mlx-community/zer0-books huggingface dataset:
Printed in Utopia
by Ed Simon

In sailing to Utopia, we must first chart our ships through the Renaissance to discover our radical intellectual origins.

Printed in Utopia examines the bloody era of the Renaissance in all of its contradictions and moments of utopian possibility. From the dissenting religious anarchists of the 17th century, to the feminist verse of Amelia Lanyer and Richard Barnfield's poetics of gay rights. From an analysis of the rhetoric of feces in Martin Luther, to the spiritual liberation of Anna Trapnell.

What is presented is the radical Renaissance too often hidden away, an age which birthed our modern world in all of its ugliness, but which still holds the latent seeds for a new and better future world.

Reviews:
In the pages of "Printed in Utopia: The Renaissance's Radicalism", Ed Simon deftly examines the bloody era of the Renaissance in all of its contradictions and moments of utopian possibility.

From the dissenting religious anarchists of the 17th century, to the feminist verse of Amelia Lanyer and Richard Barnfield's poetics of gay rights, from an analysis of the rhetoric of feces in Martin Luther, to the spiritual liberation of Anna Trapnell, what is presented in "Printed in Utopia" is the radical Renaissance that is too often hidden away from the general reading public. It was an age which birthed our modern world in all of its ugliness, but which still holds the latent seeds for a new and better future world.

A meticulous work of historical scholarship that is presented in a narrative style making it an ideal and thoroughly accessible introduction for the non-academic general reader while holding an immense value for the history student and academia, "Printed in Utopia: The Renaissance's Radicalism" is unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library Renaissance History & Culture collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. ~ James Cox, Midwest Book Review
From rambunctious Restoration poetry to sceptical Shakespearean metaphysics, Printed in Utopia presents a unity of historical essays at once ludic and lucid. Ed Simon writes about faith with a vivacious originality, celebrating the radically eternal essence of the Renaissance. ~ Russell Bennetts, Editor and Founder of Berfrois
Pro Bono?
by Mikkel Thorup

Can capitalism promote effective philanthropy and altruism? Have the big society right wing neoliberals got it wrong?

Pro Bono? discusses philanthropy not as a social or humanitarian practice but as an integrated part of present-day creative capitalism, having a direct relation to its growing inequality.

The book investigates four expressions of philanthropy as ideology: consumer philanthropy, where we are asked to consume with good conscience; corporate philanthropy where businesses engage in social work and where philanthropic associations reengineer themselves to mimic corporations; billionaire philanthropy where conspicuous consumption is now being supplemented with conspicuous philanthropy; and finally celebrity philanthropy where now one of the hallmarks of a celebrity is the commitment to use that fame to do good.

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Productive Body, The
by Stephen Shapiro, Philip Barnard, François Guéry, Didier Deleule

What can a body do under capitalism? Ground-breaking explanation that links Marx to Foucault.

The Productive Body asks how the human body and its labor have been expropriated and re-engineered through successive stages of capitalism; and how capitalism’s transformation of the body is related to the rise of scientific psychology and social science disciplines complicit with modern regimes of control. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault cited Guéry and Deleule in order to link Marx’s diagnosis of capitalism with his own critique of power/knowledge. The Productive Body brings together Marxism and theories of the body-machine for the goal of political revolution.

Reviews:
This edition is intended to create a bridge between the later Foucauldian analysis of the relations between power and the body with more canonical Marxist discourse in the Anglo sphere to offset the artificial break between the two philosophers created, involuntary, by Foucault's critique of, and subsequent distancing from, the French Communist party, as well as a general carelessness towards his most left-wing activist writing. ~ Francesco Tenaglia, Kaleidoscope
If Thomas Piketty now alerts us to the deleterious consequences of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, perhaps it might also be useful to remember that, as Guéry and Deleule affirm: "capitalism is the sophisticated and materialized form of the hatred of Man and of his body."

