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Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity - Albert Camus, Postmodernity, and the Survival of Innocence (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,275
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Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity - Albert Camus, Postmodernity, and the Survival of Innocence (Paperback)
Series: Routledge Innovations in Political Theory
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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What does it mean to describe something or someone as absurd? Why
did absurd philosophy and literature become so popular amidst the
violent conflicts and terrors of the mid- to late-twentieth
century? Is it possible to understand absurdity not as a feature of
events, but as a psychological posture or stance? If so, what are
the objectives, dynamics, and repercussions of the absurd stance?
And in what ways has the absurd stance continued to shape
postmodern thought and contemporary culture? In Rethinking the
Politics of Absurdity, Matthew H. Bowker offers a surprising
account of absurdity as a widespread endeavor to make parts of our
experience meaningless. In the last century, he argues, fears about
subjects' destructive desires have combined with fears about
rationality in a way that has made the absurd stance seem
attractive. Drawing upon diverse sources from philosophy,
literature, politics, psychoanalysis, theology, and contemporary
culture, Bowker identifies the absurd effort to make aspects of our
histories, our selves, and our public projects meaningless with
postmodern revolts against reason and subjectivity. Weaving
together analyses of the work of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille,
Judith Butler, Emmanuel Levinas, and others with interview data and
popular narratives of apocalypse and survival, Bowker shows that
the absurd stance and the postmodern revolt invite a kind of
bargain, in which meaning is sacrificed in exchange for the
survival of innocence. Bowker asks us to consider that the very
premise of this bargain is false: that ethical subjects and healthy
communities cannot be created in absurdity. Instead, we must make
meaningful even the most shocking losses, terrors, and destructive
powers with which we live. Bowker's book will be of interest to
scholars and practitioners in the fields of political science,
philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis, sociology, and cultural
studies.
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