Culture as Organization in Early Soviet Thought: Bogdanov, Eisenstein, and the Proletkult (2016)

“This anthology brings together a group of film researchers, historians, political scientists and systems scientists to discuss historical and contemporary tangential points between the sciences and the arts in Russia during the first decades of the twentieth century. All chapters provide new insights into linkages between the arts, philosophy and other disciplines during this period. Tangential points between early Russian systems thinking and approaches to montage that were being developed within the film community are examined in detail. The contributing authors focus on two thinkers: the filmmaker, Sergei M. Eisenstein and the systems theorist, Aleksandr A. Bogdanov.”

The book is published in an interactive format inspired by Eisenstein’s idea of the “Spherical Book”, organising chapters in a thematic modular way, allowing for multiple reading perspectives.

Edited by Pia Tikka, with John Biggart, Vesa Oittinen, Giulia Rispoli, and Maja Soboleva
Publisher Aalto University School of Arts Design and Architecture, Helsinki, 2016
Tangential Points series
ISBN 9789526000763

Publisher

PDFs on demand

V.Y. Mudimbe: The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (1988) [EN, PT]

“In this unique and provocative book, Zairean philosopher and writer V. Y. Mudimbe addresses the multiple scholarly discourses that exist—African and non-African—concerning the meaning of Africa and being African.”

“Western anthropology and missionaries have introduced distortions not only for outsiders but also for Africans trying to understand themselves. Mudimbe goes beyond the classic issues of African anthropology or history. He says that the book attempts an archeology of African gnosis as a system of knowledge in which major philosophical questions recently have arisen: first, concerning the form, the content, and the style of Africanizing knowledge; second, concerning the status of traditional systems of thought. He is directly concerned with the processes of transformation of different types of knowledge.”

Publisher Indiana University Press, 1988
ISBN 0253331269, 9780253331267
xii+241 pages

Reviews: Christopher Gray (Int’l J of African Hist Studies, 1989), Paul Stoller (Am Anthropologist, 1989), Ladislav Holy (Man, 1989), Steven Feierman (J African Hist, 1991), Amselle Jean-Loup (Cahiers d’études africaines, 1991, FR).
Commentary: Marlene M. Archie (n.d.), Ali A. Mazrui (Research in African Lit, 2005).

Publisher
WorldCat

The Invention of Africa (English, 1988, 31 MB)
A invenção de África (Portuguese, trans. Ana Medeiros, 2013, 71 MB)

Stacy Alaimo, Susan Hekman (eds.): Material Feminisms (2008)

“Harnessing the energy of provocative theories generated by recent understandings of the human body, the natural world, and the material world, Material Feminisms presents a new way for feminists to conceive of the question of materiality. In lively and timely essays, an international group of feminist thinkers challenges the assumptions and norms that have previously defined studies about the body. These wide-ranging essays grapple with topics such as the material reality of race, the significance of sexual difference, the impact of disability experience, and the complex interaction between nature and culture in traumatic events such as Hurricane Katrina. By insisting on the importance of materiality, this volume breaks new ground in philosophy, feminist theory, cultural studies, science studies, and other fields where the body and nature collide.”

Publisher Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2008
ISBN 9780253349781, 0253349788
xi+434 pages
via marcelo

Reviews: Olivia P. Banner (Signs 2009), Anna Carastathis (Symposium 2009), Maria Angel (Australian Feminist Studies 2009), Cara Elana Erdheim (Interdiscip Stud Lit Environ 2010).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (3 MB)