Kirjahaku

A new philosophy of movement that explores the active relation between sensation and thought through the prisms of dance, cinema, art, and new media.With Relationscapes, Erin Manning offers a new philosophy of movement challenging the idea that movement is simple displacement in space, knowable only in terms of the actual. Exploring the relation between sensation and thought through the prisms of dance, cinema, art, and new media, Manning argues for the intensity of movement. From this idea of intensity-the incipiency at the heart of movement-Manning develops the concept of preacceleration, which makes palpable how movement creates relational intervals out of which displacements take form.Discussing her theory of incipient movement in terms of dance and relational movement, Manning describes choreographic practices that work to develop with a body in movement rather than simply stabilizing that body into patterns of displacement. She examines the movement-images of Leni Riefenstahl, Etienne-Jules Marey, and Norman McLaren (drawing on Bergson's idea of duration), and explores the dot-paintings of contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists. Turning to language, Manning proposes a theory of prearticulation claiming that language's affective force depends on a concept of thought in motion.Relationscapes takes a "Whiteheadian perspective," recognizing Whitehead's importance and his influence on process philosophers of the late twentieth century-Deleuze and Guattari in particular. It will be of special interest to scholars in new media, philosophy, dance studies, film theory, and art history.

Explores questions of identity and belonging through the lens of Canadian cultural productionWhat does it mean to be at home? In a critical engagement with notions of territory, identity, racial difference, separatism, multiculturalism, and homelessness, this book delves into the question of what it means to belong-in particular, what it means to be at home in Canada. Ephemeral Territories weaves together many narratives and representations of Canadian identity-from political philosophy and cultural theory to art and films such as Srinivas Krishna’s Lulu, Clement Virgo’s Rude, and Charles Biname’s Eldorado-to develop and complicate familiar views of identity and selfhood.Canadian identity has historically been linked to a dual notion of culture traceable to the French and English strains of Canada’s colonial past. Erin Manning subverts this binary through readings that shift our attention from nationalist constructions of identity and territory to a more radical and pluralizing understanding of the political. As she brings together issues specific to Canada (such as Quebec separatism and Canadian landscape painting) and concerns that are more transnational (such as globalization and immigration), Manning emphasizes the truly cross-cultural nature of the problems of racism, gender discrimination, and homelessness. Thus this impassioned reading of Canadian texts also makes an important contribution to philosophical, cultural, and political discourses across the globe.

Political philosophy has long been bound by traditional thinking about the body and the senses. Through an engagement with the state-centered vocabulary of this discipline, Politics of Touch explores the ways in which sensing bodies continually run up against existing political structures. In this groundbreaking work, Erin Manning reconsiders how new politics can arise that challenge the national body politic.In Politics of Touch, Manning develops a new way to conceive the role of the senses, and of touch in particular. Exploring concepts of violence, gender, sexuality, security, democracy, and identity, she traces the ways in which touch informs and reforms the body. Specifically considering tango-a tactile, rhythmic, and improvisational dance- she foregrounds movement as the sensing body's intervention into the political. With a fresh vision and an original theoretical basis, Manning shows the ontogenetic potential of the body, and in doing so, redefines our understanding of the sense of touch in philosophical and political terms. Erin Manning is assistant professor of fine arts at Concordia University and the author of Ephemeral Territories (Minnesota, 2003).

In Always More Than One, the philosopher, visual artist, and dancer Erin Manning explores the concept of the "more than human" in the context of movement, perception, and experience. Working from Whitehead's process philosophy and Simondon's theory of individuation, she extends the concepts of movement and relation developed in her earlier work toward the notion of "choreographic thinking." Here, she uses choreographic thinking to explore a mode of perception prior to the settling of experience into established categories. Manning connects this to the concept of "autistic perception," described by autistics as the awareness of a relational field prior to the so-called neurotypical tendency to "chunk" experience into predetermined subjects and objects. Autistics explain that, rather than immediately distinguishing objects-such as chairs and tables and humans-from one another on entering a given environment, they experience the environment as gradually taking form. Manning maintains that this mode of awareness underlies all perception. What we perceive is never first a subject or an object, but an ecology. From this vantage point, she proposes that we consider an ecological politics where movement and relation take precedence over predefined categories, such as the neurotypical and the neurodiverse, or the human and the nonhuman. What would it mean to embrace an ecological politics of collective individuation?

In Always More Than One, the philosopher, visual artist, and dancer Erin Manning explores the concept of the "more than human" in the context of movement, perception, and experience. Working from Whitehead's process philosophy and Simondon's theory of individuation, she extends the concepts of movement and relation developed in her earlier work toward the notion of "choreographic thinking." Here, she uses choreographic thinking to explore a mode of perception prior to the settling of experience into established categories. Manning connects this to the concept of "autistic perception," described by autistics as the awareness of a relational field prior to the so-called neurotypical tendency to "chunk" experience into predetermined subjects and objects. Autistics explain that, rather than immediately distinguishing objects-such as chairs and tables and humans-from one another on entering a given environment, they experience the environment as gradually taking form. Manning maintains that this mode of awareness underlies all perception. What we perceive is never first a subject or an object, but an ecology. From this vantage point, she proposes that we consider an ecological politics where movement and relation take precedence over predefined categories, such as the neurotypical and the neurodiverse, or the human and the nonhuman. What would it mean to embrace an ecological politics of collective individuation?

In this wide-ranging and probing book Erin Manning extends her previous inquiries into the politics of movement to the concept of the minor gesture. The minor gesture, although it may pass almost unperceived, transforms the field of relations. More than a chance variation, less than a volition, it requires rethinking common assumptions about human agency and political action. To embrace the minor gesture's power to fashion relations, its capacity to open new modes of experience and manners of expression, is to challenge the ways in which the neurotypical image of the human devalues alternative ways of being moved by and moving through the world-in particular what Manning terms "autistic perception." Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalysis and Whitehead's speculative pragmatism, Manning's far-reaching analyses range from fashion to depression to the writings of autistics, in each case affirming the neurodiversity of the minor and the alternative politics it gestures toward.

In this wide-ranging and probing book Erin Manning extends her previous inquiries into the politics of movement to the concept of the minor gesture. The minor gesture, although it may pass almost unperceived, transforms the field of relations. More than a chance variation, less than a volition, it requires rethinking common assumptions about human agency and political action. To embrace the minor gesture's power to fashion relations, its capacity to open new modes of experience and manners of expression, is to challenge the ways in which the neurotypical image of the human devalues alternative ways of being moved by and moving through the world-in particular what Manning terms "autistic perception." Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalysis and Whitehead's speculative pragmatism, Manning's far-reaching analyses range from fashion to depression to the writings of autistics, in each case affirming the neurodiversity of the minor and the alternative politics it gestures toward.

What has a use in the future, unforeseeably, is radically useless now. What has an effect now is not necessarily useful if it falls through the gaps. In For a Pragmatics of the Useless Erin Manning examines what falls outside the purview of already-known functions and established standards of value, not for want of potential but for carrying an excess of it. The figures are various: the infrathin, the artful, proprioceptive tactility, neurodiversity, black life. It is around the latter two that a central refrain echoes: "All black life is neurodiverse life." This is not an equation, but an "approximation of proximity." Manning shows how neurotypicality and whiteness combine to form a normative baseline for existence. Blackness and neurodiversity "schizz" around the baseline, uselessly, pragmatically, figuring a more-than of life living. Manning, in dialogue with Félix Guattari and drawing on the black radical tradition's accounts of black life and the aesthetics of black sociality, proposes a "schizoanalysis" of the more-than, charting a panoply of techniques for other ways of living and learning.

What has a use in the future, unforeseeably, is radically useless now. What has an effect now is not necessarily useful if it falls through the gaps. In For a Pragmatics of the Useless Erin Manning examines what falls outside the purview of already-known functions and established standards of value, not for want of potential but for carrying an excess of it. The figures are various: the infrathin, the artful, proprioceptive tactility, neurodiversity, black life. It is around the latter two that a central refrain echoes: "All black life is neurodiverse life." This is not an equation, but an "approximation of proximity." Manning shows how neurotypicality and whiteness combine to form a normative baseline for existence. Blackness and neurodiversity "schizz" around the baseline, uselessly, pragmatically, figuring a more-than of life living. Manning, in dialogue with Félix Guattari and drawing on the black radical tradition's accounts of black life and the aesthetics of black sociality, proposes a "schizoanalysis" of the more-than, charting a panoply of techniques for other ways of living and learning.

Smijj is a Telmaj, which means he can travel vast distances and even move spaceships across the galaxy just by wishing. But Smijj is the most gifted Telmaj anyone has ever seen, and because of him the Telmaj people are finally taking a stand against the Unified Government and Telmaj slavery. He wants to take part in the fight for freedom. Instead, he has to deal with boredom, overprotective friends and this thing called school...Smijj realizes that his people are on the brink of war, and he believes he can help, if only the adults will let him. When a chance encounter with an escaped slave holds the promise of an exciting new adventure, Smijj is off and running...but soon he and his friends, both old and new, are running for their lives from the one place in the galaxy Smijj hoped he'd never set foot on again.

