Stiegler and Technics - (Critical Connections) by Christina Howells & Gerald Moore (Paperback)

About the Book

These 17 essays covers all aspects of Bernard Stiegler's work, from poststructuralism, anthropology and psychoanalysis to his work on the politics of memory, 'libidinal economy', technoscience and aesthetics, keeping a focus on his key theory of technics throughout.

Book Synopsis

These 17 essays covers all aspects of Bernard Stiegler's work, from poststructuralism, anthropology and psychoanalysis to his work on the politics of memory, 'libidinal economy', technoscience and aesthetics, keeping a focus on his key theory of technics throughout. Stiegler brings together key concepts from Plato, Freud, Derrida and Simondon to argue that the human is 'invented' through technics rather than a product of purely biological evolution. Stiegler is a thinker at the forefront of our contemporary concerns with consumerism, technology, inter-generational division, political apathy and economic crisis. His ambitious project is to go beyond these sources of social distress to uncover and examine precisely 'what makes life worth living'. Contributors include: Stephen Barker, University of California Irvine and translator of Steigler; Richard Beardsworth, American University of Paris and translator of Stiegler; Miguel de Beistegui; University of Warwick; Marc Crepon, Ecole normale superieure and co-founder of Stiegler's think tank, Ars Industrialis and Daniel Ross, co-director of 'The Ister', the award-winning film on Heidegger, and translator of Stiegler.

From the Back Cover

'Since publication of Technics and Time, 2, it has been clear that Bernard Stiegler understood, more incisively than almost all of his contemporaries, that the technological is political. Howells and Moore have assembled an impressive range of commentaries around that idea, in all its complexity, tracing the contours of a rich field that gives Stiegler's thinking its due, and laying out the terms for future discussion.' David Wills, Brown University The first collection of critical essays on the work of Bernard Stiegler Bernard Stiegler has recently emerged as one of the most significant and original thinkers in the new generation of French philosophers following Derrida and Deleuze. Drawing on art, anthropology, economics, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, politics and sociology, the essays in this collection, by a range of world-class specialists, are all united around Stiegler's key concept of technics, which, he argues, constitutes what it is to be human. Stiegler is revealed as a thinker at the forefront of our contemporary concerns with consumerism, technology, inter-generational division, political apathy and economic crisis. His ambitious project goes beyond these sources of social distress to uncover and examine precisely 'what makes life worth living'. Christina Howells is Professor of French at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of Wadham College. Gerald Moore is Lecturer in French at Durham University. Cover image: Prototype of the replica of Chauvet cave, which contains some of the earliest known cave paintings. Picture taken on 12 October, 2012, in Vallon-Pont-d'Arc (c) Jeff Pachoud/APF/Getty Images. Cover image: Picture taken on October 12, 2012 in Vallon-Pont-d'Arc of a prototype of painting of the facsimile of the Chauvet cave, which contains some of the earliest known cave paintings (c) Jeff Pachoud/APF/Getty Images. Cover design: [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com

Review Quotes

Since publication of Technics and Time, 2, it has been clear that Bernard Stiegler understood, more incisively than almost all of his contemporaries, that the technological is political. Howells and Moore have assembled an impressive range of commentaries around that idea, in all its complexity, tracing the contours of a rich field that gives Stiegler's thinking its due, and laying out the terms for future discussion.-- "David Wills, Brown University"

This book is one of the most important collections published in Continental philosophy this year, bringing together many important thinkers to produce excellent forays into aesthetics, the nature of the self after deconstruction, political economy, and post-Freudian notions of desire ... Christina Howells and Gerald Moore are two of the best and most careful interpreters of contemporary Continental philosophy ... Each contributor here makes substantive and important claims about technology, political economy, aesthetics, and so on, with and beyond [Stiegler's] writings, so that this collection operates as a front seat to the most pertinent debates in recent Continental philosophy.--Peter Gratton, Memorial University of Newfoundland "Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"

About the Author

Christina Howells is Professor of French at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wadham College. She works on twentieth-century French literature and thought, Continental Philosophy and Literary Theory. Her publications include Sartre: The Necessity of Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 1988), and The Cambridge Companion to Sartre (Cambridge University Press, 1992); Derrida: Deconstruction from Phenomenology to Ethics (Polity Press, 1998); French Women Philosophers (Routledge, 2004); and Mortal Subjects: Passions of the Soul in Late Twentieth-Century French Thought (Polity, 2011).

Gerald Moore is Lecturer in French in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University. He is the author of Politics of the Gift: Exchanges in Poststructuralism (Edinburgh, 2011), as well as articles on recent French thought (Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler), psychoanalysis and literature (Michel Houellebecq). He is currently preparing a monograph, Bernard Stiegler: Philosophy in the Age of Technology, for Polity.