Political Alchemy: Technology Unbounded

2021-03-21 Social Science

Author : Agnes Horvath
Release : 2021-03-21
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 566/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Political Alchemy: Technology Unbounded by : Agnes Horvath

Download or read book Political Alchemy: Technology Unbounded written by Agnes Horvath. This book was released on 2021-03-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores politics as a form of alchemy, understood as the transformation of entities through an alteration of their identities. Identifying this process as a common denominator of many political phenomena, such as EU integration, mediatisation, communism or globalisation, the author demonstrates not only the widespread presence of alchemical techniques in politics, but also the acceleration of their deployment. A study of the steady growth of power as it reaches a continuous and permanent stage, thus avoiding the inherent difficulties connected with birth and death of political organisations and institutions, this volume reveals political alchemy to be a form of self-sustaining growth through sterile multiplication, devoid of meaning. Revealing both the integrative and disintegrative nature of a political process that, while appearing to work in the interests of all, in fact produces apathy, desperate mobilisation and despair by crushing concrete entities such as personality and tradition, Political Alchemy: Technology Unbounded will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in social theory and political thought.

Political Alchemy

2021 Social Science

Author : Agnes Horvath
Release : 2021
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 183/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Political Alchemy by : Agnes Horvath

Download or read book Political Alchemy written by Agnes Horvath. This book was released on 2021. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book explores politics as a form of alchemy, understood as the transformation of entities through an alteration of their identities. Identifying this process as a common denominator of many political phenomena, such as communism, EU integration, mediatisation or globalisation, the author demonstrates not only the widespread presence of alchemical techniques in politics, but also the acceleration of their deployment. A study of the steady growth of power as it reaches a continuous and permanent stage, thus avoiding the inherent difficulties connected with birth and death of political organisations and institutions, this volume reveals political alchemy to be a form of self-sustaining growth through sterile multiplication, devoid of meaning. Revealing both the integrative and disintegrative nature of a political process that, while appearing to work in the interests of all, in fact produces apathy, desperate mobilisation and despair by crushing concrete entities such as personality and tradition, Political Alchemy: Technology Unbounded will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in social theory and political thought"--

Magic and the Will to Science

2024-03-19 Social Science

Author : Agnes Horvath
Release : 2024-03-19
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 896/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Magic and the Will to Science by : Agnes Horvath

Download or read book Magic and the Will to Science written by Agnes Horvath. This book was released on 2024-03-19. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a political anthropological perspective on the problematic character of science, combining insights from historical sociology, political theory, and cultural anthropology. Its central idea, departing from the works of Frances Yates and the Gnosticism thesis of Eric Voegelin, is that far from being the radical opposite of magic, modern science effectively grew out of magic, and its varieties, like alchemy, Hermetic philosophy, the occult, Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism. Showing that the desire to use science to solve various – real or presumed – problems of human existence has created a permanent liminal crisis, it contends that the ‘will to science’ is parasitic, existing as it does in sheer relationality, outside of and in between concrete places and communities. A study of the mutual relationship between magic and science in different historical eras, ranging from the Early Neolithic to recent disease prevention ideas, Magic and the Will to Science will appeal to scholars and students of social and anthropological theory, and the philosophy and sociology of science.

Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease

2022-12-21 Social Science

Author : Agnes Horvath
Release : 2022-12-21
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 33X/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease by : Agnes Horvath

Download or read book Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease written by Agnes Horvath. This book was released on 2022-12-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease explores the phenomenon of ‘liminal politics’: an open-ended ‘state of exception’ in which normal rules no longer apply, and things which were previously unimaginable become possible – even appearing remarkably quickly to represent a ‘new normal’. With attention to the emergency measures introduced to counter the spread of Covid-19, it shows how the emergency suspension of democratic accountability, ordinary life and civil liberties, while accidental, can lend itself to orchestration and exploitation for the purpose of political gain by ‘trickster’ or ‘parasitic’ figures. An examination of the cloning of political responses from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with little consideration of their rational justification or local context, this volume interrogates the underlying dynamics of a global technological mimetism, as novel technocratic interventions are repeated and the way is opened for new technologies to reorganise social life in a manner that threatens the disintegration of its existing patterns. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory and anthropological theory with interests in political expediency and the transformation of social life.

Political Anthropology as Method

2023-02-27 Social Science

Author : Arpad Szakolczai
Release : 2023-02-27
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 656/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Political Anthropology as Method by : Arpad Szakolczai

Download or read book Political Anthropology as Method written by Arpad Szakolczai. This book was released on 2023-02-27. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores considerations of method in the field of political anthropology, contending that this constitutes a distinct approach within the broader area of the human, social and political sciences. Faithful to the basic guiding ideas of anthropology, it nonetheless challenges and rejects the pretended stance of scientific neutrality and advances a position that engages with the notion of participation, recognising its value and arguing that participation is essential to the development of a proper social and political understanding. An outline of what political anthropology can offer by way of methods, this invitation to consider the development of methodological ideas beyond the presumed ‘scientific’ and ‘universalistic’ approaches that dominate in the social sciences will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology and politics with interests in questions of method and methodology.

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