2012

Ray Laurence,Roman Archaeology for Historians (Routledge 2012)
Roman Archaeology for Historians provides students of Roman history with a guide to the contribution of archaeology to the study of their subject. It discusses the issues with the use of material and textual evidence to explain the Roman past, and the importance of viewing this evidence in context. It also surveys the different approaches to the archaeological material of the period and examines key themes that have shaped Roman archaeology. Throughout, the author argues for the need for greater understanding between archaeologists and ancient historians in order to form a full picture of the Roman past.

Roman Archaeology for Historians provides an accessible guide to the development of archaeology as a discipline and how the use of archaeological evidence of the Roman world can enrich the study of ancient history, whilst at the same time encouraging the integration of material evidence into the study of the period’s history. This work is a key resource for students of ancient history, and for those studying the archaeology of the Roman period.

Robin Gill, Theology in a Social Context: Sociological Theology Volume 1 (Ashgate 2012)

Over the last 30 years a number of theologians have been using aspects of sociology alongside the more traditional resources of philosophy. In turn, sociologists with an interest in theology have also contributed to an interaction between theology and sociology. The time is right to revisit the dialogue between theologians and sociologists. In his new trilogy on Sociological Theology, Robin Gill makes a renewed contribution to the mapping of three abiding ways of relating theology and sociology, with the three volumes covering: Theology in a Social Context; Theology Shaped by Society; Society Shaped by Theology.

Theology in a Social Context argues that a sociological perspective, properly understood, can make an important contribution to theology. Part I looks carefully at various objections raised by both theologians and sociologists, maintaining instead that a proper understanding of social context is a prerequisite for effective theology. Part II suggests that a sociological perspective offers crucial insights into resurgent forms of fundamentalism. Part III offers a fresh account of social context in the modern world, once thought by sociologists and theologians alike to consist simply of increasing secularization.

Abby Day, Believing in Belonging Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World (Oxford 2012)
Believing in Belonging draws on empirical research exploring mainstream religious belief and identity in Euro-American countries. Starting from a qualitative study based in northern England, and then broadening the data to include other parts of Europe and North America, Abby Day explores how people 'believe in belonging', choosing religious identifications to complement other social and emotional experiences of 'belongings'. The concept of 'performative belief' helps explain how otherwise non-religious people can bring into being a Christian identity related to social belongings.

What is often dismissed as 'nominal' religious affiliation is far from an empty category, but one loaded with cultural 'stuff' and meaning. Day introduces an original typology of natal, ethnic and aspirational nominalism that challenges established disciplinary theory in both the European and North American schools of the sociology of religion that assert that most people are 'unchurched' or 'believe without belonging' while privately maintaining beliefs in God and other 'spiritual' phenomena.

Ray Laurence, Families in the Greco-Roman World (Continuum, 2012)
The family has been recognised in the ancient world as the key social institution on which both society and the state are based. However, in the pre-Classical and Classical world the family was constructed in dissimilar ways and provides the means to explaining why the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, although sharing many cultural features, in fact differed greatly. This volume draws on the most recent work of leading scholars in the field with the aim of establishing a new understanding of the ancient family for the 21st century. In so doing, the book includes new approaches to social institutions, depictions of women and children, the Seleucid dynasty as a negative model of family, the inclusion of Etruscan societies, and a fundamental re-assessment of the family in antiquity..

 

2011

Robin Gill (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, 2nd edition (CUP 2011)

Following the same formula as other Cambridge Companions, this book is written by leading international experts in Christian ethics and is aimed at students on upper-level undergraduate courses, at teachers and at graduate students. It will be useful as well to ministers and other professionals within the church. Its eighteen chapters provide a thorough introduction to Christian ethics which is both authoritative and up-to-date. All contributors have been chosen because they are significant scholars with a proven track record of balanced, comprehensive and comprehensible writing. The Companion examines the scriptural bases of ethics, introduces a variety of approaches to ethics including those informed by considerations such as gender and by other faiths such as Judaism, and then discusses Christian ethics in the context of contemporary issues including war and the arms trade, social justice, ecology, economics, and medicine and genetics. The book offers a superb overview of its subject.

 

Anne Alwis, Celibate Marriages in Late Antique and Byzantine Hagiography: The Lives of Saints Julian and Basilissa, Andronikos and Athanasia, and Galaktion and Episteme (Continuum, 2011)
This book explores the puzzling phenomenon of celibate marriage as depicted in the lives of three couples who achieved sainthood. Marriage without intercourse appears to have no purpose, especially in Christian antiquity, yet these three tales were copied for centuries. What messages were they promoting? What did it mean to be a virgin husband and a virgin wife? Including full translations, this volume sets each life in its historical context, and by examining their individual and shared themes, the book shows that the tension raised by pitting marriage against celibacy is constantly debated. It also highlights the ingenuity of Byzantine hagiographers as they attempted to reconcile this curious paradox. The book addresses a gap in late Antique and Byzantine hagiographic studies where primary sources and interpretative material are very rarely presented in the same volume. By providing a variety of contexts to the material a much more comprehensive, revealing and holistic picture of celibate marriage emerges.

Thomas Baldwin, The Picture as Spectre in Diderot, Proust and Deleuze (Legenda, 2011)
The possibility of ekphrasis, the verbal representation of visual imagery, is fundamental to all writing about art, be it art criticism, theory or a passage in a novel. But there is no consensus concerning how such representation works. Some take it for granted that writing about art can result in a precise match between words and visual images. For others, ekphrasis amounts to a kind of virtuoso rivalry, in which the writer aims to outdo the pictorial image that is being described. In close readings of Diderot, Proust and Deleuze, Thomas Baldwin shows how ekphrasis can create a spectral effect. In other words, ekphrastic spectres do not function as fully present stand-ins for given works of art; nor can they be reduced to the status of passive and absent others. Baldwin also explores the ways in which the works of Diderot, Proust and Deleuze inhabit each other as ghostly influences.

Christopher Deacy, Screening the Afterlife: Theology, Eschatology, and Film (Routledge, 2011)
Screening the Afterlife is a unique and fascinating exploration of the 'last things' as envisaged by modern filmmakers. Drawing on a range of films from Flatliners and What Dreams May Come to Working Girl and The Shawshank Redemption, it offers the first comprehensive examination of death and the afterlife within the growing field of religion and film. Topics addressed include: the survival of personhood after death; the language of resurrection and immortality; near-death experiences and mind-dependent worlds; and the portrayal of 'heaven' and 'hell'. Students taking courses on eschatology will find this a stimulating and thought-provoking resource, while scholars will relish Deacy's theological insight and understanding.

