Transposing differences -- Meta(l)morphoses: women, aliens, and machines -- Animals and other anomalies -- The cosmic buzz of insects -- Matter-realist feminism -- Intensive genre and the demise of gender -- Postsecular paradoxes -- Against methodological nationalism -- Nomadic European citizenship -- Powers of affirmation -- Sustainable ethics and the body in pain -- Forensic futures -- A secular prayer.

The Posthuman offers both an introduction and major contribution to contemporary debates on the posthuman. Digital 'second life', genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our globally linked and technologically mediated societies. This has blurred the traditional distinction between the human and its others, exposing the non-naturalistic structure of the human. The Posthuman starts by exploring the extent to which a post-humanist move displaces the traditional humanistic unity of the subject. Rather than perceiving this (...) situation as a loss of cognitive and moral self-mastery, Braidotti argues that the posthuman helps us make sense of our flexible and multiple identities. Braidotti then analyzes the escalating effects of post-anthropocentric thought, which encompass not only other species, but also the sustainability of our planet as a whole. Because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, they result in hybridization, erasing categorical distinctions between the human and other species, seeds, plants, animals and bacteria. These dislocations induced by globalized cultures and economies enable a critique of anthropocentrism, but how reliable are they as indicators of a sustainable future? The Posthuman concludes by considering the implications of these shifts for the institutional practice of the humanities. Braidotti outlines new forms of cosmopolitan neo-humanism that emerge from the spectrum of post-colonial and race studies, as well as gender analysis and environmentalism. The challenge of the posthuman condition consists in seizing the opportunities for new social bonding and community building, while pursuing sustainability and empowerment. (shrink)

What are the parameters that define a posthuman knowing subject, her scientific credibility and ethical accountability? Taking the posthumanities as an emergent field of enquiry based on the convergence of posthumanism and post-anthropocentrism, I argue that posthuman knowledge claims go beyond the critiques of the universalist image of ‘Man’ and of human exceptionalism. The conceptual foundation I envisage for the critical posthumanities is a neo-Spinozist monistic ontology that assumes radical immanence, i.e. the primacy of intelligent and self-organizing matter. This implies (...) that the posthuman knowing subject has to be understood as a relational embodied and embedded, affective and accountable entity and not only as a transcendental consciousness. Two related notions emerge from this claim: firstly, the mind-body continuum – i.e. the embrainment of the body and embodiment of the mind – and secondly, the nature-culture continuum – i.e. ‘naturecultural’ and ‘humanimal’ transversal bonding. The article explores these key conceptual and methodological perspectives and discusses the implications of the critical posthumanities for practices in the contemporary ‘research’ university. (shrink)

This book provides the first complete, literal English translation of Alexis de Tocqueville’s and Gustave de Beaumont’s first edition of On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application to France. The work contains a critical comparison of two competing American penitentiary disciplines known as the Auburn and Philadelphia systems, an evaluation of whether American penitentiaries can successfully work in France, a detailed description of Houses of Refuge as the first juvenile detention centers, and an argument against (...) penal colonization. The work provides valuable insights into understanding Tocqueville as a statesman, as well as a comparative look at civic engagement in early American and French penal reform movements. The Translator’s Introduction provides historical context for understanding Tocqueville’s work in French penal reform and the major themes of the report. The book thus fills a void in Tocquevillian studies and extrapolates the roots of American and French criminal justice systems in the nineteenth century. (shrink)

