The Unpolitical
The Unpolitical
On the Radical Critique of Political Reason
Contributors: Massimo Cacciari (author), Alessandro Carrera (editor), Massimo Verdicchio (translation)
Format: Paperback, 226 x 150 x 20mm , 256 pp
Publication date: 15 May 2009
Publisher: Fordham University Press
ISBN-10: 082323004X
EAN: 9780823230044
Massimo Cacciari is one of the leading public intellectuals in today's Italy. This collection of essays on political topics provides the best introduction in English to his thought to date. This carefully curated collection includes chapters on Hofmannsthal, Lukacs, Benjamin, Nietzsche, Weber, Derrida, Schmitt, Canetti, and Aeschylus. Written between 1978 and 2006, these essays engagingly address the most hidden tradition in European political thought: the unpolitical. Far from being a refusal of politics, "The Unpolitical" represents a merciless critique of political reason and a way out of the now impracticable consolations of utopia and harmonious community. A lucid and engaging Introduction by Alessandro Carrera sets these essays in the context of Cacciari's work generally and in the broadest context of its historical and geographical backdrop.
Author Biography:
MASSIMO CACCIARI has been Dean of Philosophy at the Universita San Raffaele in Milan and is currently the mayor of Venice. His previous books in English include Posthumous People and The Necessary Angel. ALESSANDRO CARRERA is Director of Italian Studies at the University of Houston. MASSIMO VERDICCHIO teaches Italian and comparative literature at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Naming Things: Aesthetics, Philosophy, and History in Benedetto Croce and of Reading Dante Reading.