The Scent of Time

Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509516085
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Book Description
In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time. Our attachment to the vita activa creates an imperative to work which degrades the human being into a labouring animal, an animal laborans. At the same time, the hyperactivity which characterizes our daily routines robs human beings of the capacity to linger and the faculty of contemplation. It therefore becomes impossible to experience time as fulfilling. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Heidegger, Nietzsche and Arendt, Han argues that we can overcome this temporal crisis only by revitalizing the vita contemplativa and relearning the art of lingering. For what distinguishes humans from other animals is the capacity for reflection and contemplation, and when life regains this capacity, this art of lingering, it gains in time and space, in duration and vastness.

The Expulsion of the Other

Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150952309X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
The days of the Other are over in this age of excessive communication, information and consumption. What used to be the Other, be it as friend, as Eros or as hell, is now indistinguishable from the self in our narcissistic desire to assimilate everything and everyone until there are no boundaries left. The result is a 'terror of the Same', lives in which we no longer pursue knowledge, insight and experience but are instead reduced to the echo chambers and illusory encounters offered by social media. In extreme cases, this feeling of disorientation and senselessness is compensated through self-harm, or even harming others through acts of terrorism. Byung-Chul Han argues that our times are characterized not by external repression but by an internal depression, whereby the destructive pressure comes not from the Other but from the self. It is only by returning to a society of listeners and lovers, by acknowledging and desiring the Other, that we can seek to overcome the isolation and suffering caused by this crushing process of total assimilation.

Saving Beauty

Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509515135
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Book Description
Beauty today is a paradox. The cult of beauty is ubiquitous but it has lost its transcendence and become little more than an aspect of consumerism, the aesthetic dimension of capitalism. The sublime and unsettling aspects of beauty have given way to corporeal pleasures and 'likes', resulting in a kind of 'pornography' of beauty. In this book, cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han reinvigorates aesthetic theory for our digital age. He interrogates our preoccupation with all things slick and smooth, from Jeff Koon's sculptures and the iPhone to Brazilian waxing. Reaching far deeper than our superficial reactions to viral videos and memes, Han reclaims beauty, showing how it manifests itself as truth, temptation and even disaster. This wide-ranging and profound exploration of beauty, encompassing ethical and political considerations as well as aesthetic, will appeal to all those interested in cultural and aesthetic theory, philosophy and digital media.

The Burnout Society

Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797501
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 69

Book Description
Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, "user-friendly" technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods. Stress and exhaustion are not just personal experiences, but social and historical phenomena as well. Denouncing a world in which every against-the-grain response can lead to further disempowerment, he draws on literature, philosophy, and the social and natural sciences to explore the stakes of sacrificing intermittent intellectual reflection for constant neural connection.

On Lingering and Literature

Author: Harold Schweizer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000362051
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Book Description
Lingering and its decried equivalents, such as dawdling, idling, loafing, or lolling about, are both shunned and coveted in our culture where time is money and where there is never quite enough of either. Is lingering lazy? Is it childish? Boring? Do poets linger? (Is that why poetry is boring?) Is it therapeutic? Should we linger more? Less? What happens when we linger? Harold Schweizer here examines an experience of time that, though common, usually passes unnoticed. Drawing on a wide range of philosophic and literary texts and examples, On Lingering and Literature exemplifies in its style and accessible argumentation the new genre of post-criticism, and aims to reward anyone interested in slow reading, daydreaming, or resisting our culture of speed and consumption.

Shanzhai

Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262534363
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
Tracing the thread of “decreation” in Chinese thought, from constantly changing classical masterpieces to fake cell phones that are better than the original. Shanzhai is a Chinese neologism that means “fake,” originally coined to describe knock-off cell phones marketed under such names as Nokir and Samsing. These cell phones were not crude forgeries but multifunctional, stylish, and as good as or better than the originals. Shanzhai has since spread into other parts of Chinese life, with shanzhai books, shanzhai politicians, shanzhai stars. There is a shanzhai Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll, in which Harry takes on his nemesis Yandomort. In the West, this would be seen as piracy, or even desecration, but in Chinese culture, originals are continually transformed—deconstructed. In this volume in the Untimely Meditations series, Byung-Chul Han traces the thread of deconstruction, or “decreation,” in Chinese thought, from ancient masterpieces that invite inscription and transcription to Maoism—“a kind a shanzhai Marxism,” Han writes. Han discusses the Chinese concepts of quan, or law, which literally means the weight that slides back and forth on a scale, radically different from Western notions of absoluteness; zhen ji, or original, determined not by an act of creation but by unending process; xian zhan, or seals of leisure, affixed by collectors and part of the picture's composition; fuzhi, or copy, a replica of equal value to the original; and shanzhai. The Far East, Han writes, is not familiar with such “pre-deconstructive” factors as original or identity. Far Eastern thought begins with deconstruction.