From early in childhood, humans exhibit sophisticated intuitions about how to share knowledge efficiently in simple controlled studies. Yet, untrained adults often fail to teach effectively in real‐world situations. Here, we explored what causes adults to struggle in informal pedagogical exchanges. In Experiment 1, we first showed evidence of this effect, finding that adult participants failed to communicate their knowledge to naïve learners in a simple teaching task, despite reporting high confidence that they taught effectively. Using a computational model of (...) rational teaching, we found that adults assigned to our teaching condition provided highly informative examples but failed to teach effectively because their examples were tailored to learners who were only considering a small set of possible explanations. In Experiment 2, we then found experimental evidence for this possibility, showing that knowledgeable participants systematically misunderstand the beliefs of naïve participants. Specifically, knowledgeable participants assumed naïve agents would primarily consider hypotheses close to the correct one. Finally, in Experiment 3, we aligned learners’ beliefs to knowledgeable agents’ expectations and showed learners the same examples selected by participants assigned to teach in Experiment 1. We found that these same examples were significantly more informative once learners’ hypothesis spaces were constrained to match teachers’ expectations. Our findings show that, in informal settings, adult pedagogical failures result from an inaccurate representation of what naïve learners believe is plausible and not an inability to select informative data in a rational way. (shrink)

This major new book offers a highly original account of ethical and political subjectivity in contemporary culture. It makes a strong case for a non-unitary or nomadic conception of the subject, in opposition to the claims of ideologies such as conservatism, liberal individualism and techno-capitalism. Braidotti takes a bold stand against moral universalism, while offering a vigorous defence of nomadic ethics against the charges of relativism and nihilism. She calls for a new form of ethical accountability that takes "Life" as (...) the subject, not the object, of enquiry. This ethics is presented as a fundamental reconfiguration of our being in the world and it calls for more conceptual creativity in the production of worldviews that can better enable us to behave ethically in a technologically and globally mediated world. The nomadic ethical subject negotiates successfully the complex tension between the multiplicity of political forces on the one hand and the sustained commitment to emancipatory politics on the other. _Transpositions_ provides an intellectually rich guide to the leading critical debates of our time and will be of great interest to scholars and students throughout the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

It is possible to distinguish between empire, as a form of political order, and imperialism, as a process of aggressive expansion. Mill's liberalism allows for a legitimate empire, in which a civilized state rules a less civilized foreign people paternalistically to prepare them for liberal democratic self-rule. However, it rejects paternalistic imperialism, in the sense of aggression designed to establish such an empire. Apparent textual evidence to the contrary really demonstrates Mill's commitment to three distinct theses: that imperialism may benefit (...) those subject to it, and this can mitigate its evil; that it is easier to justify non-aggressive, empire-creating wars of conquest in response to aggression by barbarian powers; and finally, that civilized states are justified in engaging distant uncivilized peoples non-aggressively, even though the latter's aggressive tendencies mean that such engagement renders empire-justifying wars more likely. (shrink)

. Some problems and possibilities of caring. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 13, The Ethics of Care, pp. 113-130. doi: 10.1080/13668791003778800.

Michael Walzer’s use of John Stuart Mill’s A Few Words on Non-Intervention (1859) helped to inaugurate it as a canonical text of international theory. However, Walzer’s use of the text was highly selective because he viewed the first half as a historically parochial discussion of British foreign policy, and his interest in the second was restricted to the passages in which Mill proposes principles of international morality to govern foreign military interventions to protect third parties. As a result, theorists tend (...) to see those canonized passages as if through a glass darkly. Attention to the detail and context of Mill’s first-half critique of Lord Palmerston’s opposition to the Suez Canal project reveals that his discussion of purely protective intervention is embedded in a broader exploration of the limits of self-defence, including the moral permissibility of preventive military force and the use of protective interventions for defensive purposes. Moreover, reading the text holistically facilitates a refutation of some objections directed at it by Michael Doyle to the effect that Mill’s conception of self-defence incorporates elements of aggression which makes it extremely dangerous when adapted for application to the contemporary world. (shrink)

The German painter Caspar David Friedrich’s The Monk by the Sea, a picture that has played an important role in accounts of the prehistory of twentieth-century abstract art, is significant among other reasons because it bravely refused painting’s narrative vocation and in so doing radicalized the optics characteristic of the contemporary aesthetics of the sublime. Friedrich’s contemporary, the novelist and dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, intuited precisely this in his scintillating comments on the painting at the time it appeared. Invoking the (...) shocking idea that looking at The Monk by the Sea is like seeing through eyes whose lids have been cut off, he recognized that Friedrich had transformed the canvas into the locus not so much of narration and signification as of sensation. This article leans on the terms devised by Gilles Deleuze to explain the paintings of Francis Bacon in order to explore the seminal shift in the relationship between spectator and composition that Friedrich’s canvas dramatizes with such compelling power. (shrink)

