Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies (1943-) [EN, DE, IT, PT, GR, PL, CZ, BA, ES]

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in two volumes in 1945, Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies is one of the most influential books of all time. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a “vigorous and profound defence of democracy”, its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems and through underground editions become an inspiration to lovers of freedom living under communism in Eastern Europe.

Popper’s highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thoughts of great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies and why it demands to be read today and in years to come.

First edition
Publisher George Routledge & Sons, London, 1945
2 Volumes: The Spell of Plato; The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath
268 and 352 pages

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Download (Volume 1, 1st edition, 1945)
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Download (Volumes 1-2, 5th edition, 1966)
Download (Volumes 1-2, revised edition, with a preface by Václav Havel and a note by E. H. Gombrich, 2002/2011, EPUB)
Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde, Volume 1, Volume 2 (German, trans. P. K. Feyerabend, 1958/1980)
La società aperta e i suoi nemici, Volume 1, Volume 2 (Italian, 2nd edition, 1973/1981)
A sociedade aberta e seus inimigos, Volume 1, Volume 2 (Portuguese, trans. Milton Amado, 1974)
Η ανοιχτή κοινωνία και οι εχθροί της (Greek, Volume 1, trans. Ειρήνη Παπαδάκη, 1980/1991)
Społeczeństwo otwarte i jego wrogowie (Polish, Volumes 1-2, trans. Halina Krahelska, 1993)
Otevřená společnost a její nepřátelé (Czech, Volume 1, trans. Miloš Calda, 1994, no OCR)
Otvoreno društvo i njegovi neprijatelji (Bosnian, Volumes 1-2, 1998)
La sociedad abierta y sus enemigos (Spanish, Volumes 1-2, trans. Eduardo Loedel Rodríguez, 2006)

David Graeber: The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement (2013)

A bold rethinking of the most powerful political idea in the world—democracy—and the story of how radical democracy can yet transform America

Democracy has been the American religion since before the Revolution—from New England town halls to the multicultural democracy of Atlantic pirate ships. But can our current political system, one that seems responsive only to the wealthiest among us and leaves most Americans feeling disengaged, voiceless, and disenfranchised, really be called democratic? And if the tools of our democracy are not working to solve the rising crises we face, how can we—average citizens—make change happen?

David Graeber, one of the most influential scholars and activists of his generation, takes readers on a journey through the idea of democracy, provocatively reorienting our understanding of pivotal historical moments, and extracts their lessons for today—from the birth of Athenian democracy and the founding of the United States of America to the global revolutions of the twentieth century and the rise of a new generation of activists. Underlying it all is a bracing argument that in the face of increasingly concentrated wealth and power in this country, a reenergized, reconceived democracy—one based on consensus, equality, and broad participation—can yet provide us with the just, free, and fair society we want.

The Democracy Project tells the story of the resilience of the democratic spirit and the adaptability of the democratic idea. It offers a fresh take on vital history and an impassioned argument that radical democracy is, more than ever, our best hope.

Publisher Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House, New York, 2013
ISBN 081299356X, 9780812993561
326 pages
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Evgeny Morozov: To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism (2013)

Our society is at a crossroads. Smart technology is transforming our world, making many aspects of our lives more convenient, efficient and – in some cases – fun. Better and cheaper sensors can now be embedded in almost everything, and technologies can log the products we buy and the way we use them. But, argues Evgeny Morozov, technology is having a more profound effect on us: it is changing the way we understand human society.

In the very near future, technological systems will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions into many more areas of public life. These are the discourses by which we have always defined our civilization: politics, culture, public debate, morality, humanism. But how will these disciplines be affected when we delegate much of the responsibility for them to technology? The temptation of the digital age is to fix everything – from crime to corruption to pollution to obesity – by digitally quantifying, tracking, or gamifiying behavior. But when we change the motivations for our moral, ethical and civic behavior, do we also change the very nature of that behavior? Technology, Morozov proposes, can be a force for improvement – but only if we abandon the idea that it is necessarily revolutionary and instead genuinely interrogate why and how we are using it.

From urging us to drop outdated ideas of the Internet to showing how to design more humane and democratic technological solutions, To Save Everything, Click Here is about why we will always need to consider the consequences of the way we use technology.

Publisher PublicAffairs, 2013
ISBN 161039139X, 9781610391399
433 pages

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Transversal journal 03/13: Flee Erase Territorialize (2013) [EN, DE, FR, ES, Arabic]

“The refugee protests in many EU countries have succeeded in drawing widespread public attention and produced a strong media echo. There is hope that the activism of the refugees and their supporters will at least produce improvements in regards to the violation of human rights in asylum procedures which even contradict rules established by the Geneva Convention.

However, the protests far surpass the legal realm. They raise the fundamental question if and how today’s governmental procedures are compatible with democracy, if and how democracy can be viewed and realized in a globalized order that is influenced by dramatic social, economical and political injustices.