Byung-Chul Han

Author: Steven Knepper
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509561005
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
Byung-Chul Han is one of the most important living philosophers, renowned for his critiques of the digital age. In response to the idea that new technological devices expand our freedom, he argues that they lead to burnout and self-absorption and that we must redevelop contemplative practices which slow us down and open us up. He has brought to his thought forms of deep cosmopolitanism developed from both Zen Buddhism and a renewed Romanticism. This book is the first critical introduction to Han’s body of work. Knepper, Stoneman, and Wyllie explore Han’s rich oeuvre to date and his incisive contributions to a range of disciplines, including critical theory, media studies, political philosophy, and aesthetics. They unpack his key terms and illustrate his concepts with a range of examples, revealing how the critiques of the “achievement society” and burnout, which have earned Han a global audience, build on his earlier accounts of power, violence, and mood. This broader view addresses the most frequent criticisms of Han and makes a compelling case that he is not only an insightful diagnostician of the present moment but one whose interpretation of both Western and Eastern traditions offers wisdom for navigating the now acute problems of modernity. This lively book is essential reading for anyone getting to grips with Han’s extraordinary work.

Capitalism and the Death Drive

Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509545026
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 135

Book Description
What we call growth today is in fact a tumorous growth, a cancerous proliferation which is disrupting the social organism. These tumours endlessly metastasize and grow with an inexplicable, deadly vitality. At a certain point this growth is no longer productive, but rather destructive. Capitalism passed this point long ago. Its destructive forces cause not only ecological and social catastrophes but also mental collapse. The destructive compulsion to perform combines self-affirmation and self-destruction in one. We optimize ourselves to death. Brutal competition ends in destruction. It produces an emotional coldness and indifference towards others as well as towards one’s own self. The devastating consequences of capitalism suggest that a death drive is at work. Freud initially introduced the death drive hesitantly, but later admitted that he ‘couldn’t think beyond it’ as the idea of the death drive became increasingly central to his thought. Today, it is impossible to think about capitalism without considering the death drive.

Non-things

Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509551719
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 110

Book Description
We no longer inhabit earth and dwell under the sky: these are being replaced by Google Earth and the Cloud. The terrestrial order is giving way to a digital order, the world of things is being replaced by a world of non-things – a constantly expanding ‘infosphere’ of information and communication which displaces objects and obliterates any stillness and calmness in our lives. Byung-Chul Han’s critique of the infosphere highlights the price we are paying for our growing preoccupation with information and communication. Today we search for more information without gaining any real knowledge. We communicate constantly without participating in a community. We save masses of data without keeping track of our memories. We accumulate friends and followers without encountering other people. This is how information develops a form of life that has no stability or duration. And as we become increasingly absorbed in the infosphere, we lose touch with the magic of things which provide a stable environment for dwelling and give continuity to human life. The infosphere may seem to grant us new freedoms but it creates new forms of control too, and it cuts us off from the kind of freedom that is tied to acting in the world. This new book by one of the most creative cultural theorists writing today will be of interest to a wide readership.

Lingering with the Works of Ted T. Aoki

Author: Nicole Y. S. Lee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000508889
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
This unique collection of essays from emerging and established curriculum theory scholars documents individuals’ personal encounters and lingering interactions with Ted T. Aoki and his scholarship. The work illuminates the impact of Aoki’s lifework both theoretically and experientially. Featuring many of the field’s top scholars, the text reveals Aoki’s historical legacy and the contemporary significance of his work for educational research and practice. The influence of Aoki’s ideas, pedagogy, and philosophy on lived curriculum is vibrantly examined. Themes include tensionality, multiplicity, and bridging of difference. Ultimately, the text celebrates an Aokian "way of being" whilst engaging a diversity of perspectives, knowledges, and philosophies in education to reflect on the contribution of his work and its continual enrichment of curriculum scholarship today. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in curriculum studies, educational research, teacher education, and the philosophy of education more broadly. Those specifically interested in international and comparative education, as well as interdisciplinary approaches – which include perspectives in arts, language and literacy, sciences, technology, and higher education curriculum – will also benefit from this book.