Bajo lo que se conoce como «música clásica» se esconden siglos de historias sobre búsquedas, hallazgos y revoluciones sonoras fascinantes. Acercarse a ellas desde una escucha despreocupada ofrece la posibilidad de pasear sin rumbo, dejarse llevar y disfrutar de caminos que conducen a lugares desconocidos y maravillosos. Sin embargo, desarrollar un tipo de escucha más concreta que busque responder a la pregunta de cómo funciona la música puede abrir una enorme puerta que permita disfrutarla de una manera completamente nueva. Los (...) compositores son arquitectos que proyectan, diseñan y construyen sus obras utilizando sonidos y silencios. Para ello, han tenido que concebir una técnica que les permita aprovechar al máximo las posibilidades expresivas de sus materiales y así poder crear su propio lenguaje. Para procesar completamente la información de ese mensaje sonoro y disfrutarla en su totalidad, los interlocutores, los oyentes, necesitan aguzar el oído: aprender a escuchar de forma activa y atenta para reconocer los elementos rítmicos, melódicos y armónicos de cada música y examinar los aspectos relacionados con su textura, color y forma. Así, la experiencia auditiva se ilumina y el corazón estalla"--Back cover. (shrink)

Este artigo examina os argumentos apresentados por Monroe Beardsley contra a tese de que a arte é essencialmente institucional. Beardsley mira sua crítica na versão mais bem elaborada de uma teoria institucional da arte, a teoria de George Dickie. Ele argumenta que Dickie usa o termo “instituição” de forma ambígua, como type e token, e que, afirmar a existência de um contexto institucional não é o mesmo que afirmar que as atividades que pressupõem este contexto são institucionais. Pretende-se mostrar que, (...) embora Dickie reelabore sua teoria a fim de fortalecer sua tese inicial, ele não consegue responderde forma satisfatória ao “Argumento Beardsley-Anscombe”. Além disso, este artigo apresenta e discute brevemente a última elaboração de Dickie, em que ele defende que a arte é uma espécie cultural. (shrink)

Studies on age-related differences in risk perception in a real-world situation, such as the recent COVID-19 outbreak, showed that the risk perception of getting COVID-19 tends to decrease as age increases. This finding raised the question on what factors could explain risk perception in older adults. The present study examined age-related differences in risk perception in the early stages of COVID-19 lockdown, analyzing variables that can explain the differences in perception of risk at different ages. A total of 1,765 adults (...) aged between 18 and 87 years old completed an online survey assessing perceived risk severity and risk vulnerability of getting COVID-19, sociodemographic status, emotional state, experience relating to COVID-19, and physical health status. Results showed that the older the participants, the lower the perceived vulnerability to getting COVID-19, but the higher the perceived severity. Different predictors explain the perception of risk severity and vulnerability at different ages. Overall, self-reported anxiety over the pandemic is a crucial predictor in explaining risk perceptions in all age groups. Theoretical and practical implications of the empirical findings are discussed. (shrink)

_Nomadic Subjects_ argues for a new kind of philosophical thinking, one that would include the insights of feminism and abandon the hegemonic mode that is conventionally adopted in high theory. Braidotti's personal, surprising, and lively prose insists on an integration of feminism in mainstream discourse. The essays explore problems that are central to current feminist debates including Western epistemology's relation to the "woman question," feminism and biomedical ethics, European feminism, and how American feminists might relate to European movements.