In whatever this “we” of those with documents may consist, genuine democratic citizenship today can only be realized /with/ those who have no documents, with Sans-Papiers. In this sense fleeing is a movement that erases the traces and mechanisms of identification, but at the same time it also means to take refuge – not as an object or a victim, but as self-determined occupation of territories, be they protest camps, churches or new homes.” (from the Editorial)

With contributions by Etienne Balibar, Stefan Nowotny, Amine Germaine, Simo Kader, Adalat Khan, Numan Muhammad, Brigitta Kuster, Tina Leisch, Gin Müller, Ilker Ataç, Brigitta Kuster / Vassilis S. Tsianos, Helmut Dietrich, Monika Mokre, Peter Waterhouse.

Editors: Andrea Hummer, Birgit Mennel, Raimund Minichbauer, Monika Mokre, Stefan Nowotny, Gerald Raunig
Developed in cooperation with the journals Kulturrisse and Malmoe
Publisher eipcp – European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, Vienna/Linz
Copyleft
ISSN 1811 – 1696

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Stéphane Hessel: Time for Outrage! (2010-) [FR, EN, DE, IT, PT, GA]

This controversial, impassioned call-to-arms for a return to the ideals that fueled the French Resistance has sold millions of copies worldwide since its publication in France in October 2010. Rejecting the dictatorship of world financial markets and defending the social values of modern democracy, 93-old Stéphane Hessel — Resistance leader, concentration camp survivor, and former UN speechwriter — reminds us that life and liberty must still be fought for, and urges us to reclaim those essential rights we have permitted our governments to erode since the end of World War II.

French edition
Publisher Indigène éditions, Montpellier, October 2010
ISBN 9782911939767
32 pages

English edition
Translated by Damion Searls
Publisher Published by Charles Glass Books, an imprint of Quartet Books
ISBN 0704372223, 9780704372221
40 pages
via Cari

commentary (Charles Glass, The Nation)

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Indignez-vous! (French, 6th edition, December 2010, PDF)
Time for Outrage! (English, 2011, EPUB)
Time for Outrage! (English, published in The Nation, March 2011, PDF)
Empört Euch! (German, trans. Michael Kogon, 2011, PDF)
Empört Euch! (German, trans. Michael Kogon, 2011, EPUB)
Indignatevi! (Italian, Scribd.com, February 2011)
Indignai-vos! (Portuguese, trans. Marly Peres, 2011, PDF)
Indignádevos (Galician, trans. Henrique Harguindey, 2011, Scribd.com)

Možnosti studentského života (2010) [Czech]

Možnosti studentského života je průběžně rozvíjený projekt skupiny P. O. L. E. (aktuálně působící ve složení Vasil Artamonov, Alexey Klyuykov, Václav Magid, Tereza Stejskalová, Pavel Sterec, Tomáš Uhnák), který formou výstavy seznamuje s různými pojetími společenské role studujících.

Projekt má několik složek. Faktografická část poskytuje základní vhled do dějin studentstva jako společenského fenoménu. Tvoří ji jednak graf, jenž lokalizuje klíčové události a hnutí na časové a zeměpisné ose, jednak medailonky vybraných osobností studentského aktivismu. Teoretická část přibližuje formou citátů různé koncepce identity studujících. Jako zdroj těchto pojetí posloužily manifesty studentských hnutí a úvahy některých myslitelů. Další složka projektu má podobu multimediální instalace, koláže z plakátů a letáků či sestřihu videí a ukazuje obraz studujících jako specifické skupiny konzumentů, jenž je dnes prosazován reklamou a masmédií. Nedílnou součástí projektu jsou také bannery a další předměty používané při pouličních protestech. Tyto artefakty, ať už převzaté od různých studentských uskupení nebo vyrobené samotnými autory projektu, jsou v závislosti na kontextu prezentace aranžovány do podoby muzeální instalace nebo naopak začleňovány do aktuálně probíhajících protestů.

Původní verze výstavy byla připravena ve spolupráci se Studentskou komorou RVŠ pro galerii TranzitDisplay v roce 2009 u příležitosti sedmdesátého výročí 17. listopadu 1939. Aktualizované reprízy proběhly v roce 2011 v galerii D9 v Českých Budějovicích a v klubu K4 v Praze. Pro prezentaci na Filozofické fakultě UK v rámci Týdne neklidu autoři přepracovali projekt tak, aby se stal nedílnou součástí protestů proti připravované reformě vysokých škol.

Edited by Vasil Artamonov, Patrik Eichler, Miroslav Jašurek, Václav Magid, Tomáš Uhnák
Publisher tranzitdisplay, Prague
80 pages

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Alexander Halavais: Search Engine Society (2008)

Search engines have become a key part of our everyday lives. Yet while much has been written about how to use search engines and how they can be improved, there has been comparatively little exploration of what the social and cultural effects might be. Like all technologies, search engines exist within a larger political, cultural, and economic environment. This volume aims to redress this balance and to address crucial questions such as:

* How have search engines changed the way we organize our thoughts about the world, and how we work?
* What are the ‘search engine wars’, what do they portend for the future of search, and who wins or loses?
* To what extent does political control of search engines, or the political influence of search engines, affect how they are used, misused, and regulated?
* Does the search engine help shape our identities and interactions with others, and what implications does this have for privacy?

Informed members of the information society must understand the social contexts in which search engines have been developed, what that development says about us as a society, and the role of the search engine in the global information environment. This book provides the perfect starting point.

Publisher Polity, 2008
Digital Media and Society series
ISBN 0745642152, 9780745642154
196 pages

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