Continuum Philosophy News

Just landed on my desk: Morality and the Movies

I tweeted a while back saying how excited I was for this book, so I was thrilled this week when I came in to work to find an advanced copy of Dan Shaw's Morality and the Movies sitting on my desk.

 

This fantastic new book presents the ideal introduction to philosophical ethics for film lovers. Dan Shaw uses a series of sixteen popular films to illustrate all the major ethical theories and key contemporary moral issues. The book provides a brief summary and philosophical interpretation of each film, with reference throughout to primary philosophical sources. A unique pedagogical feature is that each chapter begins with a five-step summary of the theoretical position in question and a critical evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses through a specific film.

Topics covered include:

 

• divine authority
• the social contract
• moral relativism
• virtue ethics
• freedom and determinism
• euthanasia
• capital punishment
• war and terrorism
• abortion
• business ethics

 

Ideal for undergraduate students coming to philosophical ethics for the first time, this book utilises popular film to introduce a central topic in the study of philosophy.

 

If that's not enough to get you excited, take a look at some of the films covered:

 

 

Some absolute classics there!

 

There's also tips after each chapter for further films on the topic covered, for example in the chapter 'The Ethics of Business in Wall Street', Shaw also recommends Blue Collar, The Social Network and, of course, the sequel to the main film covered, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. (Personally though, I wouldn't recommend the last one. It's pretty terrible. Even Shia LaBeouf's face can't save it.) These handy extra features really do make Morality and the Movies an accessible and truly invaluable tool for students.

 

You don't have to just trust me though, Thomas Wartenberg from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts had this to say:

 

"Shaw makes morality go down as easily as a bag of popcorn.No more will philosophy be dull.I can only wish that I had had a text like Morality and the Movies when I was a student just encountering ethics.This book is certain to engage students, as they discover they were already thinking about morality when they were watching movies."

 

So, be sure to take a look at the exclusive preview above and send for your inspection copy today. What other films do you think would fit with ethical analysis? Tweet me your ideas to @ContinuumPhilos or comment here, I'd love to hear them!

 

Finally, and because I just can't let it go unmentioned, how cool is the cover?! I love it - one of my favourites of the year so far. Definitely one to show off at the Film-Philosophy conference in September!

 

Charlotte Hoare

Marketing Executive UK and Rest of World

SEP-FEP 2011

I'm off up to York this afternoon for SEP-FEP 2011, the joint conference of the Society for European Philosophy and the Forum for European Philosophy, which is being held at York St John University from today until Saturday (3rd September). If you'll be at the conference, please do drop in at the Continuum stand, where we'll have a range of our latest and key backlist titles in European philosophy available for sale at the usual conference discount. I'll be there today and all day tomorrow, while Charlotte Hoare (Marketing Executive) and Colleen Coalter (Commissioning Editor) will be holding the fort on Friday and Saturday. Come and say hello!

Sarah

And we'll also be at the Joint Session!

I've barely unpacked my bag from the Deleuze Studies conference in Copenhagen last week and on Friday will be off to the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association at the University of Sussex (8th-10th July). If you'll be at the Joint Session, please do come to the Continuum stand, where we'll have a range of our recent and key backlist titles on display and available for sale (at the usual conference discount). If you're already a Continuum author, or have a project you would like to discuss with us, by all means drop me a line this week to arrange an appointment (scampbell@continuumbooks.com).

Look forward to seeing you there!

Sarah

Philosophy in the City festival & competition to win £100 worth of books

An exciting new philosophy event is taking place during October in Liverpool (UK) and I'm happy to finally be able to tell everyone about it and link to the new website!  I have to warn readers not based in the UK that unless you can make a trip over here, you might want to look away!

Master-minded by the Philosophy Department at the University of Liverpool, with one of the driving forces being Continuum author Clare Carlisle, the Philosophy in the City festival runs between 9-24 October and will see a series of events that aim to 'de-mystify philosophy, raise awareness of what philosophers do and how philosophy happens, and provide local people with new opportunities to engage in philosophical reflection and debate.'

The full programme of events can be viewed at http://philosophyinthecity.info/festival/programme-of-events/ with highlights including a talk from The Philosopher's Magazine co-founder and editor Julian Baggini and 'Philosophy in Pubs' socials.

And if you do manage to attend any of the events, you might be pleased to hear that you can then enter a competition to win £100 worth of philosophy books, which we are co-sponsoring with another publisher.  To enter:

Write a report on one (or more) of the festival events, describing what the issues are and saying what you think. Entries should be no longer than 1000 words.

For further details on how to enter, please visit this webpage and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Carly

Summer conferences 2010

Conference season is pretty much upon us and with this in mind, here's news of the conferences we will be attending this summer and the discounts we'll be offering...

SEP-FEP 2010

The SEP-FEP (Society for European Philosophy-Forum for European Philosophy) Conference, 7th-10th July 2010 is being held this year at Loyola University Chicago, John Felice Rome Centre, Italy.  The organisers have put up the full programme details here.

Tom Crick (who commissions the Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy series), is attending for us and will be manning a bookstand where we will be displaying our latest publications in continental philosophy - and some of our favourite backlist too.  We will be offering books at a reduced price for delegates of 35% off hardbacks and 20% off paperbacks.

Joint Session 2010

The Joint Session of The Aristotelian Society and The Mind Association is this year at University College Dublin, Ireland from 9-11 July and their programme is online here.

David Avital (Acting Senior Commissioning Editor for Philosophy) will be manning our stand where we'll again be selling books at the above discount.

Deleuze Studies 2010

The 3rd International Deleuze Studies Conference is in Amsterdam between 12-14 July and they've also put their programme online.

Tom will be heading to this one from Rome (he will be having a lovely time in July!) where we'll again have a bookstand and the above special conference prices.

If you want to get in touch with either David or Tom, refer to their email addresses on our Contacts page.  They will be happy to meet and talk with you about any ideas for book proposals etc.

Carly

Book launch for '101 Great Philosophers'

Yesterday evening, Carly and I enjoyed refreshments and good conversation at St Stephen’s Club, Westminster, courtesy of Dr Madsen Pirie.  Madsen’s book was published by Continuum just last month and it was a real treat to launch it in such elegant surroundings, and in such esteemed company.  Joining us on the night were Matthew Parris of The Times, who gave a very stimulating speech on the place of philosophy in public life and in politics, as well as Dr John Campbell, the historian and biographer, who entertained us with a more personal introduction, before Madsen himself said a few words.

 

We hope everyone in attendance enjoyed the event as much as we did.

 

 

Tom Crick,

Assistant Editor,

Philosophy and Religious Studies

 

 

Deleuze conference @ Cologne

If you are attending the Second International Deleuze Conference at the University of Cologne, Germany, we look forward to seeing you at the Continuum stand. Our representative, Tom Crick (Assistant Editor - Philosophy), will be selling a varied selection of our titles at a special conference discount (30% off HB and 20% off PB) on both days of the conference (10th-12th August).  Further details of the event are available on the conference's website. 

Ricoeur conference @ Kent

I am looking forward to attending the UK-Ireland Society for Ricoeur Studies conference, 'From Ricoeur to Action', at the University of Kent later this month (23-24 June 2009). For more information on the conference, visit the conference website. We will have a small stand at the conference, with a selection of our latest philosophy titles available at the usual conference discount (30% off hardbacks, 20% off paperbacks). If you are attending the conference, please stop by the stand where I will be pleased to discuss any forthcoming projects you think we might be interested in. Alternatively, feel free to contact me in advance to arrange an appointment.

IAPL conference @ Brunel

If you are attending the IAPL conference at Brunel University, London, next week (1st-7th June), be sure to visit the Continuum stand, where a selection of our titles will be available at the usual conference discount (30% off hardbacks, 20% off paperbacks). My colleague, Anna Fleming (Publisher, Literary Studies and Education), will be in attendance on Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd June; I will be there from Wednesday 3rd to Friday 5th June. We both look forward to meeting you there. Further details of the conference are available at the IAPL website.