This book is a brilliant and timely analysis of the complex issues raised by the relation between women and philosophy. It offers a critical account of a wide range of contemporary philosophical and feminist texts and it develops this account into an original project of critical feminist thought. Braidotti examines contemporary French philosophy as practised by men such as Foucault and Derrida, showing that they rely on a notion of 'the feminine' in order to undermine classical thought, which bears no (...) direct relevance to the historical experience of women. Braidotti then looks at the attempts of contemporary feminist thinkers in Europe and the United States to show the gendered nature of discursive power games. She discusses the contributions of Luce Irigaray and many other feminist theorists to the understanding of sexual difference and of its implications for philosophy and politics. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in women's studies, feminist theory, social theory, cultural studies, philosophy and literature, and anyone interested in contemporary feminism and the relation between feminist theory, post-structuralism and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Maximizing Hedonism maintains that the most pleasurable pleasures are the best. Francis Bradley argues that this is either incompatible with Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism, or renders the latter redundant. Some ‘sympathetic’ interpreters respond that Mill was either a Non-Maximizing Hedonist or a Non-Hedonist. However, Bradley’s argument is fallacious, and these ‘sympathetic’ interpretations cannot provide adequate accounts of: Mill’s identification with the Protagorean Socrates; his criticisms of the Gorgian Socrates; or his apparent belief that Callicles is misguided to attempt to show that (...) the pleasures of the intelligent can be more valuable than the pleasures of fools without also being more pleasurable. -/- L’hédonisme maximisateur maintient que les plaisirs les plus plaisants sont les meilleurs. Francis Bradley soutient que soit cela est incompatible avec l’hédonisme qualitatif de Mill, soit cela rend ce dernier redondant. Certains interprètes bien intentionnés répondent que Mill était soit un hédoniste non-maximisateur, soit un non-hédoniste. L’argument de Bradley est toutefois fallacieux et ces interprétations bien intentionnées ne peuvent rendre compte de manière adéquate de l’identification de Mill avec le Socrate protagorien, de ses critiques du Socrate gorgien, ni de sa conviction apparente que Calliclès a tort de tenter de montrer que les plaisirs de la personne intelligente peuvent être plus précieux que les plaisirs de l’idiot sans pour autant être plus plaisants. (shrink)

Pettit endorses a ‘republican’ conception of social freedom of the person as consisting of a state of non-domination, and takes this to refute Mill’s ‘liberal’ claim that non-domineering but coercive interference can compromise social freedom of choice. This paper argues that Pettit’s interpretation is true to the extent that Mill believes that the legitimate, non-arbitrary and just coercion of would-be dominators, for the sake of preventing them from dominating others, can render them unfree to choose to do so without rendering (...) them socially unfree (qua dominated) persons in their own right. However, contra Pettit, Mill is correct to reject the ‘republican’ view for at least two reasons. Firstly, it enables him to avoid commitment to the implausible implication that would-be dominators who sincerely deny any interest in a shared system of basic liberties are automatically rendered unfree persons by the coercion necessary to uphold such a system. Secondly, it enables him to avoid begging the question against ‘immoralists’ like Nietzsche, whose opposition to systems of reciprocal non-domination is at least partly motivated by the losses of social freedom of choice they entail for those they deem to be worthy of dominating others. (shrink)

The discussions about the ethical, political and human implications of the postmodernist condition have been raging for longer than most of us care to remember. They have been especially fierce within feminism. After a brief flirtation with postmodern thinking in the 1980s, mainstream feminist circles seem to have turned their back on the staple notions of poststructuralist philosophy. Metamorphoses takes stock of the situation and attempts to reset priorities within the poststructuralist feminist agenda. Cross-referring in a creative way to Deleuze's (...) and Irigaray's respective philosophies of difference, the book addresses key notions such as embodiment, immanence, sexual difference, nomadism and the materiality of the subject. Metamorphoses also focuses on the implications of these theories for cultural criticism and a redefinition of politics. It provides a vivid overview of contemporary culture, with special emphasis on technology, the monstrous imaginary and the recurrent obsession with 'the flesh' in the age of techno-bodies. This highly original contribution to current debates is written for those who find changes and transformations challenging and necessary. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, feminist theory, gender studies, sociology, social theory and cultural studies. (shrink)

High on energy and imagination, this ode to self-esteem encourages kids to appreciate everything about themselves--inside and out. Messy hair? Beaver breath? So what! Here's a little girl who knows what really matters. At once silly and serious, Karen Beaumont's joyous rhyming text and David Catrow's wild illustrations unite in a book that is sassy, soulful--and straight from the heart.

