A Philosophy of Autobiography Body & Text This book offers intimate readings of a diverse range of global autobiographical literature with an emphasis on the (re)presentation of the physical body. The twelve texts presented here include philosophical autobiography (Nietzsche), autobiographies of self-experimentation (Gandhi and Mishima), literary autobiography (Hemingway, Das) as well as other genres of autobiography, including the graphic novel (Spiegelman, Satrapi), as also documentations of tragedy and injustice and subsequent spiritual overcoming (Ambedkar, Pawar, Angelou, Wiesel). A Philosophy of Autobiography delves into how the authors deal with the flesh through their autobiographical writing and in what way they embody the essential relationship between flesh, spirit and word. The book analyses Ecce Homo, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Waiting for a Visa, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, A Moveable Feast, Night, Baluta, My Story, Sun and Steel, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, MAUS and Persepolis. More here |
Plato’s Labyrinth Sophistries, Lies and Conspiracies in Socratic Dialogues This original and stimulating study of Plato's Socratic dialogues rereads and reinterprets Plato's writings in terms of their dialogical or dramatic form. Taking inspiration from the techniques of Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, and Leo Strauss, Aakash Singh Rathore presents the Socratic dialogues as labyrinthine texts replete with sophistries and lies that mask behind them important philosophical and political conspiracies. Plato's Labyrinth argues that these conspiracies and intrigues are of manifold kinds – in some, Plato is masterminding the conspiracy; in others, Socrates, or the Sophists, are the victims of the conspiracies. With supplementary forays ('intermissions') into the world of Xenophon and the Sophists, the complex and evolving series of overlapping arguments that the book lays out unfold within an edgy and dramatic narrative. Presenting innovative readings of major texts – Plato's Parmenides, Republic, Symposium and Meno as also Homer's Odyssey – this work is an ambitious attempt to synthesize philological, political, historical and philosophical research into a classical text-centred study that is at once of urgent contemporary relevance. More here |
Hegel’s India A Reinterpretation, with Texts ‘Hegel’s India takes the challenge of a detailed reading of Hegel’s texts with a surprising result: behind Hegel’s dismissal of India, there lies not only his profound fascination with India but also an uncanny proximity between India’s ancient wisdom and Hegel’s speculative thought.’ — Slavoj Žižek International Director, the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, United Kingdom More here and here |
Plato's Labyrinth‘Just as some mysterious force compels the author of Plato's Labyrinth to train for triathlons in the crowded and dangerous labyrinths of New Delhi, so too does this same force compel him, as one of India’s foremost political theorists, to guide his readers through the labyrinths of Plato’s dialogues. What purpose do these two pursuits share? Aakash Singh Rathore refers to the conspiracy in universities that prevents students from understanding fully the radical and erotic nature of Platonic philosophy. This book charms his readers just as Socrates charmed many Athenians to show that philosophizing is not a useless luxury but the most profound form of liberation available to humanity.’ John von Heyking, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, Canada, and author of The Form of Politics: Aristotle and Plato on Friendship. |
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