Someone out there is expecting a package, and I have dropped the ball! For that, I apologize, here, in this public forum.
I go on another interview tomorrow. It's getting kind of old, but thats the nature of the beast I guess. Spring Break is almost here, and not a moment too soon. Getting sick of Supreme Court cases so it'll be good to take a week off and read what the hell I want.
Personal admission: I have a bias. When reading, or more to the point, when choosing who I read I always tend to give greater weight to people who have written more recently. Given the choice of J.S. Mill or Deleuze (whom I've never read), I would choose Deleuze, solely because he wrote in the latter part of the last century. I chose to read Marcuse because I felt he was more relevant than Marx. Who i read comes at the expense of who I don't, and the century in which an author writes has entirely TOO MCUH sway with me. I started reading Capital by Marx the other day for the first time. And the man is truly fucking amazing. He deals with the notions of value (albiet only in the commodity form) in a comparable way that Graeber (a current writer) addresses the meanings of value. This isn't to make the argument that no progress is ever truly made, just to point out that one of the sharpest minds on the subject today, isn't necessarily any further along than someone who wrote in the 1800s. (am I stating the obvious?) But due to my own little habit of checking for copyright date, I think an assumption is there to the contrary.
I'm just really impressed by Marx right now and wish I had started this earlier. The C.Manifesto is almost Marx for Dummies. It's a good basic entry-level critique of Capitalism, but hardly sufficient to a deeper understanding of an alternative. It comparison to Graeber, its not as broad a field in addressing certain concepts as "value" but then agains Graeber (I think) is an anthropologist by training and when it comes to thinking in the broadest of terms, I think Anthros have a lock on Political Economists. Anywhoo... I'm stubborn, so I know as soon as I'm done with Captial, I'll be heading back to the bookstore and looking for something since Heidegger. Some people never learn.
I go on another interview tomorrow. It's getting kind of old, but thats the nature of the beast I guess. Spring Break is almost here, and not a moment too soon. Getting sick of Supreme Court cases so it'll be good to take a week off and read what the hell I want.
Personal admission: I have a bias. When reading, or more to the point, when choosing who I read I always tend to give greater weight to people who have written more recently. Given the choice of J.S. Mill or Deleuze (whom I've never read), I would choose Deleuze, solely because he wrote in the latter part of the last century. I chose to read Marcuse because I felt he was more relevant than Marx. Who i read comes at the expense of who I don't, and the century in which an author writes has entirely TOO MCUH sway with me. I started reading Capital by Marx the other day for the first time. And the man is truly fucking amazing. He deals with the notions of value (albiet only in the commodity form) in a comparable way that Graeber (a current writer) addresses the meanings of value. This isn't to make the argument that no progress is ever truly made, just to point out that one of the sharpest minds on the subject today, isn't necessarily any further along than someone who wrote in the 1800s. (am I stating the obvious?) But due to my own little habit of checking for copyright date, I think an assumption is there to the contrary.
I'm just really impressed by Marx right now and wish I had started this earlier. The C.Manifesto is almost Marx for Dummies. It's a good basic entry-level critique of Capitalism, but hardly sufficient to a deeper understanding of an alternative. It comparison to Graeber, its not as broad a field in addressing certain concepts as "value" but then agains Graeber (I think) is an anthropologist by training and when it comes to thinking in the broadest of terms, I think Anthros have a lock on Political Economists. Anywhoo... I'm stubborn, so I know as soon as I'm done with Captial, I'll be heading back to the bookstore and looking for something since Heidegger. Some people never learn.
jessica:
You should start an SG reading club. I guarantee it would kick the Oprah book clubs ass!