mlx-community/zer0-books huggingface dataset:
Slave States
by Yasin Kakande

Enslavement, trafficking, sexual starvation. Abuse of workers in the Gulf Arab Region.

A stark expose of the enslavement, trafficking, sexual starvation and general abuse of workers in the Gulf Arab Region.

Reviews:
..........Kakande reports on the terrible conditions and quandaries faced by Kafala proletarians from Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, Uganda, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines and the like. Many fall out of the system and continue illegally within the GCC as ‘runaways’ or escapees. Mass deportations occur. Strikes break out which do not last or succeed. The immigrants are the great majority in these countries, which have never had a local proletariat. As such, Kafala is the local capitalists’ way of controlling or crushing that proletariat. Kakande gives you an inside, personal look into how these glitzy profiteering economies work that no GCC government or corporation wants known. ~ Gregg Gibbs, May Day Books & Blog
With the world climate at peak awareness at this point it is important for all of us to become familiar with the information Presented by the fine journalist Yasin Kakande. The more we know the better informed we can be about both sides of the clash of titans that exists at present. Grady Harp ~ Grady Harp, http://www.amazon.com/Slave-States-Practice-Kafala-Region-ebook/dp/B0182XGO88/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
Kakande's expose of the seamy side of life in the Gulf is an important counterweight to the free pass the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) gets in the western press. Oil corrupts, and the oil alliance that the West has with primitive tribal 'emirates' and the Saudi kingdom has poisoned world politics for long enough. Time for a new world order, where the practice of kafala plays no part. ~ Eric Walberg, author of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games
In this moving and inconvenient account Yasin Kakande makes a compelling case for labor rights, press freedom and a reform of the kafala-sponsorship system. ~ Eckart Woertz, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and author of Oil for Food
Slime Dynamics
by Ben Woodard

Through speculative philosophy and lurid cultural objects, Slime Dynamics explores the muck of life as a darkly vitalistic substance.

Despite humanity's gradual ascent from clustered pools of it, slime is more often than not relegated to a mere residue—the trail of a verminous life form, the trace of decomposition, or an entertaining synthetic material—thereby leaving its generative and mutative associations with life neatly removed from the human sphere of thought and existence. Arguing that slime is a viable physical and metaphysical object necessary to produce a realist bio-philosophy void of anthrocentricity, this text explores naturephilosophie, speculative realism, and contemporary science; hyperbolic representations of slime found in the weird texts of HP Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti; as well as survival horror films, video games, and graphic novels, in order to present the dynamics of slime not only as the trace of life but as the darkly vitalistic substance of life.

Reviews:
Small Towns, Austere Times
by Steve Hanson

This book explores small town austere Britain.

This book explores small town austere Britain.

The text argues for a return to both dialectical thinking and politicized community research, in light of the current 'austere' landscape, in order to intellectually militate against centre-right think tanks. It also urges for a kind of epistemological anarchism, which refuses to view the small towns which are the subject of the book through existing 'common sense' paradigms, particularly those of state and capital, but also those of cosy localism.

Reviews:
In his 'Little poems in prose' Baudelaire talks about feeling drunk on the promiscuity of the crowds on the Paris boulevards. There would soon be a mini-genre in painting: the rag-picker, who lived in a no-man's land at the edge of the city which doesn't immediately become countryside. Sociology had to be invented to expole new ways of living. Britain has made a big contribution in the work of Raymond Williams and that of Stuart Hall and colleagues in Birmingham. Steve Hanson recently published a superb catalogue essay for a photographic project on the Oldam Road in Manchester by Charlie Meecham. Another compliment I would pay Steve is that I get echoes of another explorer of these working-class landscapes, Ray Gosling. The exigences of a certain version of progress, and its inevitable upheavals and messes are endlessly defended as 'realistic'. As George Orwell might have said, they are a whole lot more real for some than for others. ~ Dr Robert Galeta, Lecturer, Bradford School of Arts and Media, Bradford College, and translator of Deleuze's Cinema 2.
Society Elsewhere
by Francis Sanzaro, Ph.D.

