William E. Connolly: A World of Becoming (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · abstract machine, biology, connectionism, creativity, film, holism, immanence, neoliberalism, neurons, philosophy, theory
In A World of Becoming William E. Connolly outlines a political philosophy suited to a world whose powers of creative evolution include and exceed the human estate. This is a world composed of multiple interacting systems, including those of climate change, biological evolution, economic practices, and geological formations. Such open systems, set on different temporal registers of stability and instability, periodically resonate together to produce profound, unpredictable changes. To engage such a world reflectively is to feel pressure to alter established practices of politics, ethics, and spirituality. In pursuing such a course, Connolly draws inspiration from philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred North Whitehead, and Gilles Deleuze, as well as the complexity theorist of biology Stuart Kauffman and the theologian Catherine Keller.
Attunement to a world of becoming, Connolly argues, may help us address dangerous resonances between global finance capital, cross-regional religious resentments, neoconservative ideology, and the 24-hour mass media. Coming to terms with subliminal changes in the contemporary experience of time that challenge traditional images can help us grasp how these movements have arisen and perhaps even inspire creative counter-movements. The book closes with the chapter “The Theorist and the Seer,” in which Connolly draws insights from early Greek ideas of the Seer and a Jerry Lewis film, The Nutty Professor, to inform the theory enterprise today.
Publisher Duke University Press, 2010
A John Hope Franklin Center Book
ISBN 0822348799, 9780822348795
224 pages
Lewis Hyde: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (1979/2007)
Filed under book | Tags: · art, creativity, gift economy
By now a modern classic, The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. Widely available again after twenty-five years, this book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared. An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.
Edition 25, illustrated, annotated
Publisher Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York, 2007
ISBN 0307279502, 9780307279507
435 pages
PDF (EPUB)
Comment (0)Cory Doctorow: Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · censorship, copyright, creativity, intellectual property, internet, politics, technology
One of the internet’s most celebrated hi-tech culture mavens returns with this second collection of essays and polemics. Discussing complex topics in an accessible manner, Cory Doctorow’s visions of a future where artists have full freedom of expression is tempered with his understanding that creators need to benefit from their own creations. From extolling the Etsy makerverse to excoriating Apple for dumbing-down technology while creating an information monopoly, each unique piece is brief, witty, and at the cutting edge of tech. Now a stay-at-home dad as well as an international activist, Doctorow writes as eloquently about creating internet, real-time theater with his daughter as he does in lambasting the corporations that want to limit and profit from inherent intellectual freedoms.
Foreword by Tim O’Reilly
Publisher Tachyon Books, October 2011
ISBN 978-1-61696-048-3
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license