Speculative Realism conference report

Mark Fisher has published a report on the Frieze magazine website on the 'Speculative Realism' conference that took place at the University of the West of England last month. Continuum authors Iain Hamilton Grant, Ray Brassier and Alberto Toscano were three of the keynote speakers at the event, 'united by an antipathy towards the dominant consensus in continental philosophy'. Quentin Meillassoux's After Finitude was the subject of much discussion, as was Grant's Philosophies of Nature After Schelling - both books are available from Continuum.  

Logics of Worlds - Now Available!

I am delighted to be able to announce the much-anticipated publication of Alain Badiou's Logics of Worlds, translated by Alberto Toscano.

Logics of Worlds is the long-awaited sequel to Badiou's much-heralded masterpiece, Being and Event . Tackling the questions that had been left open by Being and Event, and answering many of his critics in the process, Badiou supplements his pioneering treatment of multiple being with a daring and complex theory of the worlds in which truths and subjects make their mark – what he calls a materialist dialectic. The radical recasting of ontology in Being and Event is followed and complemented here by a thoroughgoing transformation in our very understanding of logic, conceived as a theory not of being but of appearing.

Unafraid to resurrect and reinvent the classical themes of philosophy, Badiou gives new meaning to concepts such as object, body and relation, mobilising them in arresting studies that range from the architectural planning of Brasilia to contemporary astronomy, and confronting himself with towering philosophical counterparts (Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Lacan, Deleuze). The book culminates in an impassioned call to ‘live for an Idea’.  

The publication of the English translation of Logics of Worlds was, as many of you are aware, delayed from December and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your patience. The book is now very much available in the UK and will be officially released in the US next month.

Alberto Toscano, the translator, will be speaking at a conference on The Philosophical Work of Alain Badiou and its Political Ramifications at the University of Bristol next Wednesday 6th May. Click here for further details.

Praise for Logics of Worlds:

‘Fifteen years in the writing, this long-awaited sequel to Badiou’s landmark Being and Event (1988) should prove to be one of the most significant and controversial philosophical works of our time. Drawing on remarkable new developments in logic and mathematics, Logics of Worlds treats the ancient problem of the relation between being and appearance in a radically innovative way. In doing so, it answers one of the main questions posed by critics of Badiou’s earlier work - that it lacked an adequately situated and nuanced understanding of the processes that lend any given situation its distinctive structure or shape. On the basis of this newly ramified onto-logical conception of things, it also reworks and renews Badiou’s earlier theories of truth, subject, and event. Challenging but not obscure, eclectic but not digressive, Logics of Worlds is one of Badiou’s most substantial and original books to date.’ -- Professor Peter Hallward, Middlesex University, UK

 

'This time it's true; this really IS the book we have been waiting for. Since the publication of his magisterial Being and Event, we have been impatient to see what could not be foreseen: the way worlds look, according to Badiou. Logics of Worlds delivers a powerful theory of the uncanny appearance of truths; a rigorous polemic against the tedious nominalist-historicist materialism of our day; and a phenomenology every bit as impressive as Badiou's justly celebrated ontology.' -- Professor Joan Copjec, University at Buffalo, USA

  

Speculative Realism event @ UWE

I will be attending the Speculative Realism conference at the University of the West of England tomorrow and look forward to seeing some of you there. Please do drop by the Continuum stand to browse the books and have a chat.

I am also delighted to be hosting a small launch immediately after the event to mark the recent publication of Alison Assiter's Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory and the paperback edition of Iain Hamilton Grant's Philosophies of Nature After Schelling. Please join us in celebrating the publication of both books with a glass of wine!  

Aristotle on the radio - tonight!

Continuum author Hope May (Central Michigan University) will be hosting an internet radio show tonight in which she will be discussing some of the ideas in her forthcoming book, Aristotle's Ethics: Moral Development and Human Nature.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to the topic of human happiness. Yet, although Aristotle's conception of happiness is indisputably central to his whole philosophical project, there is much controversy surrounding it. May offers a new interpretation of Aristotle's account of happiness - one which incorporates Aristotle's views about the biological development of human beings. She argues that the relationship amongst the moral virtues, the intellectual virtues, and happiness, is best understood through the lens of developmentalism. On this view, happiness is the result of the cultivation of a number of virtues that are epigenetically (developmentally) related. May goes on to show how, with this interpretation in mind, contemporary scholarship in psychology, ethical theory and legal philosophy signals a return to Aristotelian ethics.  

