EPTWhat Are You Reading 2015 - Page 25
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
![[image loading]](http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9781842777770_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG) and Rereading for some reason  ![[image loading]](http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9780345538987_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG) | ||
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
Also, winter is just starting here in the southern hemisphere. The cold breeze that runs through my bedroom is bringing me memories of reading À la Recherche du Temps Perdu while the local church played Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring on its bells. I might revisit Proust sooner than predicted. | ||
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Surth
Germany456 Posts
Also bought something by David Harvey and Empire by Negri/Hardt. No opinion as of yet, obviously, except the cover of my Empire edition is ugly  | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
On April 27 2015 11:12 Surth wrote: Started reading DeLanda's social ontology again (this time in paper form). I think this is about right: http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=541 which means ill probably have to get into Whitehead. sigh... I've avoided that book because it looked like less good than his other stuff. Do you think it's worth reading? On April 24 2015 04:19 Nyxisto wrote: I've read Neuromancer and I'm really confused and had trouble following the book. The slang together with the jumpy narration really makes it hard to understand what's going on and it seems like so much stuff is really condensed into a few paragraphs at times. I think I'll have to read it again at some point. I've read this book 5-7 times, it's very confusing the first time around but I really think it bears re-reading. Have you read the rest of the series? Mona Lisa Overdrive is where it really gets great and he hits his stride as a writer. On April 28 2015 09:23 babylon wrote: I was looking for survey works on modern literary theory and picked up Habib's and Eagleton's books a couple days ago from the library. I haven't really touched the Habib yet, but just finished Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction. I'm not sure I found it very helpful or a good intro per se (not to mention it's 30 years out of date) but it was astonishingly entertaining by virtue of its unapologetic Marxist polemics. A surprising page turner. Eagleton is a lightweight. I appreciate his polemic because he's right, but just skip that dude and read Jameson for the real deal. Eagleton just wishes he was FJ. On May 01 2015 11:16 Surth wrote: Also bought Shaviro's The Universe of Things because none of the bookshops here have Whitehead. Shaviro's description of the speculative realists is already pretty benign and even so they seem pretty dumb. saw him give a talk. he's boring On May 01 2015 11:16 Surth wrote: Read the first part of Baudrillard and then chucked it in the corner. I think one day I will just create a reader of a few hundred pages out of Baudrillard works. 90% of his writings can be trimmed. read Symbolic Exchange and Death. my favorite one. not familiar with the text you cited. Now back to 1,000 plateaus. I usually mark certain paragraphs in theory books but Im not making any notes within this one. I think sammy's description of it as an acid trip is pretty accurate, im just not sure how good that is. i mean, I'm pretty sure they were literally on acid when they wrote this book. FInally, I also bought a short story collection by Don DeLillo. Nice enough, but I think ive lost my taste for short stories. So maybe Mao II next - i really really liked Libra, after all. End Zone On May 01 2015 11:20 IgnE wrote: Violence is more like a collection of essays with Zizek talking about loosely related topics. Kind of like all his talks. That just describes his entire corpus. I've been teaching a chapter from Sublime Object of Ideology to my class. it's been an extremely difficult pedagogical project but I think some of them got it. I really recommend starting with Sublime Object and The Plague of Fantasies, and if you like that just read Less Than Nothing which has everything in it Zizek has ever said. Then you can ditch the rest unless you really want more. But I'm a partisan I guess and I do think that he is one of the great thinkers of our time. But also a clown and his own vulgarizer. On May 04 2015 12:16 Surth wrote: Negri/Hardt idiots. magical thinking idiots. Here's some stuff I'm checking out. Not much time to read my own stuff as I'm trying to finish up my degree here so I can get the hell out and move on to something I actually want to do. Very difficult to keep my head in the game as I have one foot out the door and I just do not give a fuck. but fucks must be given. du kannst denn du sollst. ![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514ur1i6PWL.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/9780262633673.jpg) ![[image loading]](https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/Books/978-0-8223-5111-5_pr.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41uGvtVvypL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F4%2BcRl7zL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg) also reading the Faerie Queene for a seminar which is pretty friggin boring. And taking a Hegel seminar with a bunch of analytic bros (who are smarter and more reasonable human beings than a certain false philosopher, but it's still amusing to see them try to construct "arguments" out of the Phenomenology). | ||
Falling
Canada11279 Posts
(who are smarter and more reasonable human beings than a certain false philosopher, but it's still amusing to see them try to construct "arguments" out of the Phenomenology). For someone intent on pretending a poster's non-existence you certainly have trouble moving on without jabbing. | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
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jtype
England2167 Posts
I'm currently reading Silverthorn by Raymond E Feist. It's very young-adult / teenage fantasy, but it's entertaining (and a somewhat nostalgic experience for me) nonetheless. I'll see how far I get in the Rift War Saga before, hopefully, moving onto Ancillary Sword (or whatever the first one is called), which I'm pretty exited to read. | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On May 06 2015 15:31 bookwyrm wrote: yes exactly. that's the problem. unhealthy transference. stooping to the level of others. since the false philosopher does nothing but jabs. we could say he is a jabber. I have problems exercising control and raising my theoretical understanding of the irrelevance of certain others to the level of praxis. because they get under one's skin so. There are others on this site who have similar effects on me. perhaps you can guess of whom I speak No fucking clue, couldn't possibly start by J and finish by BNoHo ? :D Lukacs was great, read Schiller's The Robbers which was a bit disappointing imo. Also finished Pride and Prejudice, which I was quite prejudiced against -seems like the favorite book of boring girls who can read :p - Austen writes very well and his quite funny, but I honestly think the book is ultimately quite conservative. Good book overall though, no question. And so I'm finally reading Harvey's book on Paris, which is great so far. Splendid analysis of Balzac, and his insights on utopian socialists are very refreshing. | ||