--Ed Cohen, The Los Angeles Review of Books ~ Ed Cohen, The Los Angeles Review of Books
How exactly should we understand this famous productivity that is attributed to labor power [la force du travail], and how should we describe, or rather re-describe it? This is the theme that Didier Deleule and François Guéry took up in their succinct work on The Productive Body. ~ Pierre Macherey, “Power: From Politics to the Economy [Le Pouvoir, de la Politique à l’Economie]”
François Guéry, in his commentary [in The Productive Body] on the fourth section of Book 1 of Capital shows that the humanist protests, such as those of Friedman or Marcuse, against part time work rest on an error in the localization of the scission of the body. ~ Jean-François Lyotard, “The Desire Named Marx” in Libidinal Economy
Very interesting analysis...

The technological mutations of the apparatus of production, the division of labour and the elaboration of the disciplinary techniques sustained an ensemble of very close relations (cf. Marx, Capital, vol. i, chapter XIII and the very interesting analysis in Guerry and Deleule). Each makes the other possible and necessary; each provides a model for the other. ~ Michel Foucault
Reading the Way of Things
by Daniel Coffeen

A guide to making new sense of the world, critically and generously. A techne for the postmodern world.

A Deleuzian guide to reading the world, Reading the Way of Things is an exploration of the ideas of McLuhan, Deleuze, Guattari, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Burroughs, and more. It is a book that aims at getting the reader past teleological interpretations and questions, letting the reader in on new ways of doing criticism as well as new ways of going, being, and thinking.

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Rebel Rebel
by Chris O'Leary

David Bowie: every single song. Everything you want to know, everything you didn't know.

David Bowie: every single song. Everything you want to know, everything you didn't know.

David Bowie remains mysterious and unknowable, despite 45 years of recording and performing. His legacy is roughly 600 songs, which range from psychedelia to glam rock to Philadelphia soul, from avant-garde instrumentals to global pop anthems. Rebel Rebel catalogs Bowie's songs from 1964 to 1976, examines them in the order of their composition and recording, and digs into what makes them work.

Rebel Rebel is an in-depth look at Bowie's early singles and album tracks, unreleased demos, session outtakes and cover songs. The book traces Bowie's literary, film and musical influences and the evolution of his songwriting. It also shows how Bowie exploited studio innovations, and the roles of his producers and supporting musicians, especially major collaborators like Brian Eno, Iggy Pop and Mick Ronson.

This book places Bowie's music in the context of its era. Readers will discover the links between Kubrick's 2001 and "Space Oddity"; how A Clockwork Orange inspired "Suffragette City". The pages are a trip through Bowie's various lives as a young man in Swinging London, a Tibetan Buddhist, a disillusioned hippie, a rock god, and a Hollywood recluse. With a cast of thousands, including John Lennon, William S. Burroughs, Andy Warhol and Cher.

Reviews:
4 stars. “The detail is, at times, breathtaking, the cultural contextualizing mostly secure, and the analysis quirky and honest.” ~ David Buckley, Mojo
4 stars. “O’Leary is interested in anything the magpie genius squeezed into his songs…and he can nail a song’s mysterious power in a line…This essential handbook makes old songs feel new again.” ~ Dorian Lynskey, Q
“The only place you’ll get more in-depth details about Bowie’s life is in his Heavenly Book of Life. Unless you have access to God’s archives, you’ll find Rebel Rebel to be an essential book for Bowie enthusiasts and connoisseurs alike.” ~ Joseph Kyle, The Recoup
"This book isn’t the blog splurged on the page. Each entry has been rebuilt from the ground up. Expanded, edited, revised, reworked, remixed. For any self-respecting Bowie fan, it’s essential.” ~ Mayer Nissim, Digital Spy
“The writing is both meticulous and colourful. At times O’Leary is almost too intense…but he does it through love. He’s written a poem in a letter. ~ Chris Roberts, Classic Rock
Chris O'Leary's "Pushing Ahead of the Dame" contains the best writing on David Bowie bar none. ~ Bob Stanley, writer and a member of the pop group Saint Etienne
If you're a David Bowie fan, you'll love Chris O'Leary's Pushing Ahead of the Dame. Each post is devoted to analyzing a Bowie song, in roughly chronological order: its words, music, history, precursors and influence on other performers...Even if you're not an admirer of the artist sometimes known as Ziggy Stardust, the site's a rewarding read. If nothing else, it may leave you wishing that your favorite musician had a fan as perceptive and prolific as O'Leary. (TIME's Best Blogs of 2011) ~ Harry McCracken, TIME
Remapping 'Crisis': A Guide to Athens
by Aylwyn Walsh, Myrto Tsilimpounidi

A taste of austerity, the limits of democracy and the overlooked, untold stories of a country in 'crisis'.