'Chris Deacy is a theologian who knows how to look at film. This is among the best books yet published that evidences a robust two-way dialogue between serious theology and Hollywood films. I will use Screening the Afterlife as I reflect on how best to teach eschatology.' - Robert K. Johnston, author of Useless Beauty and Professor of Theology and Culture, Fuller Theological Seminary, USA

James Fowler, New Essays on Diderot (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
The great eighteenth-century French thinker Denis Diderot (1713–1784) once compared himself to a weathervane, by which he meant that his mind was in constant motion. In an extraordinarily diverse career he produced novels, plays, art criticism, works of philosophy and poetics, and also reflected on music and opera. Perhaps most famously, he ensured the publication of the Encyclopédie, which has often been credited with hastening the onset of the French Revolution. Known as one of the three greatest philosophes of the Enlightenment, Diderot rejected the Christian ideas in which he had been raised. Instead, he became an atheist and a determinist. His radical questioning of received ideas and established religion led to a brief imprisonment, and for that reason, no doubt, some of his subsequent works were written for posterity. This collection of essays celebrates the life and work of this extraordinary figure as we approach the tercentenary of his birth.

Helen Frowe, The Ethics of War and Peace: An Introduction (Routledge, 2011)
When is it right to go to war? When is a war illegal? What are the rules of engagement? What should happen when a war is over? How should we view terrorism? The Ethics of War and Peace is a fresh and contemporary introduction to one of the oldest but still most relevant ethical debates. It introduces students to contemporary Just War Theory in a stimulating and engaging way, perfect for those approaching the topic for the first time. Helen Frowe explains the core issues in Just War Theory, and chapter by chapter examines the recent and ongoing philosophical? debates on: theories of self defence and national defence; Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, and Jus post Bellum; the moral status of combatants; the principle of non-combatant immunity; and the nature of terrorism and the moral status of terrorists.

Ray Laurence, The City in the Roman West, c.250 BC–c.AD 250 (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
The city is widely regarded as the most characteristic expression of the social, cultural and economic formations of the Roman Empire. This was especially true in the Latin-speaking West, where urbanism was much less deeply ingrained than in the Greek-speaking East but where networks of cities grew up during the centuries following conquest and occupation. This up-to-date and well-illustrated synthesis provides students and specialists with an overview of the development of the city in Italy, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Spain and North Africa, whether their interests lie in ancient history, Roman archaeology or the wider history of urbanism. It accounts not only for the city's geographical and temporal spread and its associated monuments (such as amphitheatres and baths), but also for its importance to the rulers of the Empire as well as the provincials and locals.

Patricia Novillo-Corvalan, Borges and Joyce: An Infinite Conversation (Legenda, 2011)
Borges and Joyce stand as two of the most revolutionary writers of the twentieth century. Both are renowned for their polyglot abilities, prodigious memories, cyclical conception of time, labyrinthine creations and for their shared condition as European emigres and blind bards of Dublin and Buenos Aires. Yet at the same time, Borges and Joyce differ in relation to the central aesthetic of their creative projects: the epic scale of the Irishman contrasts with the compressed fictions of the Argentine. In this comprehensive and engaging study, Patricia Novillo-Corvalan demonstrates that Borges forged a version of Joyce refracted through the condensed prism of his art, thus encapsulating the colossal magnitude of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake within the confines of a nutshell. Separate chapters triangulate Borges and Joyce with the canonical legacy of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, using as a point of departure Walter Benjamin's notion of the afterlife of a text. This ambitious, interdisciplinary study offers a model for comparative literature in the 21st century.

Sean Sayers Marx and Alienation Essays on Hegelian Themes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
What does Marx mean by 'alienation'? What role does the concept play in his critique of capitalism and his vision of a future society? Marx and Alienation deals in depth with some of the most important philosophical assumptions of Marx's work. It sets Marx's account of alienation and its overcoming in the context of the Hegelian philosophy from which it derives, and discusses it in relation to contemporary debates and controversies. It challenges other recent accounts of Marx's theory, and shows that knowledge of Hegel's philosophy is essential for an understanding of central themes in Marx's philosophy. Marx and Alienation explains and discusses Marx's ideas in an original and accessible fashion and makes a major contribution to Marxist philosophy.

Natalia Sobrevilla Perea, The Caudillo of the Andes: Andres de Santa Cruz (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
Born in La Paz in 1792, Andrés de Santa Cruz lived through the turbulent times that led to independence across Latin America. He fought to shape the newly established republics, and between 1836 and 1839 he created the Peru-Bolivia Confederation. The epitome of an Andean caudillo, with armed forces at the center of his ideas of governance, he was a state builder whose ambition ensured a strong and well-administered country. But the ultimate failure of the Confederation had long-reaching consequences that still have an impact today. The story of his life introduces students to broader questions of nationality and identity during this turbulent transition from Spanish colonial rule to the founding of Peru and Bolivia.

Shane Weller, Modernism and Nihilism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
At the heart of some of the most influential strands of philosophical, political, and aesthetic modernism lies the conviction that modernity is fundamentally nihilistic. This book offers a wide-ranging critical history of the concept of nihilism from its origins in French Revolutionary discourse to its place in recent theorizations of the postmodern. Key moments in that history include the concept’s appropriation by political activists in mid-nineteenth-century Russia, by Nietzsche in the 1880s, by the European avant-garde and ‘high’ modernists in the early decades of the twentieth century, by conservative revolutionaries in Germany in the interwar years, and by major theorists in the post-Holocaust period. Focusing in particular on the abiding impact of Nietzsche’s claim that art is the ‘only superior counterforce’ to nihilism, Weller argues that an understanding of modernism (and, indeed, of postmodernism) is impossible without a reflection upon the decisive role played by the concept of nihilism therein.

Jon Williamson (with Rolf Haenni, Jan-Willem Romeijn and Gregory Wheeler), Probabilistic Logic and Probabilistic Networks (Springer, 2010)
While in principle probabilistic logics might be applied to solve a range of problems, in practice they are rarely applied at present. This is perhaps because they seem disparate, complicated, and computationally intractable. However, we shall argue in this programmatic volume that several approaches to probabilistic logic fit into a simple unifying framework: logically complex evidence can be used to associate probability intervals or probabilities with sentences. Specifically, we show in Part I that there is a natural way to present a question posed in probabilistic logic, and that various inferential procedures provide semantics for that question: the standard probabilistic semantics (which takes probability functions as models), probabilistic argumentation (which considers the probability of a hypothesis being a logical consequence of the available evidence), evidential probability (which handles reference classes and frequency data), classical statistical inference (in particular the fiducial argument), Bayesian statistical inference (which ascribes probabilities to statistical hypotheses), and objective Bayesian epistemology (which determines appropriate degrees of belief on the basis of available evidence). Further, we argue, there is the potential to develop computationally feasible methods to mesh with this framework. In particular, we show in Part I how credal and Bayesian networks can naturally be applied as a calculus for probabilistic logic. The probabilistic network itself depends upon the chosen semantics, but once the network is constructed, common machinery can be applied to generate answers to the fundamental question introduced in Part I.

