Books

Nöth (1990) Handbook of Semiotics

The Handbook of Semiotics is widely accepted as THE handbook of semiotics. Nöth's handbook maps the many facets of the field of semiotics up to 1990.

Rancière (2011) The Emancipated Spectator

The emancipated spectator is a sequel to Rancière's The Future of the Image and presents a critique of leftist melancoly in regard to the spectacle and the spectator. Rancière criticises the tendency of theorists of both art and film to portray audiences passive. Moves against this can be seen in forms of art, like new theatre and performance art. Yet, the spectator has not been passive to begin with: like a reader, the spectator makes unique connections, selects, and frames the performance.

Barthes (1977) Image, Music, Exit

Grosz (2001) Architecture from the outside. Essays on Virtual and Real Space

Elizabeth Grosz does not simply receive the well-worn pages of Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, or Henri Bergsonon the subject of duration. Rather her attempt is to open up a central thematic of modernist architecture — utopia — to a new consideration. Grosz, like Tafuri, suggests that utopia is the good place that is no place. She says that utopia might be the way for architecture to find its own place in the political by reconceptualizing itself as that movement of time which is duration: a concept of time as a perpetual becoming.

Aradau and van Munster (2011) Politics of Catastrophe

This book argues that catastrophe is a particular way of governing future events – such as terrorism, climate change or pandemics – which we cannot predict but which may strike suddenly, without warning, and cause irreversible damage.

Gusfield (1981) The Culture of Public Problems

Classic text on how certain problems become problems 'international action has to do something about'.

Herschinger (2011) Constructing Global Enemies

Constructing Global Enemies asks how and why specific interpretations of international terrorism and drug abuse have become hegemonic at the global level. The book analyses the international discourses on terrorism and drug prohibition and compares efforts to counter both, not only from a contemporary but also from a historical perspective.

Laclau (1999) "The Politics of Rhetoric."

One of the rare contributions of Laclau on the materiality of discourse.

Rabinow (2003) Anthropos Today: Reflections on Modern Equipment

The discipline of anthropology is, at its best, characterized by turbulence, self-examination, and inventiveness. In recent decades, new thinking and practice within the field has certainly reflected this pattern, as shown for example by numerous fruitful ventures into the "politics and poetics" of anthropology.

Norton (2003) 95 Theses on Politics, Culture, and Method

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he offered a challenge to the dominant establishment of which he was a member. In this provocative book, political scientist Anne Norton proposes 95 theses that launch a brilliant, witty polemic against the reigning orthodoxies in her own field.