The gravest threat to humanity in this century will not come from war, disease, overpopulation or the environment, but from boredom and uselessness.

The biggest political and economic issue of the 21st and 22nd centuries will not be food, war, overpopulation, or the environment, but boredom and uselessness. The biggest problem will be figuring out how to manage people’s emotional lives in a time when their intelligence, brains and consciousness will become irrelevant. The writers of the 2050s will observe that the idea of outsourcing our lives to software algorithms began around the turn of the millennium with small tasks (dating, entertainment, directions), until, decades later the transition was complete; human decision making, which is the font of consciousness, is no longer necessary. Boredom and malaise are the biggest threats to global public health. With a unique blend of pop culture, history, philosophy, psychology, art theory, among others, Society Elsewhere is both evocative and engaging across a wide array of demographics.

Reviews:
"Francis Sanzaro's book is a welcome counter-narrative to all the 'just so' stories out there about how computers, especially with the acceleration of artificial intelligence, not only explain the nature of human cognition but will inevitably surpass it. The book is a masterful threading of actual research and data with serious philosophical reflection, and is an indispensable addition to a growing list of authors who are reminding us that the emperors of Silicon Valley are not wearing any clothes."

- Carl Raschke, University of Denver, author of Force of God: Political Theology and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy ~ Carl Raschke, Ph.D.
Starry Speculative Corpse
by Eugene Thacker

Philosophy meets horror against the backdrop of an indifferent, unhuman cosmos.

Could it be that the more we know about the world, the less we understand it? Could it be that, while everything has been explained, nothing has meaning?

Extending the ideas presented in his book In The Dust of This Planet, Eugene Thacker explores these and other issues in Starry Speculative Corpse. But instead of using philosophy to define or to explain the horror genre, Thacker reads works of philosophy as if they were horror stories themselves, revealing a rift between human beings and the unhuman world of which they are part. Along the way we see philosophers grappling with demons, struggling with doubt, and wrestling with an indifferent cosmos. At the center of it all is the philosophical drama of the human being confronting its own limits. Not a philosophy of horror, but a horror of philosophy. Thought that stumbles over itself, as if at the edge of an abyss.

Starry Speculative Corpse is the second volume of the "Horror of Philosophy" trilogy, together with the first volume, In The Dust of This Planet, and the third volume, Tentacles Longer Than Night. The cover of In the Dust of this Planet can be seen in a New York gallery, on a banner at the 2014 Climate Change march in New York and on Jay-Z’s back promoting Run. The book influenced the writers of the US TV series True Detective and has been lambasted by ex-Fox News broadcaster, Glenn Beck in his podcast.

Reviews:
In showing that it can sustain a lucid conversation with philosophy, Thacker's writing also treats horror literature as literature. Students of both philosophy and horror will find surprising inter-illuminations in these three books.

~ Michael Cisco, author of The Divinity Student
Strangled
by Phil Knight

If the Sex Pistols and The Clash represented punk's sacred, then The Stranglers were its profane. Strangled sets out to explain why discussion of this most taboo of bands has for so long been silenced-a collective cultural Omerta.

The Stranglers occupy a paradoxical position within the history of popular music. Although major artists within the punk and new-wave movements, their contribution to those genres has been effectively quarantined by subsequent critical and historical analyses. They are somehow "outside" the realm of what responsible accounts of the period consider to be worthy of chronicling.

Why is this so? Certainly The Stranglers' seedy and intimidating demeanor, and well-deserved reputation for misogyny and violence, offer a superficial explanation for their cultural excommunication. However, this landmark work suggests that the unsettling aura that permeated the group and their music had much more profound origins; ones that continue to have disturbing implications even today. The Stranglers, it argues, continue to be marginalised because, whether by accident or design, they brought to the fore the underlying issues of identity, status and structure that must by necessity be hidden from society's conscious awareness.

For this, they would not be forgiven.