2010

Tom Angier, Techne in Aristotle's Ethics: Crafting the Moral Life (Continuum, 2010)
A new account of Aristotle’s Ethics, this book argues for the central importance of the concept of ‘techne’ or ‘craft’ in Aristotle’s moral theory. Exploring the importance of ‘techne’ in the Platonic and pre-Platonic intellectual context in which Aristotle was writing, Tom Angier here shows that this concept has an important role in Aristotle's Ethics that has rarely been studied in Anglo-American scholarship. Through close-analysis of the primary texts, this book uses the focus on ‘techne’ to systematically critique and renew Aristotelian moral philosophy. Techne in Aristotle’s ‘Ethics’ provides a novel and challenging approach to one of the Ancient World’s most enduring intellectual legacies.

Wissa Fiorucci, Anna Banti and the (Im)possibility of Love (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010)
"In a reading of three of Anna Banti's works, A Piercing Cry of 1981, Le donne muoiono (The Women are Dying) of 1951, and Je vous écris d un pays lointain (I Write to You from a Faraway Land) of 1971, Wissia Fiorucci sets out to examine Anna Banti's representations of her male and female characters and their capacity for relationships, through the lens of Banti's sometimes equivocal, and changing, relationship with the feminist movement (particularly in the Italian context). A Piercing Cry is analysed here in its autobiographical dimensions; and, in Fiorucci s view, the protagonist s recognition of herself as a woman writer encapsulates Banti's recognition of the significance of sexual difference. Here Fiorucci draws ably on Adriana Cavarero's theoretical writings on sexual difference to illustrate similarities between her thought and that of Banti. The analysis of The Women are Dying deals with otherness as a characteristic of both women and explores Banti's representation of otherness through the lens of the 1970 manifesto of Rivolta femminile to interesting effect. Love for, and connectedness to, the Other proves crucial in this reading. Finally, Fiorucci's incisive reading of Je vous écris shows how Banti problematises notions of equality, and its potentially terrifying annihilation of all differences. Again, connectedness and love for the Other are privileged here. Part and parcel of the exploration of difference, too, resides in Banti's very modern concern for identity and how that might be defined. Through an insightful and theoretically astute analysis of these works by Banti, Fiorucci invites us to consider her anew, and differently." -- Ursula Fanning, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies, School of Languages and Literatures, University College Dublin.

James Fowler, The Libertine's Nemesis: The Prude in Clarissa and the 'roman libertin' (Legenda, 2010)
What is the role of the prude in the roman libertin? James Fowler argues that in the most famous novels of the genre (by Richardson, Crébillon fils, Laclos and Sade) the prude is not the libertine's victim but an equal and opposite force working against him, and that ultimately she brings retribution for his social, erotic and philosophical presumption. In a word, she is his Nemesis. He is vulnerable to her power because of the ambivalence he feels towards her; she is his ideological enemy, but also his ideal object. Moreover, the libertine succumbs to an involuntary nostalgia for the values of the Seventeenth Century, which the prude continues to embody through the age of Enlightenment. In Crébillon fils and Richardson, the encounter between libertine and prude is played out as a skirmish or duel between two individuals. In Laclos and Sade, the presence of female libertines (the Marquise de Merteuil and Juliette) allows that encounter to be reenacted within a murderous triangle.

Robin Gill, New Challenges for Christians: From Test Tube Babies to Euthanasia (SPCK, 2010)
This is an accessible introduction to the public issues on which a Christian needs to take a view. Theologians are involved in a wide variety of public committees concerned with ethical issues arising from modern science, and are still holding their own against critics such as Richard Dawkins. It is important that a wide range of people are aware of how to be responsibly involved in these discussions, and to avoid the knee-jerk reactions of fundamentalists.

Simon Kirchin (co-ed.), A World without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory (Springer, 2010)
For centuries, certain moral philosophers have maintained that morality is an illusion, comparable to talking of ghosts or unicorns. These moral sceptics claim that the world simply does not contain the sort of properties (such as moral badness, moral obligation, etc.) necessary to render moral statements true. Even seemingly obvious moral claims, such as 'killing innocents is morally wrong', fail to be true. What would lead someone to adopt such a radical viewpoint? Are the arguments in its favour defensible or plausible? What impact would embracing such a view have on one's practical life? Taking as its point of departure the work of moral philoopher John Mackie (1917-1981), A World without Values is a collection of essays on moral scepticism by leading contemporary philosophers, some of whom are sympathetic to Mackie's views, some of whom are opposed. Rather than treating moral scepticism as something to dismiss as quickly as possible, this anthology is a comprehensive exploration of the topic, and as such will be a valuable resource for students of moral philosophy at all levels, as well as professionals in the field of metaethics. A World without Values presents state-of-the-art arguments that advance the ongoing philosophical debate on several fronts, and will enjoy an important place on any metaethicist's bookshelf for some years to come.

Ray Laurence (co-ed.), A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in Antiquity (Berg, 2010)
Childhood and families had a ubiquitous and central place in the ancient world, but one which is often hidden from us. Underlying our understanding of childhood and the family in Antiquity are the key thinkers and writers of the period. Their ideas on children, growing up, and the stages of life have shaped thinking on these subjects right up to the present day. Focusing on the cultures of the Mediterranean from 800 BCE to 800CE, A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in Antiquity covers the rise of democratic Athens, the Hellenistic World, and the evolution and transformation of the Roman Empire.

Ray Laurence, Reiseführer in die Welt der Antike. Das alte Rom: Rom und Umgebung im Jahre 300 n. Chr (Theiss, 2010)
Wir befinden uns im alten Rom. Diokletian und Maximian regieren das riesige Römische Reich. Erkunden Sie die Sehenswürdigkeiten in der größten Stadt der Welt. Ray Laurence nimmt den Leser mit auf eindrucksvolle Entdeckungstouren durch die Stadt am Tiber: das Besondere der verschiedenen Stadtquartiere entdecken, einen Blick hinter die Kulissen werfen, das Außergewöhnliche der antiken Metropole erkunden. Von Beginn an bekommt der Leser das Gefühl, selbst im Jahr 300 n. Chr. zu leben. Er findet sich im Alltag der Stadt wieder und erhält nützliche Tipps zu Anreise, Unterkunft, Küche oder Einkaufsmöglichkeiten. Auch Anregungen für Aktivitäten jeglicher Art fehlen in diesem Buch nicht: in einer der zahlreichen popinae, den Garküchen der Stadt, speisen oder Gladiatorenkämpfe besuchen. Einen Satz sollte man dabei immer parat haben, wenn man alleine unterwegs ist: Non rape me si placet! - Bitte berauben Sie mich nicht! Eine unterhaltsame Kulturgeschichte des alten Rom.

