21 May, 2012
by rgonzalezr
Mucho antes de que se abra el debate acerca de “la crisis del arte contemporáneo”, Cornelius Castoriadis, con una agudeza particular, había planteado la cuestión del sentido y del futuro de la creación artística y cultural. Su diagnóstico era sombrío. El desmoronamiento presente de la creación grava el pasado y el futuro en igual medida. El pasado, “en donde no hay presente tampoco hay pasado”; el futuro, “memoria viva del pasado y proyecto de un futuro valorado desaparecen juntos”. Nada vino a invalidar ese diagnóstico. La crisis de la creación cultural en el mundo occidental no es más que una de las manifestaciones del desmoronamiento de la autorrepresentación de la sociedad.
Los textos reunidos en esta obra fueron escritos o presentados oralmente entre 1978 y 1992. Al trabajo de Cornelius Castoriadis acerca de la transformación social y la creación cultural se suman otros textos (sobre la música, la función de la crítica, el arte como “ventana al caos“, el escritor y la democracia) que prolongan sus reflexiones sobre las relaciones entre la creación cultural, la sociedad democrática y el enigma de la obra de arte.
Posted in Actualidad, Cultura, Ensayo |
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5 May, 2012
by rgonzalezr
¿Tiene aún Freud alguna actualidad? Este volumen parte de la premisa de que así es. Al enfocar la obra de Freud no sólo desde una perspectiva filosófica, sino también histórica, psicoanalítica, antropológica y sociológica, los autores ofrecen nuevas vías de análisis del pensamiento y los actos humanos. Los ensayos tienen en cuenta tanto en contexto de la obra freudiana como su estructura argumental para revelar cómo es posible dar sentido a toda una variedad de experiencias por lo general incomprendidas. En ellos se cubren los temas centrales del pensamiento de Freud, desde la sexualidad y la neurosis hasta la moralidad, el arte y la cultura. Los nuevos lectores y los no especialistas encontrarán en estas páginas la guía más accesible y adecuada. Para los especialistas y los estudiantes ya familiarizados con la obra de Freud, el libro ofrece un panorama de los desarrollos más recientes en la interpretación de su pensamiento.
Posted in Ensayo, Psicología |
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30 March, 2012
by rgonzalezr
Además de novelista y memorialista, Jorge Semprún es desde hace mucho tiempo un agudísimo observador y analista de la política y la cultura europea. Los tiempos convulsos a los que estamos asistiendo, caracterizados por la desorientación ideológica, exigen más que nunca una profunda reflexión sobre las raíces históricas, éticas y estéticas europeas. Pensar en Europa recoge los numerosos artículos, conferencias y discursos de homenaje dedicados a pensar qué es y hacia dónde va el continente europeo.
El libro se articula al hilo de la trayectoria vital del autor: la trágica experiencia concentracionaria, la constante meditación sobre los clásicos de la política contemporánea y una esclarecedora reflexión sobre el papel de escritores, filósofos y artistas frente a las desigualdades y la injusticia social. Texto rico en matices y perspectivas, en él una semblanza de Roa Bastos o Vargas Llosa puede seguir a un denso retrato del ambiente social en la Europa de los treinta, o una cita de Husserl o Heidegger puede dar pie a una brillante digresión sobre nuestro presente. El cambio de milenio que vivimos hace más necesaria que nunca la presencia de libros que, como éste, reivindican sin ambages la memoria y el compromiso intelectual.
Posted in Cultura, Ensayo |
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12 March, 2012
by rgonzalezr
The Das Kapital of the 20th century. An essential text by Guy Debord, and the main theoretical work of the situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960′s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life in the late 20th century. This is the original translation by Fredy Perlman, kept in print continuously for the last 30 years, keeping the flame alive when no-one else cared.
“In all that has happened in the last twenty years, the most important change lies in the very continuity of
the spectacle. Quite simply, the spectacle’s domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which this entire generation has lived constitute a comprehensive summary of all that, henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also all that it will permit.” –Guy Debord
Posted in Cultura, Medios, Política, Represión, Televisión, Teoría |
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13 September, 2011
by rgonzalezr
Slate columnist Kaplan takes a contrarian view to the common wisdom that the ’60s were the source of the cultural shift from pre-WWII traditions to the individualistic, question-authority world of today. In Kaplan’s view, the watershed year in this transformation is 1959. He delves into that year’s cultural and political scene, citing Miles Davis and his revolutionary album Kind of Blue; William Burroughs and his equally revolutionary novel, Naked Lunch; and the opening of Frank Lloyd Wright‘s radically designed Guggenheim Museum in New York City as examples of fundamental breaks with past conventions. Kaplan’s case is cemented by three 1959 events that he convincingly argues were catalysts for paradigm changes in relationships between men and women (the pharmaceutical company Searle sought FDA approval for the birth control pill), in how citizens view their government (the first American soldiers were killed in Vietnam) and in communications and information transfer (the microchip was introduced to the world). Kaplan doesn’t quite convince that 1959 was the year when the shockwaves of the new ripped the seams of daily life, but his writing is lively and filled with often funny anecdotes as he examines some key elements in the transition from the mid to late 20th century. 16 b&w photos.
