Darwin’s Incomplete Idea

Wittgenstein, language, our place in nature and our responsibility for the environment.

Gunnar Odhner

April 2016 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-474-0
Availability: In stock
173pp. ¦ $60 £48 €55

Why is progress in environmental protection slow and faltering? Is it because we misunderstand our place in nature? This book argues that it is the normative implications of Darwinism and their powerful grip on collective social consciousness that are partly responsible for the tardiness. For all its positive explanatory power and undoubted veracity, the normative implications of Darwinist thinking for our environmental predicament are stark: If we are children of Mother Nature equipped by her with a human nature, the responsibility for the deterioration of nature is partly Hers. This book takes a different standpoint. We are indeed children of Nature, but not primarily of the green nature or animal world but of the nature of language. We can understand how through the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who states that “Language is a graft on instinctive behavior.” In our instinctive use of words we are parts of nature in a way resembling mice, frogs and giraffes. We are not as free as we think when we talk about our “free will”, because language uses us when we use it, hence our double roles as victims and instigators. The main thesis of this book is that rather than merely possessing language, we are language. If accepted, this realization may point the way to a more optimistic future for environmental protection and lay the foundations for a new analytical perspective on modern social behavior. "Darwin's Incomplete Idea" was much discussed when first published in Sweden (Bokförlaget Anomali, 2013). The English edition exposes, for the first time, this important work to an international audience. It should be of interest to philosophers of language and social scientists concerned about the environment and our place in it.

Public Assistance of the Poor in France

From the Middle Ages to the Late 19th Century (New Edition)

Emily Greene Balch

April 2016 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-041-4
Availability: In stock
140pp. ¦ $30 £20 €25

This book is a historical assessment of state institutions and other social arrangements put in place to alleviate poverty in France. It draws from both primary (notably archives of the Church) and secondary sources (such as Monnier’s Histoire de l’Assistance Publique). It offers a comparative perspective with respect to contemporary arrangements in Britain and the United States, including some early poverty statistics. The result is a useful and concise account of the history of social institutions which continues to be of relevance over a century after its initial publication. This New Edition has been typeset with modern techniques. It has been painstakingly proofread to ensure that it is free from errors.

The Road to Parnassus: Artist Strategies in Contemporary Art

Rise and Success of Glasgow Artist Douglas Gordon and of the wider YBA generation

Diego Mantoan, University of Palermo, Italy

November 2015 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-029-2
Availability: In stock
449pp. [Color] ¦ $99 £73 €85

How can one become a successful artist? Where should one start a career in the art world? What are useful strategies to achieve recognition in the art system? Such questions hoard in students' minds ever since entering art school and they probably chase every kind of art professional who is at an early career stage. “The Road to Parnassus” tries to understand what makes a good start in today's art world, who are influential players in the field and which strategies might apply. The swift career ascension of Glasgow artist Douglas Gordon – one of today's leading visual artists – and of the broader YBA generation that rose into worldwide prominence in the 1990s – Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas among the best known – serves as a convenient case to analyse contemporary artist strategies. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach – spanning from traditional art history, to sociology and economics – pursuing the reconstruction of the field of forces in art as intended by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Compared to previous publications on art system dynamics, such as Thompson's “The $12 Million Stuffed Shark”, this book offers an enhanced understanding of the factors that allow a young artist to enter the arena of contemporary art. The present research should help uncover the art system logic – which appears enigmatic to non-experts – revealing that artists are aware they need to consider global trends, beat competitors and meet the demands of dealers, collectors, curators and museums. This book furthers existing contributions on the YBAs (for example Stallabrass' “High Art Lite”), offering innovative conclusions on recent British art, such as on the duality between London and Glasgow, the gender opposition among emerging artists and the predominance of resourceful authors.

Introduction to Dynamic Macroeconomic General Equilibrium Models

José Luis Torres Chacon, Universidad de Málaga, Spain

April 2016 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-030-8
Availability: In stock
282pp. ¦ $55 £40 €50

This book offers an introductory step-by-step course in Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) modelling. Modern macroeconomic analysis is increasingly concerned with the construction, calibration and/or estimation and simulation of DSGE models. The book is intended for graduate students as an introductory course to DSGE modelling and for those economists who would like a hands-on approach to learning the basics of modern dynamic macroeconomic modelling. The book starts with the simplest canonical neoclassical DSGE model and then gradually extends the basic framework incorporating a variety of additional features, such as consumption habit formation, investment adjustment cost, investment-specific technological change, taxes, public capital, household production, non-ricardian agents, monopolistic competition, etc. The book includes Dynare codes for the models developed that can be downloaded from the book’s homepage. The second edition is identical to the first with the exception of a revised appendix to Chapter 2. The revised appendix can be downloaded free of charge in the accompanying downloads section.

Designing Technology, Work, Organizations and Vice Versa

Edited by Enrico Attila Bruni, University of Trento, Italy et al.

May 2016 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-028-5
Availability: In stock
284pp. ¦ $55 £45 €50

The concept of design has been defined in a multitude of ways and used in a variety of academic fields, ranging from the classics of organizational and system design to studies on corporate culture, aesthetics and consumption. However, in mainstream organization and management studies, the concept of design has been ‘black-boxed’ and easily implied as an updated (and more fashionable) version of the traditional idea of structuring organizational processes. At the same time, working and organizing seem to be embedded nowadays in increasingly complex and situated technologies and practices. If the spreading of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has changed workplaces (and even the very meaning of 'workplace' as an area marked by the physical presence of different human actors), working and organizing mobilizes the joint action of humans, technologies and knowledges. The aim of the book is thus to discuss the relations among technologies, work and organisations from multiple theoretical perspectives and to engage with questions about design as well as the sociomaterial foundations of working and organising. The book focuses on the close study of practices and processes that inextricably link work and organisation to the use of artefacts and technological systems (and vice versa), exploring by means of different cases of organizational and design research articulations and disarticulations of daily work and design; the doing of objects and technologies in everyday organizational life; the reconstruction of organizational processes through technological and design practices; the relation between learning, innovations and technologies in organizational settings. The book is addressed to graduate students, PhDs, scholars and researchers interested in the fields of Organization Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology and Design, as well as to professionals and practitioners interested in new methodological approaches towards the relations between technology, work and organization.