John Partridge, Interfaces in Languages (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010)
This volume resulted from the first "Interfaces in Language" conference held at the University of Kent as a result of the need perceived for the orthodox distinctions made between the various perceived divisions in language study, e.g. syntax vs. semantics vs. pragmatics vs. phonology vs. morphology, to be expanded into a wider concept of linguistic interfaces, for example language and music, language and politics, languages in mutual contact, languages in mutual conflict, language and literature. Potential contributors at the conference were encouraged to define and explore the particular interfaces which interested them, to see where there was common ground, where distinctions were to be made and where grey areas invite further investigation. The results were startling: contributors responded from America, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Poland, Spain and Switzerland as well as the UK, with themes ultimately grouped under three headings which have been roughly retained in this volume. Many of the wide range of resultant perspectives are represented here, as well as those treated by colleagues prevented at the last moment from attending the conference. Categories and Orthodoxies addresses some of the most traditional interfaces, whilst Contact and Conflict examines clashes and coalescences between languages; languages and politics; and, the mutual interaction of variants of a language and the imposition or choice of a non-native language over its native counterparts, and Language and Cognition sees language behaviour as partly at least influenced by factors other than those formally identified as strictly linguistic.

William Rowlandson (ed.), Biografía de un Cimarrón (Manchester University Press, 2010)
Biografía de un Cimarrón (Biography of a Runaway Slave) is arguably the best-known book to have been written and published in revolutionary Cuba, being the testimonial narrative of Esteban Montejo, a former slave, runaway, and soldier in the Cuban wars of independence. The text is the collaboration between ethnographer Miguel Barnet and Montejo, the result of three years of tape-recorded interviews, transcribed, edited and annotated by Barnet. Montejo provides a first-hand account of slavery in nineteenth-century Cuba - the language, religion, music, and customs - and describes life in the sugar plantations and mills and as a runaway slave. Montejo's text also covers key historical moments, from slavery to Abolition, the Ten Years War, the Spanish American War, and US intervention in the new republic. Reflecting the growing interest in Latin American Studies and Cuban Studies at A-Level and university, and also the intense recent interest in the Slave Trade following the bicentenary of Abolition, this annotated edition includes the complete text in Spanish (with the author's final revisions, notes and glossary), additional notes in English, a time-line of Cuban history, and a selection of temas de debate y discusion. The extensive introductory chapters focus on three main areas: an overview of Cuban history featuring slavery, wars of independence and the new republic, as relevant to Montejo's life; an overview of the genre of the testimonial narrative as it emerged as an important literary style in revolutionary Cuba; and an analysis of the relationship between the Cuban Revolution and the text and publication of Biografía de un Cimarrón. The introduction is followed by an extensive bibliography, addressing the numerous publications concerning Cimarrón.

Elizabeth Schächter, The Jews of Italy, 1848-1915: Between Tradition and Transformation (Vallentine Mitchell, 2010)
Drawing on contemporary Jewish journals, memoirs, autobiographies, oral testimony, private correspondence and archival material, Elizabeth Schächter challenges the widely held view that the integration of the Jews in Italy from the second emancipation (1848) to the First World War was an unqualified success and thus an anomaly in European Jewish history. Schächter examines the pivotal role of the Roman Catholic Church in disseminating anti-semitism through its publications; Catholic antipathy towards the Jews fed into and was nourished by political anti-semitism within the Liberal party and became integral to the Italian Nationalists’ ideology. The Racial Laws of 1938 in Italy were not a break with the past, as many have argued, but a continuation of a tradition of discrimination arising from the consequences of emancipation. The book explores the issues that the Jews of Italy considered to be the principal areas of concern: the tensions and pressures of acceptance in the host society, ‘the anguish of assimilation’; the complex relationship between Jewish identity and nascent national identity; the erosion of the traditional bonds that bound the individual Jew to his community; the abandonment of religious practices, leading, in some cases, to mixed marriages and conversion.

Jon Williamson, In Defence of Objective Bayesianism (Oxford University Press, 2010)
How strongly should you believe the various propositions that you can express? That is the key question facing Bayesian epistemology. Subjective Bayesians hold that it is largely (though not entirely) up to the agent as to which degrees of belief to adopt. Objective Bayesians, on the other hand, maintain that appropriate degrees of belief are largely (though not entirely) determined by the agent's evidence. This book states and defends a version of objective Bayesian epistemology. According to this version, objective Bayesianism is characterized by three norms: probability - degrees of belief should be probabilities; calibration - they should be calibrated with evidence; equivocation - they should otherwise equivocate between basic outcomes. Objective Bayesianism has been challenged on a number of different fronts. For example, some claim it is poorly motivated, or fails to handle qualitative evidence, or yields counter-intuitive degrees of belief after updating, or suffers from a failure to learn from experience. It has also been accused of being computationally intractable, susceptible to paradox, language dependent, and of not being objective enough. Especially suitable for graduates or researchers in philosophy of science, foundations of statistics and artificial intelligence, the book argues that these criticisms can be met and that objective Bayesianism is a promising theory with an exciting agenda for further research.

Jon Williamson and Federica Russo (eds), Key Terms in Logic (Continuum, 2010)
Key Terms in Logic offers the ideal introduction to this core area in the study of philosophy, providing detailed summaries of the important concepts in the study of logic and the application of logic to the rest of philosophy. A brief introduction provides context and background, while the following chapters offer detailed definitions of key terms and concepts, introductions to the work of key thinkers and lists of key texts. Designed specifically to meet the needs of students and assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, this is the ideal reference tool for those coming to Logic for the first time.

 

2009

Lorenzo Chiesa (co-ed.), The Italian Difference: Between Nihilism and Biopolitics (Prahran, Victoria: re.press, 2009)
This volume brings together essays by different generations of Italian thinkers which address, whether in affirmative, problematizing or genealogical registers, the entanglement of philosophical speculation and political proposition within recent Italian thought. Nihilism and biopolitics, two concepts that have played a very prominent role in theoretical discussions in Italy, serve as the thematic foci around which the collection orbits, as it seeks to define the historical and geographical particularity of these notions as well their continuing impact on an international debate. The volume also covers the debate around ‘weak thought’ (pensiero debole), the feminist thinking of sexual difference, the re-emergence of political anthropology and the question of communism. The contributors provide contrasting narratives of the development of post-war Italian thought and trace paths out of the theoretical and political impasses of the present - against what Negri, in the text from which the volume takes its name, calls ‘the Italian desert’.

