memory in the Present)7 reviews Jacques Derrida Stanford University Press, 1998 A meditation on language and culture + strikingly readable + French as a site of at once Identification and Resistance + French as a site of at once Identification and Resistance             On Escape: De l'evasion (Cultural Memory in the Present)1 review Emmanuel Levinas Stanford University Press, 2003 An important early work by Levinas Originally published in 1935, this English translation and publication of _On Escape_ brings the reader closer to the early thoughts and writings of Emmanuel Levinas than previous publications. His first major original manuscript after his dissertation on Husserl's theory of intuition, _Existence ...             Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy (Cultural Memory in the Present) Samuel Wheeler Stanford University Press, 2000 In this collection of essays Samuel Wheeler discusses Derrida and other “deconstructive” thinkers from the perspective of an analytic philosopher willing to treat deconstruction as philosophy, taking it seriously enough to look for and analyze its arguments. The essays focus on the theory of meaning, truth, interpretation, metaphor, and the relationship of language to the world. ...             Plato and Europe (Cultural Memory in the Present) Jan Patocka Stanford University Press, 2002 The Czech philosopher Jan Patocka (1907-1977), who studied with Husserl and Heidegger, is widely recognized as the most influential thinker to come from postwar Eastern Europe. Refusing to join the Communist party after World War II, he was banned from academia and publication for the rest of his life, except for a brief time following the liberalizations of the Prague spring of 1968. Joining ...             Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Cultural Memory in the Present)3 reviews Talal Asad Stanford University Press, 2003 An erudite and praiseworthy albeit easily misunderstood attempt at uncloaking the Secular disguise. + Almost an Anthropology of the Secular There is more here than an Anthropology of the Secular and mostly because a full appreciation of the concept can never arise from a direct response to the question "what is the secular?". And so Asad continues throughout to offer examples and elements of alterations in human thought which may have ...             Counterpath: Traveling with Jacques Derrida (Cultural Memory in the Present) Jacques Derrida, Catherine Malabou Stanford University Press, 2004 Counterpath is a collaborative work by Catherine Malabou and Jacques Derrida that answers to the gamble inherent in the idea of “travelling with” the philosopher of deconstruction. Malabou's readerly text of quotations and commentary demonstrates how Derrida's work, while appearing to be anything but a travelogue, is nevertheless replete with references to geographical and ...             A Finite Thinking (Cultural Memory in the Present)1 review Jean-Luc Nancy Stanford University Press, 2003 The best philosophy book since... since Difference and Repetition. Sure it's not a single masterwork, but rather many many essays, but it's amazing and complex and revealing... Now, none of it will likely make sense unless you're relatively deep into continental philosophy already, but for those who are readers in the field, if ...             For What Tomorrow . . .: A Dialogue (Cultural Memory in the Present)1 review Jacques Derrida, Elisabeth Roudinesco Stanford University Press, 2004 Stunning, Thought Provoking Insight into the works of Jacques Derrida For those who are new to Derrida and those who read his works, I strongly recommend this book. I have read over a dozen works by Derrida, about the same number of journal articles and was even fortunate enough to attend his lectures in Paris. Despite this, I find his work still demands the ...             Institution and Interpretation: Expanded Edition (Cultural Memory in the Present) Samuel Weber Stanford University Press, 2002 Institution and Interpretation investigates the forces that shape and limit interpretive practices. Whereas the prevailing use of the term institutions tends to reduce their role to that of maintaining the status quo, Weber suggests that institutions are never entirely free of the need to consolidate their authority through an ambivalent process of reinstituting themselves, a process in which ...             A Theory of /Cloud: Toward a History of Painting (Cultural Memory in the Present) Hubert Damisch Stanford University Press, 2002 This is the first in a series of books in which one of the most influential of contemporary art theorists revised from within the conceptions underlying the history of art. The author’s basic idea is that the rigor of linear perspective cannot encompass all of visual experience and that it could be said to generate an oppositional factor with which it interacts dialectically: the cloud. On ...             The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy (Cultural Memory in the Present)3 reviews Gil Anidjar Stanford University Press, 2003 Who is the enemy ? This is a remarkable book, complex and impossible to grasp fully at first reading. It is well worth perservering. Anidjar writes well and lucidly, but the ideas with which he is working are difficult and often intractable. His extraordinary skill is to bring together concepts rarely connected, ...             Just Being Difficult?: Academic Writing in the Public Arena (Cultural Memory in the Present)3 reviews Jonathan D. Culler, Kevin Lamb Stanford University Press, 2003 An Explanation more than a Defense + Essential Reading Newspapers and magazines take glee in deriding academics. It has become a spectator sport. But calling an academic pedantic hardly seems sporting -- or particularly original. Reading this book reminded me of why i went to college -- to explore ideas in ways that I hadn't before. It's true ...