Arguments and Memoirs
No order because I am lazy.
Memoirs
Out of Place
Edward W. Said
Memoir - Born in Jerusalem in 1935, Edward Said spent much of his youth in Cairo and Lebanon. Out of Place is an act of emotional archaeology of that time, bringing to life people and places many of which no longer exist.
Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out
Aph Ko
Through a subtle and extended examination of Jordan Peele’s hit 2017 movie Get Out, Ko shows the many ways that white supremacist notions of animality and race exist through the consumption and exploitation of flesh. She demonstrates how a critical historical and social understanding of anti-Blackness can provide the pathway to genuine liberation.
The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe
Richard Smoley
Richard Smoley examines the roles God has played for us and reconciles them with what we today know through science and reason. In the process, he shows that consciousness is the underlying reality beneath everything in the universe.
Unpayable Debt
Denise Ferreira da Dilva
Unpayable Debt examines the relationship between coloniality, raciality, and global capital through a black feminist poethical framework
Curiosity
Alberto Manguel
Curiosity has been seen through the ages as the impulse that drives our knowledge forward and the temptation that leads us toward dangerous and forbidden waters. The question “Why?” has appeared under a multiplicity of guises and in vastly different contexts throughout the chapters of human history. Why does evil exist? What is beauty? How does language inform us? What defines our identity? What is our responsibility to the world? In Alberto Manguel’s most personal book to date, the author tracks his own life of curiosity through the reading that has mapped his way.
Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism
Richard Morty
Rorty equates pragmatism with anti-authoritarianism, arguing that because there is no authority we can rely on to ascertain truth, we can only do so intersubjectively. It follows that we must learn to think and care about what others think and care about.
Becoming Dangerous
A nonfiction book of deeply personal essays by marginalised people using the intersection of feminism, witchcraft, and resistance to summon power and become fearsome in a world that would prefer them afraid.
Freedom within Reason
Susan Wolf
According to compatibilism, people are free and responsible as long as their actions are governed by their desires. In Freedom Within Reason, Susan Wolf charts a path between these traditional positions: We are not free and responsible, she argues, for actions that are governed by desires that we cannot help having. But the wish to form our own desires from nothing is both futile and arbitrary.
The Wounded Storyteller
Arthur W. Frank
Drawing on the work of authors such as Oliver Sacks, Anatole Broyard, Norman Cousins, and Audre Lorde, as well as from people he met during the years he spent among different illness groups, Frank recounts a stirring collection of illness stories, ranging from the well-known—Gilda Radner’s battle with ovarian cancer—to the private testimonials of people with cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, and disabilities. Their stories are more than accounts of personal suffering: they abound with moral choices and point to a social ethic.