Christopher Deacy (co-ed.), Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age (Ashgate, 2009)
In recent years, there has been growing awareness across a range of academic disciplines of the value of exploring issues of religion and the sacred in relation to cultures of everyday life. This book offers interdisciplinary perspectives drawing from theology, religious studies, media studies, cultural studies, film studies, sociology and anthropology. Combining theoretical frameworks for the analysis of religion, media and popular culture, with focused international case studies of particular texts, practices, communities and audiences, the authors examine topics such as media rituals, marketing strategies, empirical investigations of audience testimony, and the influence of religion on music, reality television and the internet. Both academically rigorous and of interest to a wider readership, this book offers a wide range of fascinating explorations at the cutting edge of many contemporary debates in sociology, religion and media, including chapters on the way evangelical groups in America have made use of The Da Vinci Code and on the influences of religion on British club culture and electronic dance music.

Ben Hutchinson, W. G. Sebald. Die dialektische Imagination (de Gruyter, 2009)
W. G. Sebald is one of the major European writers of the end of the twentieth century, yet his style remains remarkably under-researched. This book, the first full-length study to use the annotations in Sebald's private library (held in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach), constructs an interpretation of his prose style as fundamentally dialectical. Alongside his readings of writers such as Benjamin, Bernhard, Bassani, and Lévi-Strauss, it uses in particular the annotations in Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Dialektik der Aufklärung to help develop a close reading of Sebald’s syntax and narrative structures. The key concern of Sebald’s prose emerges not as the Holocaust, but rather as the dialectical processes of 'progress' and 'regression' inherent in history.

Arthur Keaveney, Lucullus: A Life, second edition (Gorgias Press, 2009)
In antiquity Lucullus was indisputably acounted a great general, one to be numbered with Sulla and Pompey. This book narrates in detail the great Asiatic campaigns upon which his military reputation rests. But there is a darker side. Another ancient tradition suggests that when the wars were done he became a fatty degenerate, a miserable trifler devoting his time to banquets, baths and follies. Keaveney explodes this myth, arguing that Lucullus' leisure activities were the outward expression of an aesthetic impulse, not simply weak self indulgence. It is demonstrated, too, that Lucullus was active and influential in public life to the end of his days. Sulla, one of the republic's great figures, was a seminal influence on the life and politcal outlook of Lucullus. Lucullus and his friends aimed to carry the Sullan political ideal and constitutional arrangements into the next generation. This book details Lucullus' fight to do this, and shows how and why he ultimately failed. It is suggested that he may be viewed as a paradigm of the age in which he lived. Inheritor of the Sullan ideal, his failure is also its failure - in one man is embodied a whole class and its melancholy fate.

Arthur Keaveney (co-ed.), Sir William Herbert, Ad Campianum Iesuitam eiusque Rationes Decem Responsio (Georg Olms Verlag, 2009)
In 1581 on a mission to convert England, the Jesuit Thomas Campion published his Rationes Decem. In this pamphlet he set forth his belief that the Roman Catholic Church was the one true church and challenged Reformers to a debate. Unfortunately England at the time felt threatened by invasion and by the Counter-Reformation. Campion’s act was construed as treason. He was arrested, tortured, tried and executed at Tyburn. Not all reaction was so brutal, however, and a number of Protestant divines made measured replies. The first of these replies came from Sir William Herbert, a Welsh landowner with a taste for political and religious controversy. Herbert’s Responsio was never published. In this editio princeps the text has been edited from the manuscript and equipped with a full introduction, translation and commentary. It will be of interest to Tudor historians, students of religious controversy and neo-Latin scholars.

Arthur Keaveney (co-ed. with Louise Earnshaw-Brown), The Italians on the Land: Changing Perspectives on Republican Italy Then and Now (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009)
In recent years, there has been a quickening of interest in the condition of Italy and the state of those who lived there during the Roman republic. The diverse nature of the evidence, both historical and archaeological, has stimulated scholarly debate. New techniques and ideas are being brought to bear on old questions with interesting results. The papers in this volume, by both historians and archaeologists, are a contribution to the debate. They look at Italy and Rome from an Italian as well as from a Roman perspective. Dogmatism has been avoided in order to present different viewpoints and individual perspectives. Out of such diversity there eventually comes progress in understanding. A wide range of topics will be found scrutinised and discussed here. Issues covered include villas, the ager publicus and agriculture, Italian participation in Roman politics, Roman agricultural writers and some of the methodological problems our evidence poses.

Kim Knowles, A Cinematic Artist: The Films of Man Ray (Peter Lang, 2009)
The American artist Man Ray was one of the most influential figures of the historical avant-garde, contributing significantly to the development of both Dadaism and Surrealism. Whilst his pioneering work in photography assured him international acclaim, his activity in other areas, notably film, is to this day both unknown and undervalued. During the 1920s Man Ray made four short experimental films and collaborated on a host of other projects with people such as Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, René Clair and Hans Richter. These works, along with a series of cinematic essays and home movies made during the 1920s and 1930s, represent the most important contribution to the development of an alternative mode of filmmaking in the early twentieth century. This book explores Man Ray's cinematic interactions from the perspective of his interdisciplinary artistic sensibility, creating links between film, photography, painting, poetry, music, architecture, dance and sculpture. By exposing his preoccupation with form, and his ambiguous relationship with the politics and aesthetics of the Dada and Surrealist movements, the author paints an intimate and complex portrait of Man Ray the filmmaker.

Ray Laurence, Roman Passions: A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome (Continuum, 2009)
By the first century AD, Rome ruled an empire that stretched from Morocco in the West to Iraq in the East, and from Britain in the North to Egypt in the South. Within this territory was the Mediterranean, a ‘liquid continent’ that facilitated trade and exchange across it, and into which flowed a treasure trove of goods from far flung lands, including slaves, spices, precious stones, and colored marble, not to mention an exotic array of foods and wine. By the time of the emperors, the Romans had created the world’s first global empire, and had plundered the provinces for produce to be eaten, planted, or displayed as novelties. At the same time, the aesthetic of the city of Rome was being transferred to the provinces, establishing towns with public buildings, baths, and the Latin language. With these attributes of civilization came other trappings of roman culture: lavish entertainments, elaborate dinner parties, and vice. The world of pleasure became a defining feature of the roman world, and this book explores how they pursued sensual delights – from steamy bathhouses to stately country villas; the excesses of the festivals to the rich culture of music, dance and song; and the practice of sex, both unrestrained and puritanical.

