Author: Ali Smith File Type: epub Ali Smith, twice shortlisted for both the Man Booker and the Orange Prizes, is back with the sparkling There but for the... There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . . As time passes by and the consequences of this strangers actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they at first appear. There but for the has been hailed as one of the best books of 2011 by Jeanette Winterson, A.S. Byatt, Patrick Ness, Sebastian Barry, Boyd Tonkin, Erica Wagner and Nick Barley. Dazzlingly inventive A.S. Byatt Whimsically devastating. Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting Guardian A real gem Erica Wagner, The Times Eccentric, adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read Literary Review If you liked Smiths earlier fiction, you will know that she enjoys setting up a situation before chucking in a literary Molotov cocktail then describing what happens Sunday Express Wonderful, word-playful, compelling Jeanette Winterson Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today Daily Telegraph I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul Evening Standard Ali Smith is the author of novels Girl Meets Boy, Like and the bestsellers The Accidental and Hotel World. She has published the short story collections The First Person and Other Stories, Free Love and Other Stories, Other Stories and Other Stories and The Whole Story and Other Stories. She has been twice-shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, twice nominated for the Orange Prize and won the Whitbread Novel of the Year in 2005.

Author: William W. Sokoloff File Type: pdf Defends confrontational modes of citizenship as a means to reinvigorate democratic participation and regime accountability. A growing number of people are enraged about the quality and direction of public life, despise politicians, and are desperate for real political change. How can the contemporary neoliberal global political order be challenged and rebuilt in an egalitarian and humanitarian manner? What type of political agency and new political institutions are needed for this? In order to answer these questions, Confrontational Citizenship draws on a broad base of perspectives to articulate the concept of confrontational citizenship. William W. Sokoloff defends extra-institutional and confrontational modes of political activity along with new ways of conceiving political institutions as a way to create political orders accountable to the people. In contrast to many forms of democratic theory, Sokoloff argues that confrontational modes of citizenship (e.g., protest) are good because they increase the accountability of a regime to the people, increase the legitimacy of regimes, lead to improvements in a political order, and serve as a means to vent frustration. The goal is to make the word citizen relevant and dangerous to the settled and closed practices that structure our political world and to provide a hopeful vision of what it means to be politically progressive today. William W. Sokoloff is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. **

Author: John Richard Sageng File Type: pdf Computer games have become a major cultural and economic force, and a subject of extensive academic interest. Up until now, however, computer games have received relatively little attention from philosophy. Seeking to remedy this, the present collection of newly written papers by philosophers and media researchers addresses a range of philosophical questions related to three issues of crucial importance for understanding the phenomenon of computer games the nature of gameplay and player experience, the moral evaluability of player and avatar actions, and the reality status of the gaming environment. By doing so, the book aims to establish the philosophy of computer games as an important strand of computer games research, and as a separate field of philosophical inquiry. The book is required reading for anyone with an academic or professional interest in computer games, and will also be of value to readers curious about the philosophical issues raised by contemporary digital culture. **Review From the reviews This anthology of 16 essays discusses games from a philosophical perspective. Game designers and those interested in philosophy will find the book illuminating and a springboard for new ways to think about games and interactive media. Summing Up Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchersfaculty, and professionalspractitioners in game design. (A. Chen, Choice, Vol. 50 (6), February, 2013) This book is really about the philosophy of computer games. Previously, foundational books in computer games were more sociological in their orientation. This book begins to add an important pillar to that foundation. It asks and attempts to answer some very serious questions. I would recommend it first to philosophers in related fields such as the philosophy of fiction or media studies. I would also recommend it to designers of video games and virtual worlds . (J. M. Artz, ACM Computing Reviews, October, 2012) From the Back Cover Computer games have become a major cultural and economic force, and the last decade has seen the emergence of extensive academic study of such games. Up until now there has been little attention from philosophy to investigate the philosophical problems that arise from the phenomenon of computer games. This book fill this lacuna by bringing philosophers and media researchers together in discussions of the basic concepts needed to understand computer games. The essays address central issues such as the reality status of the game environment, gameplay, and the moral evaluation of player or avatar actions. The anthology is required reading for anyone with an academic or professional interest in computer games, and will also be valuable to any reader curious about the philosophical issues that are raised by modern-day digital culture.

Author: Fabio Gironi File Type: pdf Contemporary interest in realism and naturalism, emerging under the banner of speculative or new realism, has prompted continentally-trained philosophers to consider a number of texts from the canon of analytic philosophy. The philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars, in particular, has proven remarkably able to offer a contemporary re-formulation of traditional continental concerns that is amenable to realist and rationalist considerations, and serves as an accessible entry point into the Anglo-American tradition for continental philosophers. With the aim of appraising this fertile theoretical convergence, this volume brings together experts of both analytic and continental philosophy to discuss the legacy of Kantianism in contemporary philosophy. The individual essays explore the ways in which Sellars can be put into dialogue with the widely influential work of Quentin Meillassoux, explaining howeven thought their methods, language, and proximal influences are widely differenttheir philosophical stances can be compared thanks to their shared Kantian heritage and interest in the problem of realism. This book will be appeal to students and scholars who are interested in Sellars, Meillassoux, contemporary realist movements in continental philosophy, and the analytic-continental debate in contemporary philosophy. **Review This book takes up the contemporary legacy of Kant and his transcendental idealism in dialogue with two of his most influential recent interpreters Wilfrid Sellars and Quentin Meillassoux. Though situated on different sides of the analyticcontinental divide, both of these philosophers interpretations have revitalized the discussion of Kants philosophy and its associated metaphysics and transformed it for contemporary philosophical discussion. This is the first book to bring Sellars and Meillassouxs respective treatments of Kant explicitly into dialogue and, as such, will be essential in laying the groundwork for a twenty-first century discussion of Kants epistemology and metaphysics beyond the analyticcontinental divide. Paul M. Livingston, University of New Mexico, USA About the Author Fabio Gironi holds an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin, Ireland. He has published numerous articles on realism in contemporary continental philosophy, on Wilfrid Sellars, and on Quentin Meillassoux.