Félix Guattari, Suely Rolnik: Molecular Revolution in Brazil (1986–) [BR-PT, ES, EN]

24 April 2011, dusan

“Following Brazil’s first democratic election after two decades of military dictatorship, French philosopher Félix Guattari traveled through Brazil in 1982 with Brazilian psychoanalyst Suely Rolnik and discovered an exciting, new political vitality. In the infancy of its new republic, Brazil was moving against traditional hierarchies of control and totalitarian regimes and founding a revolution of ideas and politics. Molecular Revolution in Brazil documents the conversations, discussions, and debates that arose during the trip, including a dialogue between Guattari and Brazil’s future President Luis Ignacia Lula da Silva, then a young gubernatorial candidate. Through these exchanges, Guattari cuts through to the shadowy practices of globalization gone awry and boldly charts a revolution in practice.

Assembled and edited by Rolnik, Molecular Revolution in Brazil is organized thematically; aphoristic at times, it presents a lesser-known, more overtly political aspect of Guattari’s work. Originally published in Brazil in 1986 as Micropolitica: Cartografias do desejo, the book became a crucial reference for political movements in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. It now provides English-speaking readers with an invaluable picture of the radical thought and optimism that lies at the root of Lula’s Brazil.”

Originally published as Micropolítica: Cartografias do desejo, Vozes, Petrópolis, 1986.

English edition
Translated by Karel Clapshow and Brian Holmes
Publisher Semiotext(e), Los Angeles 2008
Foreign Agents series
ISBN 1584350512, 9781584350514
495 pages

Review: Aliocha wald Lasowski (Chimères, 2007, FR).

Publisher (EN)
Publisher (ES, Madrid)
Publisher (ES, Buenos Aires)

Micropolítica. Cartografias do desejo (BR-Portuguese, 4th ed., 1984/1996, added on 2017-2-22)
Micropolítica. Cartografías del deseo (Spanish, trans. Florencia Gómez, Madrid ed., 2006, added on 2013-9-26)
Molecular Revolution in Brazil (English, trans. Karel Clapshow and Brian Holmes, 2008, updated on 2017-6-26)
Micropolítica. Cartografías del deseo (Spanish, trans. Florencia Gómez, Buenos Aires ed., 2nd ed., 2006/2013, added on 2020-11-14)

Manuel DeLanda: Deleuze: History and Science (2010)

2 March 2011, dusan

This is a collection of essays, most published here for the first time, on Gilles Deleuze’s ideas about history and science. Its focus is on ontological or metaphysical questions: What are the legitimate social entities that can be used in historical explanations, given a materialist metaphysics? What are the legitimate inhabitants of the material world, natural and artificial, and what role should science play in determining their legitimacy? What can philosophy contribute to this enterprise?

Editor: Wolfgang Schirmacher
Publisher Atropos Press, 2010
ISBN 0982706715, 9780982706718
168 pages

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-7-17)

Lewis Mumford: Technics and Civilization (1934-) [English, Spanish]

7 December 2010, dusan

The book gives the history of technology and its interplay in shaping and being shaped by civilizations. Mumford asserts that the development of modern technology, rather than springing up during the Industrial Revolution, has its roots in the Middle Ages. He argues it is the moral, the economic, and the political choices we make, not the machines we use that has produced a capitalist industrialized machine-oriented economy, whose imperfect fruits serve the majority so imperfectly. The development of technology is divided into three overlapping phases: ecotechnic, paleotechnic and neotechnic.

First published in England, 1934
Publisher: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London, Seventh impression, 1955
496 pages

Wikipedia (EN)

Technics and Civilization (English, 1934/1955, updated on 2014-3-19)
Tecnica y civilizacion (Spanish, trans. Aznar de Acevedo, 1971/1992, updated on 2014-3-19)