In periods of intense crisis the pressing need to take sides comes to the surface and trumps neutrality. The claim to objectivity, always a little problematic, can no longer be sustained, and becomes itself a ground of confrontation as the conflicts amongst economists and constitutional lawyers show. As the world is moving towards a state of permanent crisis the engaged intellectual and the committed media are coming back (Costas Douzinas, Professor of Law and Contributor to The Guardian).

This is a crucial collection that provides a new perspective on the social dimension of crisis - exemplified in the new wave of social mobilization gaining ground across the globe. The collection is an invigorating addition to the market of ideas circulating at this time of uncertainty, austerity and social change. It is an important and timely contribution to the study of social movements and the rise of direct civil action in pursuit of democracy. In this milieu of social change, Athens is its muse. This book is one of the first collections of chapters devoted to the specificities of Greece’s crisis in English that does not focus solely on economics. Its scope and intention aligns it with other recently published books on the ‘Arab Spring’ and the ‘Occupy’ movements, although its register moves away from journalistic commentary to academic considerations of futurity and the potential of the city to reinvent itself. This makes it a unique interdisciplinary project with a broad appeal.

Reviews:
This volume pursues the classical virtues of parrhesia and andreia at a period of crisis. My hope is that this and similar initiatives will revive again the somewhat lost honor of the intellectual. ~ Prof Costas Douzinas
Rowdy Entrepreneurs and Insecure Dinosaurs
by Murat Karamuftuoglu

Mingling popular-culture theory with innovation theory and entrepreneurship in a lively style with textual and visual puns.

Rowdy Entrepreneurs and Insecure Dinosaurs is about invention and innovation in the context of postmodern society and information economy. It applies "popular culture" theory to such companies as Virgin, Microsoft, and Apple, to analyse their innovation strategies. This is the first book of its kind that mingles popular culture theory with innovation theory and entrepreneurship. It is written, true to the spirit of popular culture, in a lively style with abundant popular cultural references, and textual and visual puns.

Reviews:
Well-researched and entertaining...crisp and well-paced...will appeal to the widest possible audience, from those who appreciate Krugman to those who revel in Branson. ~ Carol Givner, Best-selling author and literary agent
The subject of the book is very interesting, and describes the unfolding of so many cultural and social formulations that are part of the day to day life here in the Bay Area of California.

Phil Ross, artist, educator, inventor. ~ Phil Ross, Personal communication (email)
Ruling Ideas, The
by Ari Ofengenden

The ideas of the entrepreneurial-self, technological progress, God, nation, and race legitimize hierarchy and will make you depressed and anxious.

Ideas that are employed to legitimize and make us consent to authority and its hierarchies also disempower us, leaving us anxious, depressed, and discontent. They are constantly hammered into us by the media, by our friends and family, and by institutions. They also come to us by way of films, motivational speakers, business gurus, as well as in the actions we take in our everyday lives and in the experiences of who we are. In The Ruling Ideas: How They Ruin Society and Make You Miserable, Ari Ofengenden examines many of these ideas, such as the entrepreneurial-self, the utility-oriented economic man, technological progress, virtues and values, as well as family values, God, nation and race. Ofengenden provides a deft analysis, on the one hand, of the beliefs we hold, the ideas behind them that make us consent to the social order, and how we often fool ourselves into believing these ideas; on the other hand, the author proffers a way to combat these ideas, to live without them and develop alternatives.

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Sacred And The Profane, The
by Jake Kinzey

The Sacred and the Profane examines the hipster and the current cultural impasse by going beyond "going-against-the-grain."

The Sacred and the Profane is a work that combines local and global analysis to examine our age's often-talked about, but mostly misunderstood, mainstream subculture: the hipster. This book seeks to answer questions like, Why don't hipsters want to be called hipsters? and Why do they act like they are different when they are just like all the other hipsters? If you can't stand hipsters, are a hipster, or don't know what a hipster is, this book is for you.

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Scratching the Surface : Posties, Privatisation and Strikes in the Royal Mail
by Phil Chadwick

The story of those in the frontline of change in the Royal Mail.

Since 2000, there has been an ideologically driven experiment carried out in the UK to change the postal service provided by Royal Mail, to one beholden to the mantra of competition, profit and privatisation. This is the story of those in the frontline of change.

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Seen and Not Seen
by Jasun Horsley

If movies and popular culture shape us from an early age, how do we separate the real from the imaginary?

Popular culture mirrors the human soul and it can't lie about the state it is in—which is what makes it an essential guide on the quest for self-knowledge. Seen and Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist is a series of autobiographical explorations which slowly uncover the author's secret life to himself. Revisiting his former writings on film and deconstructing old texts, he engages in a literary dialogue with his past as he struggles to bust open his fantasy life and reach the truth behind it. Moving into and through the cultural, social and political dimensions of movies, the book maps previously undiscovered psychological and spiritual realms of the movie-going experience to create an engaging, thought-provoking, utterly original narrative about the essential acts of movie-watching, writing, and self-examination.

Reviews:
"Horsley's book is indeed a confession, full of the kind of frank talk one would expect in a tale touted as confessional. In fact, in places the book is jaw-dropping in its raw honesty and relentless self-critical insight. Here is a writer not the least interested in marrying his auteur self to a poseur self. . . . I would go so far as to say to everyone, but especially adolescents and young adults, that Horsley's book can serve well as "the bible" for how to navigate through the treacherous shoals of popular culture, particularly in the form of violent screen entertainment." ~ Gregory Desilet (author of Our Faith in Evil), Amazon
Selling Our Death Masks
by Yesenia Barragan

Are we pawning our golden immortality for a fistful of cash?

A radical historical ethnography on the meaning of a fundamentally new physical landscape of our age of austerity: cash-for-gold shops that numerically exploded in the wake of the worst economic crisis of our times.

Reviews:
It is not easy to deal with a curse as old as mankind, to keep it at arms’ length and, if possible, transform its ominous power into healing. Yet this is what Yesenia Barragan achieves—to the extent possible—in her fast-paced brilliant, and exceedingly original history of gold and its roller coastering life under contemporary capitalism…This is the sparkling achievement of Yesenia Barragan. ~ Michael Taussig (Columbia University), author of My Cocaine Museum and The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
Yesenia Barragan’s world-tour, deeply political but no less personal, brings back to mind the old aphorism that money, or rather the gold backing for money, is the root of all evil—or at least both symbolizes and worsens the social evils all around us. Beautifully written, the book finds in the “cash-for-gold” enterprises the very essence of the global crisis, not only for those who are pressed to sell anything precious but for every inch of the planet penetrated in search of new gold supplies. Read, cry, and learn. ~ Paul Buhle (Brown University), author of Marxism in the United States and A People's History of American Empire
From Colombia to China and from Greece to Spain, gold, which once evoked the warmth and power of the sun, became the legal tender of super-exploitation and suffering. Yesenia Barragan, with the language, sensibility, and power of an epic poet, reaches from the gold bars and gold exchanges that have marked the most recent period of capitalist crisis back to the history of the conquests of Latin America, Asia, and Africa to show how gold underwrote a Boschian world of capitalist exploitation. Yet, despite the horror to which Barragan bears witness, she still holds out the hope that consciousness, struggle, and poetry can bring. Everyone committed to social transformation must read this book. ~ Temma Kaplan (Rutgers University), author of Crazy for Democracy and Taking Back the Streets
Serkeftin
by Marcel Cartier

Serkeftin: A Narrative of the Rojava Revolution takes a first-hand look at the complex process of grassroots democracy and women’s liberation that is radically altering life in northern Syria’s predominately Kurdish areas.

