Louis Althusser: An Intellectual Adventure (2017)

Louis Althusser – an Intellectual Adventure (2017) This documentary traces the development of the thought of the Marxist French philosopher Louis Althusser (1918-1990), who influenced a whole generation of philosophers, including Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, Badiou and Zizek. Famous for his Definition of ideology and ideological state apparatuses. Althusser is credited with reinterpreting Marx in a… Read More Louis Althusser: An Intellectual Adventure (2017)

15th December 202315th December 2023 Dilip

The Bangalore Ideology

How an amoral technocracy powers Modi’s India… For the engineers of Bengaluru and their allies in neoliberal think tanks, the BJP’s Hindutva politics is the necessary condition to put their designs to work. In 2023, this ideology has become the common sense of how India should be governed, shared by all major political forces in… Read More The Bangalore Ideology

6th December 20236th December 2023 Dilip

One Fine Day: 29 September 1923 – Britain’s Empire on the Brink

One Fine Day: 29 September 1923 – Britain’s Empire on the Brink. By Matthew Parker Reviewed by SAUL DAVID On 29 September 1923, the addition of Mandatory Palestine increased the British Empire to its greatest size: nearly fourteen million square miles (150 times the size of Great Britain, a quarter of the world’s land area).… Read More One Fine Day: 29 September 1923 – Britain’s Empire on the Brink

2nd December 2023 Dilip

More Nights than Days

A Survey of Writings of Child Genocide Survivors. By Yudit Kiss Publisher’s Blurb: This is a unique exploration of the experience of children who survived the Holocaust—including Roma and Sinti victims—and the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. Children are among the principal victims of armed conflicts and slaughters; nonetheless, they perceive events through the… Read More More Nights than Days

23rd November 202323rd November 2023 Dilip

The Revolutionary Temper by Robert Darnton review – a nation at breaking point

The ancien regime”, as applied to 18th-century France, always sounds like such a solid proposition. It speaks of arbitrary power, stiffened with protocol, girded by gold, topped by a dusting of icing sugar (you could always spot a noble by their terrible teeth) and utterly stuck in its ways. Until, that is, revolution arrived in 1789… Read More The Revolutionary Temper by Robert Darnton review – a nation at breaking point

22nd November 202322nd November 2023 Dilip

Read Anne Boyer’s extraordinary New York Times resignation letter

By Dan Sheehan It’s been a hell of a 24 hours for writers demonstrating moral courage. Last night at the National Book Awards, over a dozen NBA finalists took to the stage to use their moment in the spotlight to oppose the ongoing bombardment of Gaza and to call for a ceasefire. Then, earlier this morning,… Read More Read Anne Boyer’s extraordinary New York Times resignation letter

18th November 2023 Dilip

Violence, desire and the sacred: Remembering René Girard (1923-2015)

“Dionysus is the god of decisive mob action. Once stated, it should be easy to see why such a god is called for and why he is revered. He claims legitimacy” not from his ability to disturb the peace but from his ability to restore the peace he has himself disturbed – thereby justifying, a… Read More Violence, desire and the sacred: Remembering René Girard (1923-2015)

1st November 20231st November 2023 Dilip

Conceptualizing an Emancipatory Alternative: István Mészáros’s ‘Beyond Capital’

First posted June 29, 2016 “It is no exaggeration to say that with 1989 a long historical phase – the one initiated by the October Revolution of 1917 – came to its end. From now on, whatever might be the future of socialism, it will have to be established on radically new foundations, beyond the… Read More Conceptualizing an Emancipatory Alternative: István Mészáros’s ‘Beyond Capital’

30th October 202330th October 2023 Dilip

The burden of the humanities

On grasping human things in human terms Wilfred M. McClay Back in the 1980s, an editor at Harvard University Press had the bright idea of asking some of the leading lights of the day to write their own version of a philosophical dictionary, modelled on Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique (1764). The project petered out rather quickly, presumably because… Read More The burden of the humanities

27th October 202326th October 2023 Dilip

Central Asia’s Big Thinkers

Ibn Sina, known in the West as ‘Avicenna,’ and his contemporary Biruni set out to redefine law, medicine and philosophy in the 11th century The Genius of their Age: Ibn Sina, Biruni, and the Lost Enlightenment; By S. Frederick Starr Reviewed by Maxwell Carter I never realized quite how idle and inadequate I was until reading… Read More Central Asia’s Big Thinkers

26th October 2023 Dilip

After the truth-shower

Philosophy, history, literature, current affairs, and other stuff. Posted by Dilip Simeon

Tag: Books and literature