Paul March-Russell, The Short Story: An Introduction (Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
This new general introduction emphasizes the importance of the short story to an understanding of modern fiction. In twenty succinct chapters, the study paints a complete portrait of the short story - its history, culture, aesthetics and economics. European innovators such as Chekhov, Flaubert and Kafka are compared to Irish, New Zealand and British practitioners such as Joyce, Mansfield and Carter as well as writers in the American tradition, from Hawthorne and Poe to Barthelme and Carver. Fresh attention is paid to experimental, postcolonial and popular fiction alongside developments in Anglo-American, Hispanic, and European literature. Critical approaches to the short story are debated and reassessed, while discussion of the short story is related to contemporary critical theory. In what promises to be essential reading for students and academics, the study sets out to prove that the short story remains vital to the emerging culture of the twenty-first century.

Todd Mei, Heidegger, Work, and Being (Continuum, 2009)
This title provides a novel interpretation of the Aristotelian understanding of work in light of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. In a world of changing work patterns and the global displacement of working lifestyles, the nature of human identity and work is put under great strain. Modern conceptions of work have been restricted to issues of utility and necessity, where aims and purposes of work are reducible to the satisfaction of immediate technical and economic needs. Left unaddressed is the larger narrative context in which humans naturally seek to understand a human contribution to and responsibility for themselves, others and being as a whole. What role does human work play in the development of the world itself? Is it merely a functional activity or does it have a metaphysical and ontological calling? Heidegger, Work, and Being elucidates Heidegger's philosophy of work, providing a novel interpretation of the Aristotelian understanding of work in relation to Heidegger's ontology and notion of thanking. Mei employs Heidegger's hermeneutical approach to a critique and reconstruction of an understanding of work to show that work, at its core, is an activity centred on thanking and mutual recognition.

Peter Read (co-ed.), Guillaume Apollinaire: Correspondance avec les artistes 1903-1918 (Gallimard, 2009)
Ces lettres, en majorité inédites, forment la correspondance entre Guillaume Apollinaire et les artistes de son temps : peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, affichistes, décorateurs, illustrateurs... Français et étrangers, ils sont plus d'une centaine à entretenir des relations professionnelles ou personnelles avec le poète d'Alcools et de Calligrammes, dont la critique d'art révèle un goût sûr aux convictions vigoureuses. Les échanges avec Chagall et Gontcharova sont pleins d'estime et d'admiration. Avec André Derain, le Douanier Rousseau, Max Jacob ou Giorgio de Chirico, le travail et l'amitié s'unissent dans un même élan créateur. Entre Apollinaire et Marie Laurencin, la peinture et la poésie épousent l'amour et les regrets. Quand la Grande Guerre disperse les milieux artistiques, les lettres soutiennent Braque, en péril dans les tranchées, et Kisling, évacué après sa blessure dans un corps à-corps. Cette correspondance éclaire l'itinéraire et la personnalité des artistes les plus illustres, inventeurs de l'art moderne, sans négliger tous ceux qui, aujourd'hui oubliés ou méconnus, ont animé l'univers des ateliers, des galeries et des salons. Elle nous mène à travers l'Europe de la Belle Epoque, creuset du cubisme et de l'abstraction. Elle nous conduit dans un monde déchiré par la guerre, où chacun tente de protéger son art dans les nécessités de l'heure. Elle nous plonge dans l'art vivant du début du XXe siècle.

Peter Read (co-ed.), Giacometti: Critical Essays (Ashgate, 2009)
Giacometti: Critical Essays brings together new studies by an international team of scholars who together explore the whole span of Alberto Giacometti's work and career from the 1920s to the 1960s. During this complex period in France's intellectual history, Giacometti's work underwent a series of remarkable stylistic shifts while he forged close affiliations with an equally remarkable set of contemporary writers and thinkers. This book throws new light on under-researched aspects of his output and approach, including his relationship to his own studio, his work in the decorative arts, his tomb sculptures and his use of the pedestal. It also focuses on crucial ways his work was received and articulated by contemporary and later writers, including Michel Leiris, Francis Ponge, Isaku Yanaihara and Tahar Ben Jelloun. This book thus engages with energising tensions and debates that informed Giacometti's work, including his association with both surrealism and existentialism, his production of both 'high' art and decorative objects, and his concern with both formal issues, such as scale and material, and with the expression of philosophical and poetic ideas. This multifaceted collection of essays confirms Giacometti's status as one of the most fascinating artists of the twentieth century.

Sean Sayers, Marxism and Human Nature, Turkish edition, trans. Şükrü Aşpagut (Yordam Kitap, 2009)
This book explains and defends the theory that human nature is a historical phenomenon. This approach is often said to lead to forms of scepticism and relativism which are fatal to morality. It need not do so. Drawing on the work of Marx and Hegel, this book presents a historical account of human needs and powers which provides the basis for a distinctive historical form of Marxist humanism. It argues that human beings are not mere passive individual consumers, they are active, social and productive beings. Work plays an essential role in human life and contributes centrally to human fulfilment. The moral and social implications of these ideas are explored in the context of current work by both analytic and continental thinkers. (Distinguished Book Award, American Sociological Association, 2000)

Jeremy Scott, The Demotic Voice in Contemporary British Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Contemporary British fiction often features demotic narrative voices taken from ‘everyday’ contexts, using regional or national dialects. This writing aims in part to narrow the gap between the agencies of author and character so that both speak on the same plane, and engages with significant issues of regional, national and cultural identity in modern Britain. This book focuses on the works of James Kelman, Alan Warner, Graham Swift, Will Self, Martin Amis, Niall Griffiths and Anne Donovan (amongst others) and tries to assess the extent to which their narrative techniques succeed or fail – for example, modes of notation for regional and national dialects, and ways of representing ‘internal’ voices as opposed to spoken ones. An essential underlying question is whether a character’s voice can ever be represented ‘uncontaminated’ by the author. Can the character be set free from its creator? The book draws upon the disciplines of stylistics and narratology for its theoretical apparatus, but the topic is also approached from a practical angle; in other words, from the point of view of issues which inform and affect the ‘hands on’ work of crafting narrative fiction. Another ambition is to bridge the wide (and unnecessary?) gap between the theory and practice of writing fiction.

Axel Stähler, Literarische Konstruktionen jüdischer Postkolonialität. Das britische Palästinamandat in der anglophonen jüdischen Literatur (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2009)
This study enquires for the first time into the significance of the British Mandate for Palestine as a liminal period in literary constructions of Jewish postcoloniality and draws attention to an as yet largely ignored dimension of the ‘Jewish imaginary’. Combining approaches and methods of literary, cultural, and comparative studies, it demonstrates that, against the background of the dichotomy of Diaspora and Israel, the historical movement of Zionism and the post-Zionism debates, the Mandate is turned into a metonymy for Jewish postcoloniality in some recent Anglophone Jewish fiction. Returning to German-Jewish pre-texts from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it reads these texts in relation to the emergence of a postcolonial Jewish imaginary whose shifting contours develop from the interaction with different production and reception contexts in the Anglophone diaspora. It understands in particular those texts by British Jewish writers which engage with the Palestine Mandate as participating in the formation of a counter-literature which is determined by the ambivalence of Jewish existence between anticolonialism and colonialism and which enters into a creative dialogue with postcolonial patterns of interpretation.

