Category: publications

IHE piece on assessment and other announcements

~ Adam Kotsko ~ 1 Comment

I have a piece in Inside Higher Ed today entitled “How to Make the Best of Assessment” (link). Some of the points made therein may be familiar to readers of this post, but there has been substantial editing.

Though I’ve announced it on Twitter, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here: my translation of Agamben’s Highest Poverty is now available (Amazon; publisher site) in both print and electronic editions.

In addition, I have updated my CV page with links to the submitted versions of two of my recent articles — and more thoroughly updated it in general, because it’s not as though it’s the end of the semester and I have a lot of work to do….

Finally, on a totally different note, I was recently interviewed for a short piece in the men’s magazine Details, which focused on a recent trend of books taking psychopaths as models for self-help. The piece does not appear to be online, but you can read it on pg. 36 of the print edition.

Special issue of La Revue internationale de philosophie on Zizek

~ Adam Kotsko

At long last, La Revue internationale de philosophie has published a special issue on Zizek that has been in the works for several years at this point. I have a contribution entitled “On Materialist Theology: Thinking God Beyond the Master Signifier,” in which I attempt to respond to two critiques of my book Zizek and Theology: namely, that the part on Parallax View wasn’t very tightly integrated with the stuff on theology and that I should have done more constructive theological work rather than reporting on theological responses and suggesting points of connection. The end result seems to involve a lot of Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine.

Unfortunately, everything is behind a paywall.

On Clarice Lispector

~ Brad ~ 3 Comments

The kind folk at The New Inquiry have published a longish essay of mine on Clarice Lispector’s mystical novel The Passion According to G.H. Originally, I was just going to write a review — which became then an essay — and then eventually the two kind of merged. I think it turned out okay. I very highly recommend most regular readers here give Lispector a go. The New Directions translations are a joy.

My review of Red Plenty

~ Adam Kotsko

My review of Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty is up at The New Inquiry. It begins, perhaps counterintuitively, with a comparison with David Foster Wallace.

This review represents my effort to make sure that the true Red Plenty addicts — the ones who aren’t satisfied with the Crooked Timber event (which doesn’t yet seem to have its own separate link?) — can get their sick, Soviet fix.

The hardest-working man in academia?

~ Adam Kotsko ~ 3 Comments

Some people sometimes mistakenly identify me as a model of academic productivity. In order to correct this impression, I’d like to quote from a post of Roland Boer’s in which he announces he’s completed the manuscript of Lenin and Theology:

But that made me realise that I have a few other books appearing this year. In another instance of shameless self-promotion, here they are:

Criticism of Earth: On Marx, Engels and Theology. Due out with Brill in May this year.

Nick Cave: A Study of Love, Death and Apocalypse. Also due out in May, now with Equinox.

The Earthy Nature of the Bible: Fleshly Readings of Sex, Masculinity and Carnality. Published by Palgrave Macmillan and due out in October this year.

Criticism of Heaven: The Author’s Cut. Published by CCLM in Taiwan, in the Sino-Christian Studies Supplement Series, and due out soon.

Finally, the paperback of Criticism of Theology: On Marxism and Theology III. Also due out in May, with Haymarket.

Agamben translations: An announcement

~ Adam Kotsko ~ 13 Comments

I have been offered a contract to translate two works by Agamben in the coming year: Opus dei: Archeologia dell’ufficio and Altissima povertà: Regole monastiche e forma di vita. The two volumes represent sections 2.5 and 4.1 of the Homo Sacer series, respectively. Opus dei: An Archeology of Office is an investigation of the way that Christian liturgical concepts have informed modern ethical concepts, while The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form of Life presents Christian monasticism as an attempt to conceive of a form of life that would overcome the opposition between life and rule.

We have agreed that I will complete these translations by the end of the calendar year, so now I know how I’ll be spending my summer vacation.