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SixStrings
Germany2046 Posts
Just finished it, superbly weird and so much fun! | ||
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Surth
Germany456 Posts
I've avoided that book because it looked like less good than his other stuff. Do you think it's worth reading? Browsed through it. Nothing in there thats not already covered in 1,000 years or elsewhere. I've read this book 5-7 times, it's very confusing the first time around but I really think it bears re-reading. Have you read the rest of the series? Mona Lisa Overdrive is where it really gets great and he hits his stride as a writer. Incidentally I read Johnny Mnemonic today. Didnt like it much. I do think his style is often somewhat lacking when it comes to describing situations. That being said, Neuromancer was definitely more fun. read Symbolic Exchange and Death. my favorite one. not familiar with the text you cited. And yeah, Negri/Hardt arent very interesting so far, so im switching to David Harvey: The sevenbillion contradictions of capitalism. LETS SEE WHAT YOU GOT HARVEY | ||
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123Gurke
France154 Posts
On May 06 2015 18:50 corumjhaelen wrote: Also finished Pride and Prejudice, which I was quite prejudiced against -seems like the favorite book of boring girls who can read :p Well, actually I know several male colleagues/friends who really like that book. And I agree. So it is definitely not just a girl thing. It is just a very funny book. If you haven't done so already, you should watch the BBC TV series with Colin Firth as well. | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On May 06 2015 23:17 123Gurke wrote: Well, actually I know several male colleagues/friends who really like that book. And I agree. So it is definitely not just a girl thing. It is just a very funny book. If you haven't done so already, you should watch the BBC TV series with Colin Firth as well. I have and I think it is a fine distraction for rainy days. And I did say I found the book funny and enjoyable, I just think there is funnier and smarter out there. | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
On May 06 2015 20:08 Surth wrote: The sevenbillion contradictions of capitalism. LETS SEE WHAT YOU GOT HARVEY Oh that one's okay but it's kind of just a summary of his other work | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
On May 06 2015 13:52 bookwyrm wrote: Eagleton is a lightweight. I appreciate his polemic because he's right, but just skip that dude and read Jameson for the real deal. Eagleton just wishes he was FJ. I will give him a try, but have the feeling that he will, at best, be enlightening but not super-helpful for my studies. This is generally what I'm discovering about most modern lit theory: it's interesting, sometimes enlightening and worthwhile, but utterly useless for my studies given the nature of my sources and the current state of literary studies in my field (which seems determined to go in a direction that I think is valid and valuable but also completely boring). --- Currently reading Wendy Doniger's The Implied Spider and Mary Stewart's The Hollow Hills. I had briefly been on a short story kick and read some collections by Gene Wolfe and Ursula Le Guin. I think out of the two of them, I enjoyed Le Guin more, simply because a ton of Wolfe's stories were completely nonsensical. :/ | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
I'm curious what you mean by the direction in your field. | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
Current hot topic approach to literary texts in my field: Secondary production of literary texts (incl. copying, reorganization, canonization, transmission). Because literary texts are produced in a scribal curriculum, we can reconstruct the curriculum and figure out how the scribes copied and produced texts. Annnnd that is pretty much the endpoint to the approach these days, as far as I can tell. There's a general reluctance to speculate too much beyond what is simply visible in the texts themselves, e.g. Text A borrows line from Text B. Maybe, if you're lucky, the scholar will talk a little bit about the similarities between Text A and B and why one might've been associated with another, but more often the discussion will simply be reduced to: "Text B seems to have been used as a learning tool in the scribal curriculum, ergo it makes sense for lines from Text B to appear in other texts, like Text A." And what if texts are clearly reorganized? "It's either pedagogical (for teaching students) or for practical use." My field is still grasping at all the straws of objectivity though; it is old-school and highly philological (which it seems to think is super-objective). So it's laboring still under the assumption that there are more objective methods than others, but because those approaches are near-nonexistent (and it is becoming aware of that), I sense that it is floundering. There was a period in the 60s-70s when the field was okay with more general, interpretive studies on literary texts and was amenable to discussions about the possible meaning of texts, but it has since withdrawn; nowadays, if those were published, they would be seen as lacking rigor. It also doesn't help that the material we have isn't always well contextualized. I think the only texts I have ever seen discussed in their political contexts are Enuma elish and related texts (the Erra epic, the Anzu legend, etc.). Otherwise, "orality" is making a comeback. The few people who work on "intertextuality" and "adaptation" (which I am more interested in) are scrambling over Enuma elish (whose popularity has exploded in the past 2-3 years since the publication of two new editions). The last conference I went to with a literary texts panel was really disappointing; all the talks were descriptive and filled with self-evident observations. | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
I still need to get into some of that mesopotamian stuff. I've been reading some stuff about the history but I haven't really checked out any of the primary texts yet. I have a Gilgamesh somewhere. I bet you are gonna write some dope shit and revolutionize the field | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21242 Posts
On May 07 2015 03:03 babylon wrote: My outsider's impression is that modern lit theory has gone far beyond simply talking about literary texts and gone on to talking about just about everything else (history, philosophy, politics, etc.) that can be interrogated through all sorts of communicative mediums (textual or otherwise). I am incredibly sympathetic to this approach, for what it's worth. I'm not I just want to read books T_T | ||
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bookwyrm
United States722 Posts
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