Aristotle's Ethics is due out in our Continuum Studies in Ancient Philosophy series in December 2009. The radio show airs live on the internet (link below) tonight at 7pm (EST in the US) and will later be available to download via archived podcast at ITUNES. 

Listen to Hope May's radio show: Weds 22nd April 7pm EST

'On the Idea of Communism' Event This Weekend

I am looking forward to attending the 'On the Idea of Communism' conference this weekend at the Institute of Education. Organised by Birkbeck, the event boasts a very impressive line-up. Speakers include Continuum authors Alain Badiou, Bruno Bosteels, Peter Hallward, Toni Negri, Jacques Ranciere, Alberto Toscano, Gianni Vattimo and Slavoj Zizek, alongside Judith Balso, Terry Eagleton, Michael Hardt, Jean-Luc Nancy and Alessandro Russo. See http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bih/news/communism for further details.

Continuum will have a stand at the conference, so if you are attending, please do drop in to see our latest titles on display and to have a chat with either myself, Tom Crick, or Alison Silver, who will all be there at various points over the course of the weekend.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Iain King at the London Review Bookshop

Iain King, author of How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time, is giving a talk at the London Review Bookshop on Tuesday 17th February 2009. The event starts at 7pm and tickets are only £6. See the London Review Bookshop website for further details: http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php?productid=4702&cat=0&page=1

Iain has faced many testing decisions in his career, acting as an advisor to Paddy Ashdown on the Northern Ireland Peace Process, consultant to Kofi Annan's Africa Progress Panel, a peacekeeping administrator in Kosovo and, most recently, a consultant to British troops working with local communities in Afghanistan. He is also a former fellow of the University of Cambridge and in his fascinating book offers a compelling and jargon-free guide to ethical thinking for everyday life. He interrogates traditional tenets of morality and constructs a new, comprehensive system of ethics, identifying the DNA of right and wrong and offering clear and practical advice on how to be good in today's complicated and challenging world.

This is sure to be an exciting and thought-provoking event, so book your tickets now!

Meet the editor at APA

I'm looking forward to attending this year's APA Eastern Division annual meeting in Philadelphia, 27-30 December 2008. And I'd be delighted to meet with you there - whether you've got a new book proposal or existing project you'd like to discuss, or you'd just like a chat about the Continuum programme and our plans for the list in the next few years, now's your chance! If you'd like to arrange an appointment, email me at scampbell@continuumbooks.com in advance of the conference and we'll set something up. Alternatively please feel free just to call in at the Continuum stand (where you'll also be able to browse all our latest philosophy titles) at any point during the conference. I look forward to seeing you there!

Sarah Campbell, Senior Commissioning Editor

A.C. Grayling at Waterstones Gower Street

A.C. Grayling, Professor of Applied Philosophy at Birkbeck University of London and author of Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge and Truth, Meaning and Realism, is giving a bookshop talk entitled 'What Philosophy Is and What It Does' next Thursday 20th November at Waterstones Gower Street, London. For more information visit: http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayDetailEvent.do?searchType=1&author=A.C.|Grayling

Nietzsche event this weekend

James Luchte, editor of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Before Sunrise is organising a conference to celebrate the book's publication. The event will take place this weekend (14-16 November 2008) at the University of Wales, Lampeter. The book's international team of contributors will be on hand to share their work on Nietzsche's seminal text.

Michael Boylan @ Oxford

Michael Boylan, Professor and Chair in Philosophy at Marymount University and author of The Good, the True and the Beautiful, will give a talk on 'Racial Profiling and Genetic Privacy' as part of the University of Oxford's series of seminars on moral philosophy on Monday 10th November at the Philosophy Centre, 10 Merton Street, Oxford. See http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/lectures/future_seminars for further details.