In the Spring of 2017, activist, journalist and hip-hop artist Marcel Cartier was given exclusive access to the structures set up in the predominately Kurdish areas in northern Syria. Over the course of more than a month, Cartier travelled across the terrain known as Rojava, experiencing the radical grassroots revolution that is sweeping the region. He spoke with commanders of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), visited women’s organisations, saw the cooperatives and communes in action that have transformed the concept of democracy, and found his understanding of revolution challenged and reinvigorated. Unique in its access, emotion and humanity, Serkeftin: A Narrative of the Rojava Revolution, is a beautiful account of a contradictory and complex process that is fundamentally changing society in the midst of the 21st century’s most brutal civil war. Meaning ‘victory’, the Kurdish word ‘serkeftin’ captures the spirit of optimism in the catastrophe that has engulfed this beautiful country since 2011 and has simultaneously brought the possibility of freedom ever closer.

Reviews:
In this extremely enthusiastic political travelogue, Cartier, a communist hip-hop artist and journalist, traveled with an international delegation to the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (popularly known as Rojava, where Kurds have established an autonomous region) to learn from the revolutionaries. In Rojava, he found the “living, breathing, non-dogmatic and genuine democratic and social process of complete change... I had been searching for my entire life.” This slim volume, largely aimed at convincing fellow leftists that the Kurdish militias collectively known as the People’s Protection Units forces are sincere allies and not “pawns” of the U.S. (which gives arms to them), gives a revealing, if rose-colored, look at the area... this is a valuable and revealing account of the nascent institutions of Syria’s Kurdish warriors. Though the utilitarian prose may dissuade some readers, this should appeal to those interested in firsthand reporting from the Syrian civil war and the struggle for Kurdish autonomy. ~ Publisher's Weekly
Shakespeare for Snowflakes
by Ian Burrows

An examination of how dramatists including Shakespeare, Sarah Kane and Samuel Beckett manipulated actors' bodies for laughter or sympathy, discussed in relation to the social construction of ‘snowflake culture’ as a 21st century phenomenon.

Drawing on plays by Shakespeare, Sarah Kane, Sophocles, Samuel Beckett, and others, this book examines the ways in which these dramatists manipulated the actor’s body to demand laughter and/or sympathy. Ian Burrows shows how these strategies can be thought about beyond the stage-space: in the classroom, in the media, and in relation to the social construction of ‘snowflake culture’ as a 21st century phenomenon.

Reviews:
Shakespeare for Snowflakes is a provocative book, and a brave, thoughtful attempt to reclaim the meaning and context of those trigger warnings. It makes intriguing connections between contemporary conservative anxieties and the ontology of spectatorship. It takes real delight in physical comedy; it ranges from custard pies to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; it takes non-scholarly material seriously as evidence for audience reactions; and it works with exemplary courtesy and rigour to refute lazy and reactionary thinking. [...]

Burrows’ is a calmly and idiosyncratically ethical voice. His elegant ability to literalize metaphors and figures of speech in refreshing ways, and his steely critical urgency, softly presented in this book for a wider audience, are full of intellectual promise. I look forward to the next one. ~ Emma Smith, University of Oxford; author of 'This is Shakespeare: How to Read the World's Greatest Playwright'
A lively and nuanced foray into the culture wars, inspired by both theatrical scholarship and personal experience ... This brisk consideration of the power of words to suppress or awaken empathy strikes a timely note in the context of today’s debates about free speech and tolerance. ~ Publishers Weekly
It’s probably the best presentation of this sort of an argument I’ve seen about content warnings in university classrooms. ~ Andy Boyd, New Books Network
The line between laughter and tears is dotted at best, and Ian Burrows’ inspired alignment of slapstick and tragedy gets to the heart of human response to pain and the unexpected. In his nuanced analysis of drama from Sophocles to Kane, Burrows unpacks the complexities of reaction to trauma and the ways in which artists have utilised laughter. Alongside this, in responding to the wider media discourse generated by the lectures in which the book originated, Burrows turns controversy in on itself, offering mature, important reflection on what it means to find empathy in the ridiculous or to mock the trauma of others. ~ Peter Kirwan, University of Nottingham