1. Postmodernism, Simon Malpas; German philosophy after 1980: themes out of school, Dieter Thoma; 3. The structuralist legacy, Patrice Maniglier; 4. Italian philosophy between 1980 an 1995, Silvia Benso & Brian Schroeder; 5. Continental philosophy in the Czech Republic, Josef Fulka, Jr.; 6. Third generation critical theory: Benhabib, Fraser, and Honneth, Amy Allen; 7. French and Italian Spinozism, Simon Duffy; Radical democracy, Lasse Thomassen; 9. Cultural and postcolonial studies, Iai Chambers; 10. The "ethical turn" in continental philosophy in the 1980s, (...) Rober Eaglestone; 11. Feminist philosophy: coming of age, Rosi Braidotti; 12. Continental philosophy of religion, Bruce Ellis Benson; 13. The performative turn and the emergence of post-analytic philosophy, Jose Medina; 14. Out of bounds: philosophy in an age of transition, Judith Butler & Rosi Braidotti. (shrink)

Newman’s constant preoccupation with “connectedness” leads him to explore and to insist upon the importance of the relationship between the “notional” and the “real,” and therefore of that between theology and philosophy, on the one hand, and spirituality and morality or ethics, on the other. This paper explores Newman’s expression of these ideas, firstly in his sermons and theological writings, and finally in the more philosophical context of the Grammar of Assent.

This article compares notes on different and new concepts of ‘the Human’, developed both within disciplinary and interdisciplinary academic scientific research and in broader social practices. The main focus is on the shifting relationship between the ‘two cultures’ of the humanities and science in the light of contemporary developments, such as the sophisticated forms of interdisciplinary research that have emerged in the fields of biotechnologies, neural sciences, environmental and climate change research and Information and Communication technologies. These rapid changes affect (...) the very definitions of the human and of human evolution. The question is how and to what extent they have an impact on both the practice of the humanities and on their self-representation. Is humanism challenged or strengthened by these developments? To what extent is anthropocentrism called to task by what is becoming known as posthuman theory? (shrink)

O artigo analisa as causas do fracasso escolar de alunos negros e pardos como resultante da estigmatização e práticas educacionais discriminatórias, bem como a influência das teorias racistas sobre as mesmas indicando a persistência da desigualdade racial no Brasil. Para tal análise realizamos uma pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, no interior de uma perspectiva sociohistórica, concluindo que, apesar das políticas voltadas ao enfrentamento do racismo fincado na sociedade brasileira, as desigualdades raciais permanecem expressivamente justificando a ênfase na formação de professores para (...) a docência na educação básica voltada ao enfrentamento do preconceito étnico. (shrink)

In the last year of the Great War, Italy was also hit by the Spanish flu. The Civic Hospitals faced a deadly disaster with insufficient resources. All the heavy workload fell on the female nursing staff, who were the only ones able ensure the continuity of the hospital services. This study aimed to explore the impact of the influenza on the health of the nurses at the Maggiore Hospital in Milan during the second and third epidemic waves. Historical research was (...) conducted between February and May 2020. Primary sources were retrieved from the historical archives of the Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico and the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. In the autumn of 1918, the Maggiore Hospital in Milan changed its organization to hospitalise patients affected by the influenza pandemic. Although the hospital managers wanted to protect their healthcare staff from the risks of contagion by means of prophylaxis rules, 388 lay nurses and 80 religious sister nurses were affected by this insidious disease. The second and third waves of the pandemic claimed 25 victims of duty. Remembered for their altruism and spirit of abnegation, the hospital community honoured their sacrifice, and the citizens expressed their gratitude. (shrink)