The Telmaj, whose special gift makes faster-than-light travel possible, have been taken as slaves for as long as anybody can remember. But now a war to end that slavery has begun between the Telmaj and the Unified Government--and the Telmaj's secret weapon, the Twenty, are already arising. But will Smijj find the others before the Unified Government does?Smijj may be young by his people's standards, but he has already proven that he is the fastest and strongest Telmaj anybody has ever heard of, and he's finally being allowed to join the fight. He doesn't mind danger, except when it threatens the people he loves. But he is learning that sometimes the most unexpected dangers can come in the form of trusted allies, and even friends.

Sam Oldfield is an ordinary kid with an ordinary life. Or is he? When he wakes up in a hospital he is told he's been missing for three days-so why does he remember nearly a year's worth of adventures in a magical kingdom in another world?Was all of it a dream? Did Sam really imagine a wise old magician, a cranky but loyal bird, a beautiful bossy princess, and the Sand Stone itself, whose power Sam alone could wield? That can't be true. But if the magical world of Ebdyrza and all of Sam's memories are real, then there really is an Enchanter's War, too. And the Enchanters may end up in Sam's world seeking to destroy the Sand Stone, and Sam with it.

It isn't easy being the leader of the Twenty Telmaj in a time of war. It's even harder when Firra, one of Smijj's oldest friends, decides she can no longer support the war or trust the Twenty. But Smijj doesn't have time for personal problems, not with Alcemitron, home of the Robots' Union, seeking an alliance with Telmaja.Things aren't always what they seem, however: Alcemitron wants more than an alliance. Someone has stolen an ancient and powerful device from them, a device that the Government might use as a weapon against Telmaja. Smijj and his friends must find the thief and stop him from handing the device over to Xentrova before it's too late-but the thief has a frightening secret of his own that could put Smijj and all of his friends in danger.

Most days, Sam Oldfield seems like an ordinary kid. But it's hard to be ordinary when you're really a powerful Enchanter destined to save a magical kingdom. Other Enchanters have been using their magic for evil, and Sam may be the only one who can stop them, thanks in part to the mysterious and magical Sand Stone that only Sam can use.Some days, Sam wonders what's more important: learning to use magic to save the kingdom of Ebdyrza, or passing seventh-grade math? At least Christmas break will be normal-or so Sam thinks, until the spell keeping Enchanters from crossing the Divide into the ordinary world is destroyed by an Enchanter Sam would rather not meet again. And when Sam and his friends must flee into Ebdyrza to escape a powerful enemy, Sam's worlds collide at last, as Sam must be prepared to fight not only an enemy, but a member of his own family.

Sarah Grey isn't sure what's more bewildering: her grief at her father's death, her new life in bustling Kingsport, or her aunt's determination to see Sarah make a brilliant marriage. As Sarah's period of mourning ends and she enters Kingsport's busy social life, there are only two things she knows for sure. One is that the people of Kingsport are too fond of mermaids, who ensure the shipping town's prosperity. The other is that Aunt Lyda is too inclined to hope that Sarah will marry Octavian Lye, the town's most important and most eligible bachelor. Sarah has other ideas for her future. Before she can act on them, the town is gripped with terror: there is a vampire in Kingsport, preying on young girls. Sarah is the first to learn the shocking truth behind the sinister attacks-but the truth leads to terrible secrets and hidden dangers for Sarah and the people she loves.

Sam Oldfield's life is far from ordinary these days. His cousin Eric now lives in Fairview and is teaching Sam to use Enchanter's magic properly. Sam's mom knows about Ebdyrza and is quickly becoming friends with Kittritt, Sam's sky-tangler friend. But not everything is going well; Sam's dad has been strangely distant and is impatient to help Eric move out of the Oldfield's home. Sam thinks his father will understand everything if Sam can just tell his dad about Ebdyrza. But before Sam can find a way to do that, danger strikes both in Ebdyrza and in Fairview. As Sam and his friends cross the Divide into Ebdyrza again, they find that the evil Paragons have taken steps to keep them trapped there-and they will stop at nothing to get Sam in their power.

Sam Oldfield is trapped in Ebdyrza. On the one hand, he now knows the identity of all three of the Paragons, the evil Enchanters trying to take over the magical land. On the other hand, a reckless bargain Sam made with the Paragons' leader to free his family from their power has backfired, and Sam is trapped in the most dangerous place in all Ebdyrza: the Shifting Sands. Alone, stranded, and struggling to stay alive, Sam realizes that time may run out for him before he can escape. But if he can't figure out a way out of this deadly desert, Sam may not be able to stop the Paragons from their most evil plan yet-a machine that drains the magic from helpless creatures and makes the Paragons' army unstoppable.