Axel Stähler (co-ed. with Klaus Stierstorfer), Writing Fundamentalism (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009)
Based on a number of theoretical frameworks and debates, the essays gathered in this volume open up a historical perspective which engages critically with received notions of fundamentalism. By exploring literary representations of fundamentalisms and the function of literature in fundamentalism, they enquire into the underlying generic differences and incompatibilities as well as - perhaps more unexpected - the similarities and affinities between fundamentalism and literature. Concepts of fundamentalism as a response to exclusively modernist tendencies since the beginning of the twentieth century are challenged in this volume, and several contributors explore the rise of fundamentalisms at various points in history characterized by the crisis experience of cultural change. While taking this conceptual base as a point of departure, the articles collected here then spread out on a plurality of theoretical frameworks.

Ellen Swift, Style and Function in Roman Decoration: Living with Objects and Interiors (Ashgate, 2009)
This book puts forward a new interpretation of Roman decorative art, focusing on the function of decoration in the social context. It examines the three principal areas of social display and conspicuous consumption in the Roman world: social space, entertainment, and dress, and discusses the significance of the decoration of objects and interiors within these contexts, drawing examples from both Rome and its environs, and the Western provinces, from the early Imperial period to Late Antiquity. Focusing on specific examples, including mosaics and other interior décor, silver plate, glass and pottery vessels, and jewellery and other dress accessories, Swift demonstrates the importance of decoration in creating and maintaining social networks and identities and fostering appropriate social behaviour, and its role in perpetuating social convention and social norms. It is argued that our understanding of stylistic change and the relationship between this and the wider social context in the art of the Roman period is greatly enhanced by an initial focus on the particular social relationships fostered by decorated objects and spaces. The book demonstrates that an examination of so-called 'minor art' is fundamental in any understanding of the relationship between art and its social context, and aims to reinvigorate debate on the value of decoration and ornament in the Roman period and beyond.

 

Shane Weller (ed.), Samuel Beckett, Molloy (London: Faber & Faber, 2009)
Molloy (1951) is Samuel Beckett's best-known novel, and his first published work to be written in French, ushering in a period of concentrated creativity in the late 1940s which included the companion novels Malone Dies (1951) and The Unnamable (1953). The narrative of Molloy, old and ill, remembering and forgetting, scarcely human, begets a parallel tale of the spinsterish Moran, a private detective sent in search of him, whose own deterioration during the quest joins in with the catalogue of Molloy's woes. Molloy brings a world into existence with finicking certainties, at the tip of whoever is holding the pencil, and trades larger uncertainties with the reader. This new edition includes a corrected text, a preface, a table of dates, and an appendix containing earlier published versions of parts of Part I of the novel.

2008

Jeremy Carrette (co-ed.), Violence to Eternity by Grace M. Jantzen (Routledge, 2008)
In this volume Grace M. Jantzen continues her groundbreaking analysis of death and beauty in Western thought by examining the religious roots of death and violence in the Jewish and Christian tradition, which underlie contemporary values. She shows how man's fear of the female is often implicated in religious violence and in her critique of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament. She examines a range of themes that show the Western preoccupation with necrophilia. She examines the relation of death to the Jewish covenant, the nature of monotheism, Holy War and the Christian covenant and kingdom. However, Jantzen recognizes that submerged beneath these themes in Judaism and Christianity are traces of an alternative world of beauty and life. Jantzen's internationally recognized feminist philosophy of religion puts forward a powerful analysis of patriarchy and violence and reveals the hidden power of nationality. Her work is a searching challenge for our times and one that gives hope in a violent world.

Laurence Goldstein, Andrew Brennan, Max Deutsch, and Joe Y. F. Lau, Lógica: Conceptos clave en Filosofía, Portuguese translation by Guillermo Quintás (PUV, 2008)
(Almost) everybody agrees that it is a good thing to think logically and to reason well. But what is logical thinking? What distinguishes good reasoning from bad? This book answers those questions. It provides both an introduction to logical techniques and an investigation into interesting questions that arise when thinking about logic itself. The aim of the authors has been to discuss these issues in a straightforward and (with luck) entertaining way. A happy and discerning reviewer wrote: 'The best understanding of writing textbooks is shown by the four joint authors of Logic. They meet their readers on the readers’ own ground, proceed at a manageable pace (but without becoming boring), and lace their expositions with a disarming sense of humour. Logic is a brain-stretching topic for most of us, once the basics are dealt with, and fierce concentration is needed to follow the more advanced sections of the book; but the authorial quattuorvirate keep us on their side by the consideration they display towards us. Admittedly, theirs is a subject particularly suited to textbook treatment, and this may have helped them come out on top.'

Ben Hutchinson (ed.), Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘The Book of Hours’: A New Translation with Commentary, trans. Susan Ranson (Camden House, 2008)
Rainer Maria Rilke is arguably the most important modern German-language poet. His New Poems, Duino Elegies, and Sonnets to Orpheus are pillars of twentieth-century poetry. Yet his earlier verse is less known. The Book of Hours, written in three bursts between 1899 and 1903, is Rilke’s most formative work, covering a crucial period in his rapid ascent from fin-de-siècle epigone to distinctive modern voice. The poems document Rilke’s tour of Russia with Lou Andreas-Salomé, his hasty marriage and fathering of a child in Worpswede, and his turn towards the urban modernity of Paris. He assumes the persona of an artist-monk undertaking the Romantics’ journey into the self, speaking to God as part transcendent deity, part needy neighbour. The poems can be read simply for their luminous lyricism, captured in Susan Ranson’s new translation, which reproduces the music of the original German with impressive fluidity. An in-depth introduction explains the context of the work and elucidates its major themes, while the poem-by-poem commentary is helpful to the student and the general reader. A translator’s note treating the technical problems of rhythm, meter, and rhyme that the translator of Rilke faces completes the volume.

Csaba A. La’da, Greek Documentary Papyri from Ptolemaic Egypt: Corpus Papyrorum Raineri, Band XXVIII (de Gruyter, 2008)
This volume contains an edition of 14 hitherto unpublished papyrus documentsin Greek fromPtolemaic Egypt. The texts were written in the last three centuries BC and probably originate from Middle Egypt. Many appear to have been recovered from papyrus cartonnage. The papyri include a wide variety of documents, such as a royal ordinance, a petition, two tax lists, a tax receipt, several accounts, official correspondence and a private letter. They provide valuable new information on the settlement pattern, transport system, economy, fiscal organization, bureaucracy, prosopography, onomastics and law of Ptolemaic Egypt and thus afford us a unique insight into the social, economic, administrative and cultural history of this Hellenistic kingdom. This volume will be of interest not only to Greek papyrologists but also to ancient historians and Egyptologists.