Reviews:
The precarious existence in a band is vividly described in this book from independent British publisher Zero Books.

~ Gesellschaft + Kultur, May 2015
I finished STRANGLED at three o'clock this morning. Best book, in any genre, I've read in years. A brilliantly unique dissection of postwar Western decline and ... somehow it contains my favourite band, too. Genius. ~ Alison Rae, Managing Editor, Polygon Books
One of the most brilliantly unusual brains to emerge from the blogosphere lovingly dissects one of the most brilliantly unorthodox bands to emerge from punk. Using their savagely under-celebrated songs as a dark prism for the decline of the West, Phil Knight constructs a gripping entertainment for the mind that will convince even anti-fans that The Stranglers were the crucial band of their era. ~ Simon Reynolds, author of Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk 1978-84.
Student as Producer
by Mike Neary

Student as Producer brings critical theory to life in a contribution to the dynamic, emerging genre of critical higher education studies. It is for students and teachers who want to change the world through critical pedagogy and popular education.

Mike Neary's account finds itself set in a particular moment of time: between the student protests and urban riots that erupted in England in 2010-2011 and the 2017 General Election, during which students and young people played a significant role by protesting the politics of austerity and by supporting the politics of Corbynism. The revolutionary curriculum in this book is framed around unlearning the law of labour and the institutions through which the law of labour is enforced, including the capitalist university which, more and more, seeks growth and expansion for the sake of growth, neglecting the intellectual and educational needs of students in favour of the needs of the capitalist state.

Through thought experiments and reference to the work of the Soviet legal theorist, Evgeny Pashukanis, Student as Producer searches for solutions to how cooperatives might be brought about by a sense of common purpose and social defense. This is a practical, probing response to the ongoing assault on higher education by the social power of Money and the State. Mike Neary grounds his answers in a version of Marx's social theory known as 'a new reading of Marx', as advanced by authors such as Werner Bonefeld and Moishe Postone. The theory is applied to various aspects of pedagogy, criminology, and political sociology to create a curricula for revolutionary teaching that will aid activists and those involved with co-operative movements who are seeking ways in which to engage critically with higher education.

Reviews:
Thoughtful and thought-provoking, "Student as Producer: How do Revolutionary Teachers Teach?" is an inherently interesting and occasionally iconoclastic read that will have particular appeal for readers with an interest in higher and continuing education, the philosophy and social aspects of education, Communism & Socialism with respect to the process of education and educational institutions. ~ Midwest Book Review.com
Neary’s brilliant and timely book sets forth an inspiring alternative to today’s neoliberal university – teaching and learning are no longer to be mere training for wage labour but a ‘commons’ in which the roles of student and teacher circulate freely. The production of knowledge – by student and teacher alike – becomes the dynamic principle of a critical pedagogy with revolutionary horizons. In Neary’s fascinating work learning becomes liberation and the university begins to prefigure an emancipated world.

~ Richard Gunn & Adrian Wilding, authors of Revolutionary Recognition
Superactually
by Chuk Moran

A bunch of tiny essays on life after irony, this is a book to help smart people feel hip and hip people feel smart.

To speak ironically is to speak just for the effect. To speak superactually is to do something with words and take responsibility for that action. This is a book of short, provocative essays. Some are on fun topics in pop culture (hackers, dubstep, cat memes, thinking green, parkour, and the girl next door). Others are takes on technical topics in social theory (sensation, hype, discrimination, imagination, and the typical). This is a book to help smart people feel hip and hip people feel smart.