Wiley 2010
Posted in Cultura, Historia |
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10 August, 2011
by rgonzalezr
- Paperback: 296 pages
- Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing (July 1, 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1931498520
You could call them the Monkeywrench Gang of the nanotech age. Derrick Jensen and George Draffan are taking down the data mining industry, one converted mind at a time. In the face of RFID chips, consumer tracking strategies, and illegal government wiretapping, Jensen and Draffan are determined to show consumers how to fight back against government and industry to regain their rights, their privacy, and their humanity. In their new book, “Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control,” Jensen and Draffan take a hart-hitting look at the way technology is used as a machine, to control us and our environment. Their results are startling. If the prospect of perpetual surveillance and psychological warfare alarms you, you are not alone. Most people would be disturbed if you told them that everything from their store purchases to their public transit rides are recorded and filed for government or corporate access. But more often than not, the smooth, silent cleanliness of its operation allows the Machine of Western Civilization to go unnoticed. In “Welcome to the Machine,” Jensen and Draffan draw our attention back to its eerie, persistent white noise and take a cold, hard, human look at the cultural conditions that have led us to all but surrender to its hum. Jensen and Draffan, who teamed up in 2003 to expose industrial corruption and destruction in “Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests,” are back to reveal both the terrifying extent of surveillance today and our chilling complacency at the loss of everything from consumer privacy to civil liberties. In this timely and important new collaboration, Jensen and Draffan take on all aspects of Control Culture: everything from the government’s policy of total information awareness to a disturbing new technology where soldiers can be given medication to prevent them from feeling fear. They write about pharmaceutical packaging that reports consumer information, which is then used to send targeted drug advertisements directly to your TV.
Posted in Ensayo, Guerra |
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6 August, 2011
by rgonzalezr
- Jordi Llovet
- + Conversación con un amigo (entrevista de Llàtzer Moix)
- serie dixit
- 98 páginas, 11 x 20 cm.
- en coedición con el CCCB
- traducción: Albert Fuentes
- ISBN 9789871566440, rústica – Argentina
- fecha de aparición: junio de 2011
- ISBN 9788492946242, rústica – España
- fecha de aparición: octubre de 2010
“Así como la melodía, en términos musicales, o la pasión de narrar, han sido una constante a lo largo de toda la historia de la humanidad, así los hombres y las mujeres continúan, en nuestros días, reuniéndose, de dos en dos por lo general, para enlazarse en lo que podríamos describir como una noble, bella y virtuosa amistad.”
Posted in Teoría |
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9 May, 2011
by rgonzalezr
For the most part, Web 2.0–Internet technologies that encourage interactivity, customization, and participation–is hailed as an emerging Golden Age of information sharing and collaborative achievement, the strength of democratized wisdom. Jaron Lanier isn’t buying it. In You Are Not a Gadget, the longtime tech guru/visionary/dreadlocked genius (and progenitor of virtual reality) argues the opposite: that unfettered–and anonymous–ability to comment results in cynical mob behavior, the shouting-down of reasoned argument, and the devaluation of individual accomplishment. Lanier traces the roots of today’s Web 2.0 philosophies and architectures (e.g. he posits that Web anonymity is the result of ’60s paranoia), persuasively documents their shortcomings, and provides alternate paths to “locked-in” paradigms. Though its strongly-stated opinions run against the bias of popular assumptions, You Are Not a Gadget is a manifesto, not a screed; Lanier seeks a useful, respectful dialogue about how we can shape technology to fit culture’s needs, rather than the way technology currently shapes us. A must-read for both critics and advocates of online-based technology and culture. Lanier is best known for creating and pioneering the use of the revolutionary computer technology that he named virtual reality. Yet in his first book, Lanier takes a step back and critiques the current digital technology, more deeply exploring the ideas from his famous 2000 Wired magazine article, One-Half of a Manifesto, which argued against more wildly optimistic views of what computers and the Internet could accomplish.
- Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (February 8, 2011)
Posted in Cultura, Tecnología |
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5 May, 2011
by rgonzalezr
A prolific French intellectual known for his pronouncements on media, computers and technology, Virilio writes in the subversive tradition of Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard and Theodore Roszak. In this bracing collection of essays and articles, originally published in France in 1998, he emerges as a deeply skeptical critic of “techno-culture,” his blanket term encompassing cyberspace, Hollywood and pop culture, transgenic foodstuffs, animal cloning and the human genome project. Without much evidence, Virilio charges that the United States is waging an “information war” by using the Internet, the Web and global communications to foster “cybernetic colonialism,” a monopoly of knowledge abetting control over minds everywhere and over the politics of sovereign states. Far from history coming to an end, as Francis Fukuyama suggested, techno-progress, in Virilio’s diagnosis, is driving a new era of all-out globalization, spreading virtual realities, mass culture, biotechnology and weapons of mass destruction across the planet. This opens up possibilities for totalitarian control, social engineering and telesurveillance, he warns. Virilio’s cyber-skepticism is a refreshing antidote to the “global village” mantra of Net gurus.
- Hardcover: 145 pages
- Publisher: Verso Books (July 2000)
Posted in Ensayo, Filosofía |
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5 January, 2011
by rgonzalezr
- Paperback: 168 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 15, 2000)
“If you want to know what anthropology is, look at what anthropologists do,” write the authors of Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction. This engaging overview of the field combines an accessible account of some of the discipline’s guiding principles and methodology with abundant examples and illustrations of anthropologists at work.
Peter Just and John Monaghan begin by discussing anthropology’s most important contributions to modern thought: its investigation of culture as a distinctively human characteristic, its doctrine of cultural relativism, and its methodology of fieldwork and ethnography. Drawing on examples from their own fieldwork in Indonesia and Mesoamerica, they examine specific ways in which social and cultural anthropology have advanced our understanding of human society and culture. Including an assessment of anthropology’s present position, and a look forward to its likely future, Social and Cultural Anthropology will make fascinating reading for anyone curious about this social science.
Posted in Antropología |
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