Peter Sloterdijk: Derrida, an Egyptian: On the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid (2006/2009)

“Shortly before his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida expressed two paradoxical convictions: he was certain that he would be forgotten the very day he died, yet at the same time certain that something of his work would survive in the cultural memory. This text by Peter Sloterdijk – one of the major figures of contemporary philosophy – makes a contribution of its own to the preservation and continuation of Derrida’s unique and powerful work.

In this brief but illuminating text, Sloterdijk offers a series of recontextualizations of Derrida’s work by exploring the connections between Derrida and seven major thinkers, including Hegel, Freud and Thomas Mann. The leitmotif of this exploration is the role that Egypt and the Egyptian pyramid plays in the philosophical imagination of the West, from the exodus of Moses and the Jews to the conceptualization of the pyramid as the archetype of the cumbersome objects that cannot be taken along by the spirit on its return to itself.

‘Egyptian’ is the term for all constructs that can be subjected to deconstruction – except for the pyramind, that most Egyptian of edifices, which stands in its place, unshakeable for all time, because its form is the undeconstructible remainder of a construction that is built to look as it would after its own collapse.”

First published in French as Derrida, un Égyptien, Maren Sell Éditeurs, Paris, 2006
Translated by Wieland Hoban
Publisher Polity, 2009
ISBN 0745646395, 9780745646398
80 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (updated on 2015-12-13)

Zenit, International Review of Arts and Culture, No. 1-43 (1921-26) [SH/FR/DE/RU]

Zenit, International Review of Arts and Culture, enjoyed a reputation as the only Yugoslav avant-garde journal, which was part of the international avant-garde scene at the beginning of the 1920s. Its founder, editor and the chief ideologist of the Zenit programme Ljubomir Micić, poet and art critic, intended to introduce social and artistic principles of avant-garde to Croatia and Serbia, particularly constructivism, futurism and Dada.

It was launched in February 1921 and published monthly in Zagreb (1921-23) and Belgrade (1923-26) until December 1926, when it was banned by the authorities. A total of 43 issues were published (including special number dedicated to young Czech artists, and No. 17-18 to the new Russian Art, edited by Ilya Ehrenburg and El Lissitzky), as well as one poster, “Zenitismus”, and one issue of a daily Zenit newspaper dated 23 September 1922.

The magazine brought together a number of collaborators: Marijan Mikac, Jo Klek (Josip Seissel), Vilko Gecan, Mihailo Petrov, Boško Tokin, Stanislav Vinaver, Rastko Petrovic, Branko Ve Poljanski (Branko Micić), Dragan Aleksic, Milos Crnjanski, Dusan Matic and others. Other collaborators and contributors included the French poet Ivan Goll, Alexander Archipenko, Ilya Ehrenburg, Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky, Louis Lozowick, Alexander Blok, Jaroslav Seifert. The visual contributions by Jo Klek and Mihailo Petrov epitomized Zenitist art and painting.

Zenit at Monoskop wiki

PDF (single issues, PDF)
PDF (all issues, ZIP, 148 MB)

Michel Foucault: The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (1966–) [FR, IT, ES, EN, SH, DE, RU, PT, GR, TR, RO, ZH, CZ]

“When one defines “order” as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He dips into literature, art, economics and even biology in The Order of Things, possibly one of the most significant, yet most overlooked, works of the twentieth century. Eclipsed by his later work on power and discourse, nonetheless it was The Order of Things that established Foucault’s reputation as an intellectual giant. Pirouetting around the outer edge of language, Foucault unsettles the surface of literary writing. In describing the limitations of our usual taxonomies, he opens the door onto a whole new system of thought, one ripe with what he calls “exotic charm”. Intellectual pyrotechnics from the master of critical thinking, this book is crucial reading for those who wish to gain insight into that odd beast called Postmodernism, and a must for any fan of Foucault.”

Publisher Gallimard, Paris, 1966
ISBN 2070224848
404 pages

English edition
With Foreword to the English edition by Michel Foucault
First published by Tavistock Publications, 1970
Publisher Routledge, London/New York, 1989/2005
ISBN 0415267366
422 pages

interview with the author (video, 14 min, 1966, in French)
wikipedia (FR)
wikipedia (EN)

Les mots et les choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines (French, 1966)
Le parole e le cose. Un’archeologia delle scienze umane (Italian, trans. Emilio Panaitescu, 1967)
Las palabras y las cosas. una arqueología de las ciencias humanas (Spanish, trans. Elsa Cecilia Frost, 1968)
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (English, trans. unknown, Pantheon Books, 1971, no OCR)
Riječi i stvari. Arheologija humanističkih znanosti (Serbocroatian, trans. Sreten Marić, 1971)
Die Ordnung der Dinge. Eine Archäologie der Humanwissenschaften (German, trans. Ulrich Köppen, 1971/74, 14 MB, no OCR)
Слова и вещи. Археология гуманитарных наук (Russian, trans. В. П. Визгин and Н. С. Автономова, 1977/94)
As Palavras e as Coisas: Uma arqueologia das ciências humanas (Portuguese, trans. Salma Tannus Muchail, 8th ed., 1981/2000)
Οι λέξεις και τα πράγματα. Μια αρχαιολογία των επιστημών του ανθρώπου (Greek, trans. Κωστής Παπαγιώργης, 1986)
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (English, trans. unknown, Vintage Books, 1971/1994, PDF), EPUB
Kelimeler ve şeyler. Insan bilimlerinin bir arkeolojisi (Turkish, trans. Mehmet Ali Kılıçbay, 2nd ed, 1994/2001)
Cuvintele și Lucrurile, o arheologie a științelor umane (Romanian, trans. Boghdan Ghiu and Mircea Vasilescu, 1996)
词与物 (Chinese, trans. unknown, 2002)
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (English, trans. unknown, Routledge, 1970/2005)
Slova a věci (Czech, trans. Jan Rubáš, 2007, 51 MB)