Reviews:
Theory today is not dead, but perhaps it should be euthanized. We can no longer hear signal over the noise of its predictable wheeze, its message long since shrouded by an illness borne long ago from youthful indulgences. Chucking aside this death mask, Moran asks, what if theory arose not from the obsessive study of meaning, representation, sexuality, economics, culture, and so on, but from the real ordinariness of chicken salad and ultimate fighting and hoodies and automobiles. ~ Ian Bogost, author of Persuasive Games and Alien Phenomenology
Superactually is aphoristic anti-philosophy in the spirit of Kierkegaard or Nietzsche. But these short meditations are lighter and sweeter, more writerly, at times funny and fun, directed straight at the world. Something like Barthes' Mythologies for the new millennium. You will find much to like here, from dubstep to sex, from parkour to the apocalypse, from cliches like "the girl next door" to the high theory of Deleuze or Foucault. The question: why write? The answer: to provoke thought. ~ Alexander Galloway, author of The Exploit, Protocol, and Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture.
Surrealpolitik
by John Schoneboom

Dream, myth, delusion, and reality collide in this surrealist navigation of the national security state.

Our times are not just weird, but literally surreal: we live in a paranoid, increasingly authoritarian culture in which the real, the presumed and the purported are indistinguishable strands of a dense hallucinatory web of mediated spectacles. Surrealpolitik takes up cultural theorist Mark Fisher’s challenge to expose capitalist realism’s 'realism' as nothing of the sort.

To subject the symbolic order to a surrealist mode of inquiry is to transgress taboos, reveal biases and inconsistencies, test assumptions and investigate the extent to which the real is, like our dreams - a fungible projection of our unconscious expectations. The nexus of dreams, hyperreality, paranoia, totalitarianism, terror, art, myth and culture is where realpolitik becomes the surrealpolitik of the title.

Reviews:
"Amazing...A fierce, lucid intervention against the regime of an exclusionary 'realism' which, in its marginalization of the dreamlife, not only starves us with a deadly-dull aesthetics but forms a lid clamped on the imaginative urgencies required to fight our way into a post-capitalist, post-surveillance future." ~ Jonathan Lethem, via email
Novelist and cultural critic John Schoneboom confronts the weirdness of modernity with humour, originality and insight. Wide ranging and engagingly written, Surrealpolitik argues that today’s consumerist surveillance state is not merely surreal in the everyday sense, but can be understood through the concerns of the original Surrealist art movement. Surprising and at times unsettling, it’s a consistently thought-provoking intervention in the debate of our time. ~ Andrew Crumey (novelist), via email
Tentacles Longer Than Night
by Eugene Thacker

Systematic, comprehensive exploration of the links between philosophy, religion, and the horror genre.

Our contemporary horror stories are written in a world where there seems little faith, lost hope, and no salvation. All that remains is the fragmentary and occasionally lyrical testimony of the human being struggling to confront its lack of reason for being in the vast cosmos. This is the terrain of the horror genre.

Eugene Thacker explores this situation in Tentacles Longer Than Night. Extending the ideas presented in his book In The Dust of This Planet, Thacker considers the relationship between philosophy and the horror genre. But instead of taking fiction as the mere illustration of ideas, Thacker reads horror stories as if they themselves were works of philosophy, driven by a speculative urge to question human knowledge and the human-centric view of the world, ultimately leading to the limit of the human - thought undermining itself, in thought.

Tentacles Longer Than Night is the third volume of the "horror of philosophy" trilogy, together with the first volume, In The Dust of This Planet, and the second volume, Starry Speculative Corpse.

Reviews:
"In showing that it can sustain a lucid conversation with philosophy, Thacker's writing also treats horror literature as literature. Students of both philosophy and horror will find surprising inter-illuminations in these three books."

Michael Cisco, author of The Divinity Student ~ Michael Cisco
The Ultraviolet Catastrophe
by Susan Finlay

A head-trip through capitalism’s final frontier.

Legal-high addict, gaming enthusiast, and principal shareholder of AstroLabs™, Lex Rameses, has recently discovered—and purchased—Proserpina: a planet with a near-identical ecosystem to Earth’s. Yet, although his humanistic, hipster pretensions mean that many people admire him, there is still one thing standing in the way of his space-colonization program: as of yet, there is no way to travel to Proserpina safely.

