Mythologies
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Summary:
"No denunciation without its proper instrument of close analysis," Roland Barthes wrote in his preface to Mythologies. There is no more proper instrument of analysis of our contemporary myths than this book—one of the most significant works in French theory, and one that has transformed the way readers and philosophers view the world around them. Our age is a triumph(...)
Critical Theory
November 2013
Mythologies
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$17.00
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Summary:
"No denunciation without its proper instrument of close analysis," Roland Barthes wrote in his preface to Mythologies. There is no more proper instrument of analysis of our contemporary myths than this book—one of the most significant works in French theory, and one that has transformed the way readers and philosophers view the world around them. Our age is a triumph of codification. We own devices that bring the world to the command of our fingertips. We have access to boundless information and prodigious quantities of stuff. We decide to like or not, to believe or not, to buy or not. We pick and choose. We think we are free. Yet all around us, in pop culture, politics, mainstream media, and advertising, there are codes and symbols that govern our choices. They are the fabrications of consumer society. They express myths of success, well-being, or happiness. As Barthes sees it, these myths must be carefully deciphered, and debunked. What Barthes discerned in mass media, the fashion of plastic, and the politics of postcolonial France applies with equal force to today's social networks, the iPhone, and the images of 9/11. This new edition of Mythologies, complete and beautifully rendered by the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, critic, and translator Richard Howard, is a consecration of Barthes's classic—a lesson in clairvoyance that is more relevant now than ever.
Critical Theory
Building for hope
$39.95
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This new book by Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni, seeks to understand how cities and buildings- scarred by conflict, blight, and pandemic- can be healed through design and urban mindfulness. When Marwa al-Sabouni published Battle for Home in 2016, she was a little-known architect, living in battle-ravaged Homs, Syria, unable to practice her profession. She turned her(...)
Building for hope
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$39.95
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This new book by Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni, seeks to understand how cities and buildings- scarred by conflict, blight, and pandemic- can be healed through design and urban mindfulness. When Marwa al-Sabouni published Battle for Home in 2016, she was a little-known architect, living in battle-ravaged Homs, Syria, unable to practice her profession. She turned her fierce intelligence to chronicling how her city and country were undone through decades of architectural mismanagement and mistakes. Once published, Marwa al-Sabouni’s book and story attracted the attention of international media- CNN, The New York Times- and received critical acclaim worldwide. The United Nations called on her for insights and expertise. She became a TED fellow, was invited to speak to audiences around the world, and some suggested she be nominated for architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize. Al-Sabouni’s deep understanding of Middle Eastern heritage and architecture gives her insight into a wide range of cities, informing her views on how cities work best, how they might fail, and what can be done to harmonize the lives of all their inhabitants. In this new book, al-Sabouni draws together several narratives: her personal and professional observations of some of the world’s most fascinating cities, from Detroit to Helsinki; the lessons that Western societies might learn from Islamic culture and design; and philosophical reflections on how our personal and communal spaces can provide the basic foundations for happiness. Through this tapestry of personal experience, unblinking perspective, and insight, al-Sabouni offers real-world solutions- and hope- for how peace might be created through mindful urban planning.
Architectural Theory
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The dream of the twentieth century was the construction of mass utopia. As the century closes, this dream is being left behind; the belief that industrial modernization can bring about the good society by overcoming material scarcity for all has been challenged by the disintegration(...)
Dreamworld and catastrophe : the passing of mass utopia in East and West
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The dream of the twentieth century was the construction of mass utopia. As the century closes, this dream is being left behind; the belief that industrial modernization can bring about the good society by overcoming material scarcity for all has been challenged by the disintegration of European socialism, capitalist restructuring, and ecological constraints. The larger social vision has given way to private dreams of material happiness and to political cynicism. Developing the notion of dreamworld as both a poetic description of a collective mental state and an analytical concept, Susan Buck-Morss attempts to come to terms with mass dreamworlds at the moment of their passing. She shows how dreamworlds became dangerous when their energy was used by the structures of power as an instrument of force against the masses. Stressing the similarities between the East and West and using the end of the Cold War as her point of departure, she examines both extremes of mass utopia, dreamworld and catastrophe. The book is in four parts. "Dreamworlds of Democracy" asks whether collective sovereignty can ever be democratic. "Dreamworlds of History" calls for a rethinking of revolution by political and artistic avant-gardes. "Dreamworlds of Mass Culture" explores the affinities between mass culture's socialist and capitalist forms. An "Afterward" places the book in the historical context of the author's collaboration with a group of Moscow philosophers and artists over the past two tumultuous decades. The book is an experiment in visual culture, using images as philosophy, presenting, literally, a way of seeing the past. Its pictorial narratives rescue historical data that with the end of the Cold War are threatened with oblivion and challenge common conceptions of what this century was all about.
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January 1900, Cambridge
Architectural Theory