Drawing on the culture's history before and after the birth of rap music, this book argues that the values attributed to Hip Hop by 'postmodern' scholars stand in stark contrast with those that not only implicitly guided its aesthetic elements, but are explicitly voiced by Hip Hop's pioneers and rap music's most consequential artists. It argues that the structural evacuation of the voices of its founders and organic intellectuals in the postmodern theorization of Hip Hop has foreclosed the culture's ethical values and political goals from scholarly view, undermining its unity and progress. Through a historically informed critique of the hegemonic theoretical framework in Hip Hop Studies, and a re-centering of the culture's fundamental proscription against 'biting,' this book articulates and defends the aesthetic and ethical values of Hip Hop against their concealment and subversion by an academic discourse that merely 'samples' the culture for its own reactionary ends.

This book argues that Hip Hop's early history in the South Bronx charts a course remarkably similar to the conceptual history of artistic creation presented in Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. It contends that the resonances between Hegel's account of the trajectory of art in general, and the historical shifts in the particular culture of Hip Hop, are both numerous and substantial enough to make us re-think not only the nature and import of Hegel's philosophy of art, but the origin, essence and lesson of Hip Hop. As a result, the book articulates and defends a unique reading of Hegel's Aesthetics, as well as providing a philosophical explanation of the Hip Hop community's transition from total social abandonment to some limited form of social inclusion, via the specific mediation of an artistic culture grounded in novel forms of sensible expression. Thus, the fundamental thesis of this book is that Hegel and Hip Hop are mutually illuminating, and when considered in tandem each helps to clarify and reinforce the validity and power of the other.

This book argues that Hip Hop's early history in the South Bronx charts a course remarkably similar to the conceptual history of artistic creation presented in Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. It contends that the resonances between Hegel's account of the trajectory of art in general, and the historical shifts in the particular culture of Hip Hop, are both numerous and substantial enough to make us re-think not only the nature and import of Hegel's philosophy of art, but the origin, essence and lesson of Hip Hop. As a result, the book articulates and defends a unique reading of Hegel's Aesthetics, as well as providing a philosophical explanation of the Hip Hop community's transition from total social abandonment to some limited form of social inclusion, via the specific mediation of an artistic culture grounded in novel forms of sensible expression. Thus, the fundamental thesis of this book is that Hegel and Hip Hop are mutually illuminating, and when considered in tandem each helps to clarify and reinforce the validity and power of the other.

In this bold new book, Jim Vernon develops the general theory of language implicitly contained in the writings of G.W.F. Hegel. Vernon offers novel readings of Hegel's central works in order to explain his views on some long neglected topics and as such demonstrates that his accounts of representation, the concept and the speculative sentence can be used to create sophisticated theories of language acquisition, universal grammar and linguistic practice. Hegel's defence of a scientific philosophy that is necessary and universal seems to eliminate the need for a philosophical linguistics. Since thought is demonstrably objective in itself, questions about the language through which it is expressed appear to be external to philosophy. This has caused many commentators to neglect the real problems that the historical and cultural associations of language pose for the adequate expression of universal thought. Others, exploiting this apparent inadequacy, have argued that the lack of rigorous linguistic analysis in Hegel's philosophy is its greatest, and perhaps fatal, flaw. Although the very idea of a Hegelian linguistics is controversial, this book argues that there are resources within the texts of Hegel for developing a general theory of language as the reciprocal grounding of a universal grammatical form and a particular lexical content. Moreover, it uses this theory to resolve the apparent tension between the necessity of Hegelian philosophy and the contingency of its linguistic expression. In the light of Hegel's critical relation to contemporary debates in Continental and Anglo-American philosophy, coupled with the central role that philosophy of language plays in both streams, this important new study offers the first comprehensive, integrated and fully developed analysis of Hegel's theory of language.

Badiou and Hegel: Infinity, Dialectics, Subjectivity offers critical appraisals of two of the dominant figures of the Continental tradition of philosophy, Alain Badiou and G.W.F. Hegel. Jim Vernon and Antonio Calcagno bring together established and emerging authors in Continental philosophy to discuss the relationship between the thinkers, creating a multifarious collection of essays by Hegelians, Badiouans, and those sympathetic to both. The text privileges neither thinker, nor any particular topic shared between them; rather, this book lays a broad and sound foundation for future scholarship on arguably two of the greatest thinkers of infinity, universality, subjectivity, and the enduring value of philosophy in the modern Western canon. Assuredly overdue, this volume will attract Hegel and Badiou scholars, as well as those interested in post-structuralism, political philosophy, cultural studies, ontology, philosophy of mathematics, and psychoanalysis.

The writings of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari offer the most enduring and controversial contributions to the theory and practice of art in post-war Continental thought. However, these writings are both so wide-ranging and so challenging that much of the synoptic work on Deleuzo-Guattarian aesthetics has taken the form of sympathetic exegesis, rather than critical appraisal. This rich and original collection of essays, authored by both major Deleuzian scholars and practicing artists and curators, offers an important critique of Deleuze and Guattari's legacy in relation to a multitude of art forms, including painting, cinema, television, music, architecture, literature, drawing, and installation art. Inspired by the implications of Deleuze and Guattari's work on difference and multiplicity and with a focus on the intersection of theory and practice, the book represents a major interdisciplinary contribution to Deleuze-Guattarian aesthetics.

Badiou and Hegel: Infinity, Dialectics, Subjectivity offers critical appraisals of two of the dominant figures of the Continental tradition of philosophy, Alain Badiou and G.W.F. Hegel. Jim Vernon and Antonio Calcagno bring together established and emerging authors in Continental philosophy to discuss the relationship between the thinkers, creating a multifarious collection of essays by Hegelians, Badiouans, and those sympathetic to both. The text privileges neither thinker, nor any particular topic shared between them; rather, this book lays a broad and sound foundation for future scholarship on arguably two of the greatest thinkers of infinity, universality, subjectivity, and the enduring value of philosophy in the modern Western canon. Assuredly overdue, this volume will attract Hegel and Badiou scholars, as well as those interested in post-structuralism, political philosophy, cultural studies, ontology, philosophy of mathematics, and psychoanalysis.

"Hegel and Deleuze" cannily examines the various resonances and dissonances between these two major philosophers. The collection represents the best in contemporary international scholarship on G. W. F. Hegel and Gilles Deleuze, and the contributing authors inhabit the as-yet uncharted space between the two thinkers, collectively addressing most of the major tensions and resonances between their ideas and laying a solid ground for future scholarship. The essays are organized thematically into two groups: those that maintain a firm but nuanced disjunction or opposition between Hegel and Deleuze, and those that chart possible connections, syntheses, or both. As is clear from this range of texts, the challenges involved in grasping, appraising, appropriating, and developing the systems of Deleuze and Hegel are varied and immense. While neither Hegel nor Deleuze gets the last word, the contributors ably demonstrate that partisans of either can no longer ignore the voice of the other.