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Life : a critical user's manual /

By: Fassin, Didier [author.].
Publisher: Cambridge : Polity Press, 2018Edition: English edition.Description: xiv, 159 pages ; 22 cm.Content type: text | text Media type: unmediated | unmediated Carrier type: volume | volumeISBN: 9781509526642; 9781509526642:; 1509526641; 9781509526659; 150952665X; 9781509526680; 1509526684.Uniform titles: Leben. English Subject(s): Benjamin, Walter 1892-1940 | Foucault, Michel 1926-1984 | Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1889-1951 | Life | Sociology | Philosophy, European -- 21st centuryDDC classification: 113.8
Contents:
Acknowledgements -- Preamble: Minima Theoria -- Forms of Life -- Ethics of Life -- Politics of Life -- Conclusion : unequal lives.
Summary: "How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience, the living and the lived? Philosophers and, more recently, social scientists have offered multiple answers to this question, often privileging one expression or the other; the biological or the biographical. But is it possible to conceive of them together and thus reconcile naturalist and humanist approaches? Using research conducted on three continents and drawing on the ideas of Wittgenstein, Benjamin and Foucault, Didier Fassin attempts to do so by developing three concepts: forms of life, ethics of life and politics of life. In the conditions of refugees and asylum-seekers, through humanitarian gestures and sacrifices for a cause, in light of mortality statistics and death benefits, and via a genealogical and ethnographical inquiry, the moral economy of life reveals troubling tensions in the way contemporary societies treat human beings. Once the pieces of this anthropological composition are assembled, like in Georges Perec's jigsaw puzzle, an image appears: that of unequal lives. Emerging from the prestigious Adorno Lectures delivered by Fassin in 2016, this profound investigation of life in contemporary societies, enriched by ethnographic fieldwork and written by one of the most distinguished anthropologists today, will be of great interest to readers across the humanities and social sciences"--Summary: "How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience? In this book, distinguished anthropologist Didier Fassin draws on fieldwork from three continents and the ideas of Wittgenstein, Benjamin and Foucault to offer a distinctive view of the nature and meaning of human life today, one that emphasizes the idea of unequal lives"--Summary: How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience, the living and the lived? Philosophers and, more recently, social scientists have offered multiple answers to this question, often privileging one expression or the other the biological or the biographical. But is it possible to conceive of them together and thus reconcile naturalist and humanist approaches? Using research conducted on three continents and drawing on the ideas of Wittgenstein, Benjamin and Foucault, Didier Fassin attempts to do so by developing three concepts: forms of life, ethics of life and politics of life.
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Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Standard Loan Standard Loan ATU Sligo Yeats Library Main Lending Collection 113.8 FAS (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Lost Checked out 07/12/2020 0082010
Total holds: 0

Translation of: Das Leben : eine kritische Gebrauchsanweisung. Berlin : Suhrkamp Verlag, 2017.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 140-153) and index.

Acknowledgements -- Preamble: Minima Theoria -- Forms of Life -- Ethics of Life -- Politics of Life -- Conclusion : unequal lives.

"How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience, the living and the lived? Philosophers and, more recently, social scientists have offered multiple answers to this question, often privileging one expression or the other; the biological or the biographical. But is it possible to conceive of them together and thus reconcile naturalist and humanist approaches? Using research conducted on three continents and drawing on the ideas of Wittgenstein, Benjamin and Foucault, Didier Fassin attempts to do so by developing three concepts: forms of life, ethics of life and politics of life. In the conditions of refugees and asylum-seekers, through humanitarian gestures and sacrifices for a cause, in light of mortality statistics and death benefits, and via a genealogical and ethnographical inquiry, the moral economy of life reveals troubling tensions in the way contemporary societies treat human beings. Once the pieces of this anthropological composition are assembled, like in Georges Perec's jigsaw puzzle, an image appears: that of unequal lives. Emerging from the prestigious Adorno Lectures delivered by Fassin in 2016, this profound investigation of life in contemporary societies, enriched by ethnographic fieldwork and written by one of the most distinguished anthropologists today, will be of great interest to readers across the humanities and social sciences"--

"How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience? In this book, distinguished anthropologist Didier Fassin draws on fieldwork from three continents and the ideas of Wittgenstein, Benjamin and Foucault to offer a distinctive view of the nature and meaning of human life today, one that emphasizes the idea of unequal lives"--

How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience, the living and the lived? Philosophers and, more recently, social scientists have offered multiple answers to this question, often privileging one expression or the other the biological or the biographical. But is it possible to conceive of them together and thus reconcile naturalist and humanist approaches? Using research conducted on three continents and drawing on the ideas of Wittgenstein, Benjamin and Foucault, Didier Fassin attempts to do so by developing three concepts: forms of life, ethics of life and politics of life.

Translated from the German.

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