Robert Latham (ed.): Bombs and Bandwidth: The Emerging Relationship Between Information Technology and Security (2004)
Filed under book | Tags: · globalisation, information technology, privacy, security, surveillance
Information technology (IT) has become central to the way governments, terrorist and criminal organizations, businesses, and social movements organize themselves and pursue their increasingly globalized objectives. With the emergence of the internet and new digital technologies, traditional boundaries and traditional concepts – from privacy, to surveillance, vulnerability, and above all, security – must be reconsidered. In the post-9/11 era of homeland security the relationship between IT and security has acquired a new and pressing relevance. `bomb & bandwidth’, a project of the social science research council, assembles leading scholars in range of disciplines to explore the new nature of IT-related threats, the new power structures emerging around it, and the ethical and political implications arising from this complex and important field. (published in arrangement with the new press, usa).
Publisher Manas Publications, 2004
ISBN 8170491924, 9788170491927
Length 326 pages
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Damian F. White: Bookchin. A Critical Appraisal (2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · anarchism, critical theory, deep ecology, democracy, ecology, environmental ethics, marxism, participation, philosophy, political ecology, social theory, urban planning
This is the first comprehensive overview of the work of Murray Bookchin, the left-libertarian social theorist and political ecologist who is widely regarded as the visionary precursor of anti-corporate politics. Bookchin’s writing spans fifty years and engages with a wide variety of issues: from ecology to urban planning, from environmental ethics to debates about radical democracy. Weaving insights from Hegel and Marx, Kropotkin and Mumford, Bookchin presents a critical theory whose central utopian message is ‘things could be other than they are’. This accessible introduction maps the evolution of Bookchin’s project. It traces his controversial engagements with Marxism, anarchism, critical theory, postmodernism and eco-centric thought. It evaluates his attempt to develop a social ecology. Finally, it considers how his thinking relates to current debates in social theory and environmentalism, critical theory and philosophy, political ecology and urban theory. Offering a clear account of Bookchin’s key themes, this book provides a critical but sympathetic account of the strengths and weaknesses of Bookchin’s writing.
Publisher Pluto Press, 2008
Original from the University of Michigan
Digitized Jul 17, 2009
ISBN 0745319645, 9780745319643
Length 236 pages
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Richard Burt (ed.): The Administration of Aesthetics. Censorship, Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere (1994)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, censorship, criticism, cultural criticism, public sphere
Calls attention to the crucial difficulties inherent in censorship when it is used as a tool for cultural criticism.
The “new” censorship of the arts, some cultural critics say, is just one more item on the “new” Right’s agenda, and is part and parcel of attempts to regulate sexuality, curtail female reproductive rights, deny civil rights to gays and lesbians, and privatize public institutions. Although they do not contest this assessment, the writers gathered here expose crucial difficulties in using censorship, old and new, as a tool for cultural criticism.
Focusing on historical moments ranging from early modern Europe to the postmodern United States, and covering a variety of media from books and paintings to film and photography, their essays seek a deeper understanding of what “censorship,” “criticism,” and the “public sphere” really mean.
Getting rid of the censor, the contributors suggest, does not eliminate the problem of censorship. In varied but complementary ways, they view censorship as something more than a negative, unified institutional practice used to repress certain discourses. Instead, the authors contend that censorship actually legitimates discourses-not only by allowing them to circulate but by staging their circulation as performances through which “good” and “bad” discourses are differentiated and opposed.
These essays move discussions of censorship out of the present discourse of diversity into what might be called a discourse of legitimation. In doing so, they open up the possibility of realignments between those who are disenchanted with both stereotypical right-wing criticisms of political critics and aesthetics and stereotypical left-wing defenses.
Publisher U of Minnesota Press, 1994
ISBN 0816623678, 9780816623679
Length 381 pages
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