Donna J Haraway: Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991)
Filed under book | Tags: · animals, body, capitalism, culture, cyberfeminism, cyborgs, feminism, gender, nature
The idea that nature is constructed, not discovered – that truth is made, not found – is the keynote of recent scholarship in the history of science. Tracing the gendered roots of science in culture, Donna Haraway’s writings about scientific research on monkeys and apes is arguably the finest scholarship in this tradition. She has carefully studied the publications, the papers, the correspondence, and the history of the expeditions and institions of primate studies, uncovering the historical construction of the pedigrees for existing social relations – the naturalization of race, sex, and class. Throughout this book she is analysing accounts, narratives, and stories of the creation of nature, living organisms, and cyborgs (cybernetic organisms: systems which embrace organic and technological components). She also looks critically at the immune system as an information system, and shows how deeply our cultural assumptions penetrate into allegedly value-neutral medical research. In several of these essays she explores and develops the contested terms of reference of existing feminist scholarship; and by mapping the fate of two potent and ambiguous worlds – ‘nature’ and ‘experience’ – she uncovers new visions and provides the possibility of a new politics of hope.
Her previous book, Primate visions, has been called ‘outstanding’, ‘original’, ‘brilliant’, ‘important’ by leading scholars in the field. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women contains ten essays written between 1978 and 1989. They establish her as one of the most thoughtful and challenging feminist writers today.
Publisher Free Association, 1991
ISBN 1853431397, 9781853431395
287 pages
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Comment (0)Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri: Commonwealth (2009) [English/German]
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, commons, globalisation, governance, politics, revolution
When Empire appeared in 2000, it defined the political and economic challenges of the era of globalization and, thrillingly, found in them possibilities for new and more democratic forms of social organization. Now, with Commonwealth, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri conclude the trilogy begun with Empire and continued in Multitude, proposing an ethics of freedom for living in our common world and articulating a possible constitution for our common wealth.
Drawing on scenarios from around the globe and elucidating the themes that unite them, Hardt and Negri focus on the logic of institutions and the models of governance adequate to our understanding of a global commonwealth. They argue for the idea of the “common” to replace the opposition of private and public and the politics predicated on that opposition. Ultimately, they articulate the theoretical bases for what they call “governing the revolution.”
Though this book functions as an extension and a completion of a sustained line of Hardt and Negri’s thought, it also stands alone and is entirely accessible to readers who are not familiar with the previous works. It is certain to appeal to, challenge, and enrich the thinking of anyone interested in questions of politics and globalization.
Publisher Harvard University Press, 2009
ISBN 0674035119, 9780674035119
330 pages
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Patrick Barwise, A. S. C. Ehrenberg: Television and Its Audience (1988)
Filed under book | Tags: · audience, mass media, television
This book by two leading experts takes a look at the nature of television, starting from an audience perspective. It draws on over twenty years of research about the audience in the United States and Britain and about the many ways in which television is funded and organized around the world.
The overall picture which emerges is of: a medium which is watched for several hours a day but usually at only a low level of involvement; an audience which views mainly for relaxation but which actively chooses favourite programmes; a flowering of new channels but with no fundamental change in what or how people watch; programmes costing millions to produce but only a few pennies to view; a wide range of programme types apparently similar to the range of print media but with nothing like the same degree of audience ‘segmentation’; a global communication medium of dazzling scale, speed, and impact but which is slow at conveying complex information and perhaps less powerful than generally assumed.
The book is packed with information and insights yet is highly readable. It is unique in relating so many of the issues raised by television to how we watch it. There is also a highly regarded appendix on advertising, as well as technical notes, a glossary, and references for further reading.
Publisher Sage Publications, 1988
ISBN 0803981546, 9780803981546
206 pages
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Comment (0)John Wood (ed.): The Virtual Embodied: Presence/Practice/Technology (1998)
Filed under book | Tags: · body, body without organs, ethics, philosophy, photography, virtual reality, virtual space
The Virtual Embodied is intended to inform, provoke and delight. It explores the ideas of embodiment, knowledge, space, virtue and virtuality to address fundamental questions about technology and human presence. It juxtaposes cutting-edge theories, polemics, and creative practices to uncover ethical, aesthetic and ecological implications of why, how and in particular where, human actions, observations and insights take place.
In The Virtual Embodied, many of the authors, artists, performers and designers apply their interdisciplinary passions to questions of embodied knowledge and virtual space. In doing so it chooses to acknowledge the limitations of the conventional linear book and uses them creatively to challenge existing genres of multi-media and networked consumerism.
Publisher Routledge, 1998
ISBN 041516026X, 9780415160261
226 pages
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Comments (2)Nicholas Cook, Mark Everist (eds.): Rethinking Music (1999)
Filed under book | Tags: · criticism, music theory, musicology
Rethinking Music offers a comprehensive re-evaluation of current thinking about music. In this book, 24 distinguished musicologists, music theorists, and ethnomusicologists review different dimensions of musical study, revealing a range of concerns that are shared across the discipline: the nature of musicological practice, its social and ethical dimensions, issues of canon and value, and the relationship between academic study and musical experience.
Publisher Oxford University Press, 1999
ISBN 019879004X, 9780198790044
Length 574 pages
Tony Schirato, Jen Webb: Reading the Visual (2004)
Filed under book | Tags: · art, image, visual culture
An engaging guide to the skills needed to analyse images of all kinds, and a lucid introduction to the emerging field of visual culture.
From the body to the ever-present lens, the world is increasingly preoccupied with the visual. What exactly is the visual’ and how can we interpret the multitude of images that bombard us every day?
Reading the Visual takes as its starting point a tacit familiarity with the visual, and shows how we see even ordinary objects through the frameworks and filters of culture and personal experience. It explains how to analyse the mechanisms, conventions, contexts and uses of the visual in western cultures to make sense of visual objects of all kinds.
Drawing on a range of theorists including John Berger, Foucault, Bourdieu and Crary, the authors outline our relationship to the visual, tracing changes to literacies, genres and pleasures affecting ways of seeing from the Enlightenment to the advent of virtual technology.
Reading the Visual is an invaluable introduction to visual culture for readers across the humanities and social sciences.
Publisher Allen & Unwin, 2004
ISBN 1865087300, 9781865087306
Length 224 pages
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Adrian George: Art, Lies and Videotape – Exposing Performance (2003)
Filed under catalogue | Tags: · exhibition, performance art
This book is an accessible look at key moments in the history of performance art. Featuring pieces by leading practitioners in the field, the art of performance is considered through objects, photography, reconstructions, film and video. Accompanies the exhibition at Tate Liverpool, Winter 2003/4.
Paperback: 88 pages
Publisher: Tate Publishing (30 Nov 2003)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1854375377
ISBN-13: 978-1854375377
