Front Table 3/3/2023

The Limit of the Useful
(MIT Press)
Georges Bataille

In the decade prior to the publication of Inner Experience (L'expérience intérieure), the twentieth-century French philosopher Georges Bataille produced a nascent masterwork containing some of his most original and extensive reflections on a range of subjects. With thoughts on ritual sacrifice and military conquest, the nature of laughter, and the mechanisms of capitalism, The Limit of the Useful, as Bataille had planned to title the work, illuminates the philosopher's later corpus, yet it remained unfinished and unpublished in his lifetime, and untranslated until now. Paired with draft essays and plans for The Accursed Share, along with over a hundred pages of appendixes and notes, the volume distinctively elaborates Bataille's thought. The Limit of the Useful spans a decade of rich intellectual ferment in Bataille's life as he first formulated his challenge to capitalism, engaging with concepts and ideas in ways not seen in his other published works. The volume bridges the gap between Bataille's surrealist literary writings and later scientific pretensions, drawing attention to, and filling in, an overlooked lacuna in his oeuvre.

 

Davos Man
(Mariner Books)
Peter S. Goodman

The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism's triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative "Davos Men"--members of the billionaire class--chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization. Goodman's revelatory exposé of the global billionaire class reveals their hidden impact on nearly every aspect of modern society: widening wealth inequality, the rise of anti-democratic nationalism, the shrinking opportunity to earn a livable wage, the vulnerabilities of our health-care systems, access to affordable housing, unequal taxation, and even the quality of the shirt on your back. Meticulously reported yet compulsively readable, Davos Man is an essential read for anyone concerned about economic justice, the capacity of societies to grapple with their greatest challenges, and the sanctity of representative government.

(University of Cincinnati Press)
Serena Cosgrove

Given the strategic location of Central America, its importance to US foreign policy, and the migration from the region to other parts of the world, this succinct summary of the countries of Central America is an essential resource for those working in, studying, writing about, or traveling to the region. Promoting increased understanding of the region's governance, economics, and structures of power, Imagining Central America highlights the many ways that Central American countries are connected to the United States through resettling, economic investment, culture flows, and foreign policy. Each of the seven chapters focuses on a different country within Central America--Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama--and includes a map, regional introduction, timeline, and history of each country from the pre-Columbian era to the present day. Each chapter also provides a substantial recommended reading list of novels and academic sources for readers who want to learn more about the key events and themes within individual countries. A QR code within each chapter links to online resources that walk readers through each country in full color.
 

Essays Two
(Picador USA)
Lydia Davis

In Essays One, Lydia Davis, who has been called "a magician of self-consciousness" by Jonathan Franzen and "the best prose stylist in America" by Rick Moody, gathered a generous selection of her essays about best writing practices, representations of Jesus, early tourist photographs, and much more. Essays Two collects Davis's writings and talks on her second profession: the art of translation. The award-winning translator from the French reflects on her experience translating Proust ("A work of creation in its own right." --Claire Messud, Newsday), Madame Bovary ("[Flaubert's] masterwork has been given the English translation it deserves." --Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review), and Michel Leiris ("Magnificent." --Tim Watson, Public Books). She also makes an extended visit to the French city of Arles, and writes about the varied adventures of learning Norwegian, Dutch, and Spanish through reading and translation. Davis, a 2003 MacArthur Fellow and the winner of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize for her fiction, here focuses her unique intelligence and idiosyncratic ways of understanding on the endlessly complex relations between languages. Together with Essays One, this provocative and delightful volume cements her status as one of our most original and beguiling writers.

 

Corpus III
(Fordham University Press)
Jean-Luc Nancy

This landmark volume brings into English Jean-Luc Nancy's last completed work and concludes his remarkable philosophical reflections on the body, a project he began almost thirty years ago. Taking the body as an intersection of pulsing life and destructive cruelty on a global scale, Nancy's account becomes more vivid, more physical, than ever, even as it ventures into language that is as lyrical as it is profound. The exceptional writings brought together in Corpus III comprise a masterful work of philosophy that marries rigorous erudition--on Freud, Nietzsche, and others--with rich poetic language and an actual poem. Nancy's thought opens the body onto its own unaccountable origins, its plural singularities, its enmeshed instantiations, and its excessive irreducibles, which are also the elusive excesses of language. Whereas in earlier texts Nancy has referred to this excess as poetry, here he performs it in the form of a poem, in the extraordinary hymn entitled Stoma. While the publication of a poem by Nancy is a notable event, equally noteworthy is a remarkable essay entitled "Scandalous Death," in which Nancy meditated on a subject that was to come to him too soon after. Above all, the book is crucial for bringing into English Cruor, the very last book Nancy completed before his death, an evocative meditation offered by a great thinker on the complex conditions of his own--and our--singular survival.

 

The Darkness Manifesto
(Scribner Book Company)
Johan Eklof

How much light is too much light? Satellite pictures show our planet as a brightly glowing orb, and in our era of constant illumination, light pollution has become a major issue. The world's flora and fauna have evolved to operate in the natural cycle of day and night. But in the last 150 years, we have extended our day--and in doing so have forced out the inhabitants of the night and disrupted the circadian rhythms necessary to sustain all living things, including ourselves.In this persuasive, well-researched book, Swedish conservationist Johan Eklöf urges us to appreciate natural darkness, its creatures, and its unique benefits. The streetlamps, floodlights, and neon signs of cities are altering entire ecosystems, and scientists are only just beginning to understand the long-term effects. The light bulb--long the symbol of progress and development--needs to be turned off. Educational, eye-opening, and ultimately encouraging, The Darkness Manifesto outlines simple steps that we can take to benefit ourselves and the planet. In order to ensure a bright future, we must embrace the darkness.

 

Cancel Wars
(University of Chicago Press)
Sigal R. Ben-Porath

College campuses have become flashpoints of the current culture war and, consequently, much ink has been spilled over the relationship between universities and the cultivation or coddling of young American minds. Philosopher Sigal R. Ben-Porath takes head-on arguments that infantilize students who speak out against violent and racist discourse on campus or rehash interpretations of the First Amendment. Ben-Porath sets out to demonstrate the role of the university in American society and, specifically, how it can model free speech in ways that promote democratic ideals. In Cancel Wars, she argues that the escalating struggles over "cancel culture," "safe spaces," and free speech on campus are a manifestation of broader democratic erosion in the United States.  Establishing these conversations has profound implications for political discourse beyond the boundaries of collegiate institutions. If we can draw on the truth, expertise, and reliable sources of information that are within the work of academic institutions, we might harness the shared construction of knowledge that takes place at schools, colleges, and universities against truth decay. Of interest to teachers and school leaders, this book shows that by expanding and disseminating knowledge, universities can help rekindle the civic trust that is necessary for revitalizing democracy.