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The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han
Category: Philosophy
Narratives produce the ties that bind us. They create community, eliminate contingency and anchor us in being. And yet in our contemporary information society, where everything has become arbitrary and random, storytelling shouts out loudly but narratives no longer have their binding force. Wher ...Show more
The Disappearance of Rituals - A Topology of the Present by Byung-Chul Han; Daniel Steuer (Translator)
Category: social issues
Untrammelled neoliberalism and the inexorable force of production have produced a 21st century crisis of community: a narcissistic cult of authenticity and mass turning-inward are among the pathologies engendered by it. We are individuals afloat in an atomised society, where the loss of the symbolic str ...Show more
The Expulsion of the Other - Society, Perception and Communication Today by Byung-Chul Han; Wieland Hoban (Translator)
Category: Philosophy and Religion
The days of the Other are over in this age of excessive communication, information and consumption. What used to be the Other, be it as friend, as Eros or as hell, is now indistinguishable from the self in our narcissistic desire to assimilate everything and everyone until there are no boundaries left. ...Show more
The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism by Byung-Chul Han; Daniel Steuer (Translator)
Category: Education
Zen Buddhism is a form of Mah y na Buddhism that originated in China and is strongly focused on meditation. It is characteristically sceptical towards language and distrustful of conceptual thought, which explains why Zen Buddhist sayings are so enigmatic and succinct. But despite Zen Buddhism's hosti ...Show more
The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering by Byung-Chul Han
Category: Philosophy and Religion
In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time. Our attachment to the vita activa creates an imperative to work which degrades the human being into a ...Show more
Topology of Violence by Byung-Chul Han; Amanda DeMarco (Translator)
Category: Reference | Series: Untimely Meditations Ser.
One of today's most widely read philosophers considers the shift in violence from visible to invisible, from negativity to excess of positivity.Some things never disappear--violence, for example. Violence is ubiquitous and incessant but protean, varying its outward form according to the social constella ...Show more
Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity by Byung-Chul Han
Category: Philosophy
In our busy and hurried lives, we are losing the ability to be inactive. Human existence becomes fully absorbed by activity - even leisure, treated as a respite from work, becomes part of the same logic. Intense life today means first of all more performance or more consumption. We have forgotten that ...Show more
What Is Power? by Byung-Chul Han
Category: Reference
Power is a pervasive phenomenon yet there is little consensus on what it is and how it should be understood. In this book the cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han develops a fresh and original perspective on the nature of power, shedding new light on this key feature of social and political life.Power is co ...Show more