Dis-orientations

Philosophy, Literature and the Lost Grounds of Modernity

Marcia Sa Cavalcante Schuback editor Tora Lane editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield International

Published:22nd Dec '14

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Dis-orientations cover

This highly original collection of essays contributes to a critique of the common understanding of modernity as an enlightened project that provides rational grounds for orientation in all aspects and dimensions of the world. An international team of contributors contend that the modern principles of foundation show in themselves rather how modernity is disorienting itself. The book brings together discussions on the writings of philosophers who treat more systematically the questions of foundation and orientation, such as Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Pascal, and Patočka, and studies of literary works that explicitly thematize this question, such as Novalis, Hölderlin, Beckett, Platonov, and Benjamin. This multi-disciplinary approach brings to the fore the paradox that modern figures of grounding and orientation unground and disorient and demonstrates a critical path to review current understandings of modernity and post-modernity.

This is a carefully put together and astonishingly coherent collection of insightful philosophical reflections on how major Modern thinkers and writers oriented themselves in a thoroughly disoriented world, where all metaphysical grounding had lost its footing and nothing could have been taken for granted. A vast and illuminating scope of essays, ranging from Novalis to Kundera, from Heidegger to Platonov, from Kierkegaard to Benjamin, this volume is an invaluable contribution to understanding Modernity at its existential best. -- Michał Paweł Markowski, Professor at University of Illinois
A thought-provoking and compelling inquiry into the predicaments of our times, Dis-orientations challenges us to see a gain rather than a loss in the modern ‘loss of grounds’ -- Jayne Svenungsson, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Stockholm School of Theology
A provocative collection of essays exploring “disorientation” as the moving force of the present. Reflecting on disorientation in thought, in existence, in being, and in language, these essays examine the theoretical challenges of thinking our present situation of suspension, hovering, homelessness, and exile that have emerged from the lost grounds of modernity. -- Peg Birmingham, Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University

ISBN: 9781783482573

Dimensions: 232mm x 151mm x 19mm

Weight: 395g

260 pages