Ray Laurence, Traveller's Guide to the Ancient World: Rome: Everything You Need to Know to Do as the Romans Do (David & Charles, 2008)
Discover what it would be like to travel back in time and explore the ancient world with this new history series, written in the style of contemporary travel guides. This guide is packed with all the maps, illustrations and fascinating insights that a tourist or traveller would expect from a guidebook. Each carefully researched guide paints a vivid picture of the past allowing you to experience ancient wonders when they were new and get to know the people who used them. The first title in this exciting series is a detailed guide to ancient Rome and its environs, listing everything from visiting the public baths to where to eat.

Luke Lavan (co-ed.), Technology in Transition A.D. 300–650 (Brill, 2008)
This book is the first general work to be published on technology in Late Antiquity. It seeks to survey aspects of the technology of the period and to respond to questions about technological continuity, stagnation and decline. The book opens with a comprehensive bibliographic essay that provides an overview of relevant literature. The main section then explores technologies in agriculture, production (metal, ceramics and glass), engineering and building. Papers draw on both archaeological and textual sources, and on analogies with medieval and early modern technologies. Reference is made not only to the periods which preceded it, but also to the transition to the Early Middle Ages and to the technological heritage of Late Antiquity to the Islamic world. Several papers focus on Italy, while others consider North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Near-East.

Peter Read, Picasso and Apollinaire: The Persistence of Memory (University of California Press, 2008)
Pablo Picasso, the inventor of Cubism, and Guillaume Apollinaire, the inventor of Surrealism, met in 1905, forged a close friendship, and between them laid the foundations of modernism in twentieth-century art and literature. Apollinaire’s death in the 1918 flu epidemic did not diminish his importance to Picasso, who continued to draw on the poet for inspiration until his own death in 1973. Picasso and Apollinaire is a lively and impeccably researched examination of the creative interaction and fraternal complicity between the artist and the poet, as reflected in such works as Picasso’s polymorphous portraits of Apollinaire, his 1907 drawings for Apollinaire’s Bestiary poems, and the self-portrait he drew on the night the poet died. Peter Read delves into unpublished archive documents to show that many of Picasso’s subsequent drawings, paintings, and sculptures were shaped by his response to the poet’s most lyrical and uninhibited writing. Along with an authoritative discussion of Apollinaire’s best poetry, prose, and critical writing, the book opens unexpected pathways through Picasso’s career – his early exhibitions in Paris, the fierce iron reliquary Woman in a Garden, his commemorative, semi-abstract painting The Kitchen, his monument to Apollinaire in Saint-Germain-des-Prés – and throws new light on the cultural and political context in which these works were produced.

Peter Read and Claude Debon, Les Dessins de Guillaume Apollinaire (Buchet-Chastel, 2008)
This large-format volume presents colour reproductions of hundreds of previously unpublished drawings and paintings by Guillaume Apollinaire, located by Peter Read and Claude Debon in French archives and private collections. The earliest surviving works show the poet as a young teenager already seeking to combine words and images in complex compositions that prefigure his later 'calligrammes'. Many other drawings appear on the backs and margins of manuscripts, decorating them with Arthurian, erotic, domestic, macabre and comical scenes, as the pen slips freely back and forth between writing and drawing, moving to fill all available space. Scores of such illustrated pages from the poet’s files and notebooks are here reproduced for the first time. Here also are Apollinaire’s carefully constructed proofs and maquettes for Le Bestiaire ou cortège d’Orphée (1911) and Calligrammes (1918): the interplay of printed and manuscript poems, drawings and layered collages, makes these precious documents into unique, autonomous, hybrid works of art. Other drawings in letters and manuscripts provide a graphic, first-hand record of front-line existence during the Great War, while the watercolour and gouache paintings Apollinaire made after being wounded in the trenches set out to counter the reign of Thanatos with brightly coloured, uninhibited, life-affirming and proto-surrealist energy. The illustrations are accompanied by extensive introductory essays, notes and annotations in which Claude Debon and Peter Read relate Apollinaire’s drawings and paintings to his poetry and prose and set them in the context of his voracious visual appetite and his passion for medieval manuscripts and woodcuts, tribal art, children’s art, posters, book and newspaper illustrations, Russian neo-primitivism, cubism and abstract painting. Reviews in Paris-Match and GA Dessins Figarolittéraire

Sean Sayers, Marxism and Human Nature, Chinese edition, trans. Feng Yanli (Oriental Press, 2008)
This book explains and defends the theory that human nature is a historical phenomenon. This approach is often said to lead to forms of scepticism and relativism which are fatal to morality. It need not do so. Drawing on the work of Marx and Hegel, this book presents a historical account of human needs and powers which provides the basis for a distinctive historical form of Marxist humanism. It argues that human beings are not mere passive individual consumers, they are active, social and productive beings. Work plays an essential role in human life and contributes centrally to human fulfilment. The moral and social implications of these ideas are explored in the context of current work by both analytic and continental thinkers. (Distinguished Book Award, American Sociological Association, 2000)

Sean Sayers, Plato's Republic: An Introduction, Korean edition, trans. Johann Kim (Seo-Kwang-Sa Publishers, 2008)
This book provides a clear, concise and highly readable introduction to the main themes of Plato's Republic. It covers Plato's social and political thought, his moral philosophy, his epistemology and metaphysics, and his philosophy of art and literature. Plato's theories in all these areas are presented in clear and straightforward terms. They are located in the context of the views of subsequent philosophers and critically assessed in the light of current debates. The contemporary significance of Plato's ideas is emphasised throughout. Written in a lucid and lively style, this book succeeds in making a wide range of fundamental philosophical ideas widely accessible. It provides an ideal introduction to the Republic for students taking courses in philosophy, political and social thought, classical studies, literary theory, religious studies, etc., as well as for the general reader.

Shane Weller, Literature, Philosophy, Nihilism: The Uncanniest of Guests (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
Since Nietzsche’s appropriation of the term in his later work, the concept of nihilism hasplayed a decisive role in the thinking of both modernity and postmodernity. This book charts the deployment of that concept by some of the most influential philosophers and literary theorists of the modern period, including Heidegger, Adorno, Blanchot, Derrida, Agamben, Vattimo, and Badiou. Focusing in particular on the ways in which each of these deployments involves both a countering redetermination of nihilism and a privileging of a certain concept of the literary for what is taken to be its power of resistance to it, this book proposes neither a critique nor a revalorization of nihilism; rather, it explores through an historical, conceptual, and philological anaysis the various ways in which nihilism, as what Nietzsche terms the ‘uncanniest of all guests’, returns to haunt the thought of those who would counter it.