Enter a cast of mad scientists, Astro–Marxists, a neurorobotic AI hivemind, an extinction anxiety addict, the victims of an interrelated crypto-currency gaming scam, and a seemingly endless succession of ravers and gamers in search of the ultimate hallucinogenic, carcinogenic, neü-space-age high…

Reviews:
"Nothing and no-one is spared by the acid tongue of this novel – not even the kitchen implements, not even you. A techno-utopia-takedown-turned-techno-curious-trip, The Ultraviolet Catastrophe is a jolt to the brain, a nightmare, a riot and, like everything Finlay does, impossible not to love." ~ Amber Husain, author of Tell Me How You Eat
"Susan Finlay's The Ultraviolet Catastrophe is a vivid techno-apocalypso, a work of hard(ly) SF wherein designer-drugged, synthetically-opioid, over-stimulated prose vonnegutly pynchons its way through an alternative present/near future/ five minutes past New Berlin populated by (P.K.) dick-ish characters. It features a proper baddie called Lex Ramesses, giraffes, rubber masks, floating heads, and a hero worried about his sperm count. Follow the book's own (il)logic, get lost, enjoy the detour into (to mod a blurbing cliché) the anxious thrill of what it means to be post-human, or just alive, now, in the MMORPG which we might call the grinning nightmare which is contemporary life." ~ C.D. Rose, Goldsmiths Prize winning author of We Live Here Now
"Susan Finlay has her finger on the pulse of Berlin." ~ Tom McCarthy, two-time Booker Prize shortlisted author of C and Satin Island
"The Ultraviolet Catastrophe is raucous, hilarious, irreverent, and wildly smart, taking aim at techno-salvation fantasies, startup culture, and the eternal humiliation of having a body under the ridiculous conditions of late capitalism. Finlay's new novel is as unexpected and unique as all of her work. Read it now." ~ Elvia Wilk, author of Oval and Death by Landscape
"A wild, genre-bending blast with real scale and sweep. The Three Body Problem meets Blue Lard." ~ Mariel Franklin author of Bonding
Hallucinatory and haunting, the reverse-accelerationist dystopia of The Ultraviolet Catastrophe is pure stinging pleasure. Satire targets range from Muskian tech overlords harvesting memories for an illusory offworld, to gender-blending plebes in a post-woke Berlin. Throughout, there’s an end-of-days dread of pending doom. This Götterdämmerung rings for them and thee. ~ Jack Skelley, author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker
Thing, The
by Dylan Trigg

Phenomenology redefined through body horror.

What is the human body? Both the most familiar and unfamiliar of things, the body is the centre of experience but also the site of a prehistory anterior to any experience. Alien and uncanny, this other side of the body has all too often been overlooked by phenomenology. In confronting this oversight, Dylan Trigg’s The Thing redefines phenomenology as a species of realism, which he terms unhuman phenomenology. Far from being the vehicle of a human voice, this unhuman phenomenology gives expression to the alien materiality at the limit of experience.

By fusing the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and Levinas with the horrors of John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and H.P. Lovecraft, Trigg explores the ways in which an unhuman phenomenology positions the body out of time. At once a challenge to traditional notions of phenomenology, The Thing is also a timely rejoinder to contemporary philosophies of realism. The result is nothing less than a rebirth of phenomenology as redefined through the lens of horror.

Reviews:
Dylan Trigg's The Thing: A Phenomenology of Horror takes up the central challenge of contemporary philosophy - grappling with the world as indifferent to human constructs and concepts. Trigg's analysis suggests to us that phenomenology - too often regarded as a philosophy of the human par excellence - is uncannily suited to thinking the world-without-us. Husserl writing horror fiction is the spirit of this study. ~ Eugene Thacker, author of In The Dust Of This Planet
Dylan Trigg's The Thing is a sophisticated melding of philosophy, literary criticism, and film criticism that underscores his major thesis that 'the horror of the cosmos is essentially the horror of the body.' Its discussions of the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, the films of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg, and other texts and films allow us to look at these works from a fascinating new perspective while shedding light on humanity's fragility in a boundless cosmos. ~ S. T. Joshi