Dumb Book of the Month

I thought about filing this item under my “Academic Absurdity of the Week” category, which I’ve let slip into disuse lately because there’s a fresh academic absurdity committed every five minutes, and I don’t want this item to become a full time job. But it occurs to me that perhaps there ought to be a “Dumb Book of the Month Club,” with regular selections just like the old Book of the Month Club.

My nominee for our first selection, from Routledge (generally regarded as a respectable academic press) is:

Edited by Erika Cudworth, Stephen Hobden, Emilian Kavalski

Description:

Posthumanism represents a significant new research direction both for International Relations and the social sciences. It emerges from questions about inter-species relations which challenge dominant perceptions of what it means to be human. Rather than seeing the human species as ‘in nature’ posthumanist thinking considers the species as ‘of nature’. The work of posthumanist thinkers has sought to dispute accepted notions of what it means to be human, raising profound questions about our relations with the rest of nature. The volume commences with an overview of the influence thinkers have had on the development of posthumanist thinking.

Because we’ve done such a great job at human relations I guess. As I’ve been saying for a while now, we’re awash these days in “human rights,” but for many people on the post-modern left, there are no humans.

Anyway, this prize piece of literature can be yours for a mere $149.95 (not a typo–but only $38 for the ebook!). And people wonder by college libraries are cutting back on book acquisitions.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses