Richard T. LeGates, Frederic Stout (eds.): The City Reader, 2nd ed (1996/2000)

“The second edition of The City Reader brings together the very best writing on the city. Fifty-five generous selections are included: thirty from the first edition and twenty-five entirely new ones. Each piece is introduced with a brief intellectual biography and a review of the authors writings and related literature, and an explanation of how the piece fits into the broader context of urban history and practice, competing ideological perspectives on the city, and the major current debates concerning race and gender, global restructuring, sustainable urban development, the impact of technology and postmodernism.”

Publisher Routledge, 1996
Second edition, 2000
ISBN    0415190711, 9780415190718
660 pages

PDF (Index missing, 77 MB, updated on 2012-8-2)

Garin Dowd: Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari (2007)

Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari is an innovative approach to the relationship of the work of Samuel Beckett to philosophy. The study seeks to combine intertextual analysis and a ‘schizoanalytic genealogy’ derived from the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari to explore a ‘becoming-philosophy’ of Beckett’s literary writing. The author focuses on zones of encounter and confrontation – spaces and times of ‘becoming’ – between Beckett, selected philosophers and Deleuze and Guattari. In the retrospective glance occasioned by that part of Deleuze and Guattari’s complex legacy which embraces their interest in the author, Beckett’s writing in particular effectuates a threshold hesitation which can be seen directly to impact on their approach to the history of philosophy and on their contribution to its ‘molecularization’ in the name of experimentation. “Abstract Machines,” with its arresting perspectives on a wide range of Beckett’s work, will appeal to academics and postgraduate students interested in the philosophical echoes so evident in his writing. The extent of its recourse to philosophers aside from Deleuze and Guattari, including, notably, Alain Badiou, renders it a timely and provocative intervention in contemporary debates concerning the relationship of literature to philosophy, both within Beckett studies and beyond.

Publisher Rodopi, Amsterdam/New York, 2007
ISBN 904202206X, 9789042022065
319 pages

Keywords and phrases
Leibniz, abstract machine, Worstward Ho, plane of immanence, Samuel Beckett, monad, Mille Plateaux, body without organs, Plotinus, Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou, deterritorialization, Spinoza, Malone Dies, schizoanalysis, phenomenology, Monadology, negative theology, Mengue, Deleuze and Guattari

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2013-2-7)

Donna J. Haraway: When Species Meet (2008)

“In 2006, about 69 million U.S. households had pets, giving homes to around 73.9 million dogs, 90.5 million cats, and 16.6 million birds, and spending over $38 billion dollars on companion animals. As never before in history, our pets are truly members of the family. But the notion of “companion species”—knotted from human beings, animals and other organisms, landscapes, and technologies—includes much more than “companion animals.”

In When Species Meet, Donna J. Haraway digs into this larger phenomenon to contemplate the interactions of humans with many kinds of critters, especially with those called domestic. At the heart of the book are her experiences in agility training with her dogs Cayenne and Roland, but Haraway’s vision here also encompasses wolves, chickens, cats, baboons, sheep, microorganisms, and whales wearing video cameras. From designer pets to lab animals to trained therapy dogs, she deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal-human encounters.

In this deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work, Haraway develops the idea of companion species, those who meet and break bread together but not without some indigestion. “A great deal is at stake in such meetings,” she writes, “and outcomes are not guaranteed. There is no assured happy or unhappy ending—socially, ecologically, or scientifically. There is only the chance for getting on together with some grace.”

Ultimately, she finds that respect, curiosity, and knowledge spring from animal-human associations and work powerfully against ideas about human exceptionalism.”

Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2008
ISBN 0816650462, 9780816650460
360 pages

Reviews: Margrit Shildrick (Society and Animals, 2008), Ivan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. (Humanimalia, 2010).

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2012-7-31)