The \u3ci\u3eEthics\u3c/i\u3e of Benedict de Spinoza, translated by George Eliot

The Ethics of Benedict (or Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677) was written in Latin 1664-65 and published posthumously the year of his death. Spinoza\u27s statement of moral philosophy, inspired by the rationalism of Descartes and the Enlightenment, was considered heretical at the time. He was excommunicated by Jewish religious authorities and his writings proscribed by the Catholic Church. His works, however, proved a hiden influence on the thought Locke, Hume, Liebnitz, and Kant, and became one of the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition, with profound influence on the works of Hegel, Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. George Eliot [Marian Evans] (1819-1880) prepared this earliest English translation of the Ethics in 1854-56, but it remained unpublished when she could not agree to terms with the publisher of Bohn\u27s Philosophical Library. The manuscript was acquired by the Beinecke Library at Yale University, where it was transcribed by Thomas Deegan (1939-2001) of St. Xavier College. This transcription was published in the Salzburg Studies in English Literature series, Universität Salzburg, Austria, in 1981

The \u3ci\u3eEthics\u3c/i\u3e of Benedict de Spinoza, translated by George Eliot

The Ethics of Benedict (or Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677) was written in Latin 1664-65 and published posthumously the year of his death. Spinoza\u27s statement of moral philosophy, inspired by the rationalism of Descartes and the Enlightenment, was considered heretical at the time. He was excommunicated by Jewish religious authorities and his writings proscribed by the Catholic Church. His works, however, proved a hiden influence on the thought Locke, Hume, Liebnitz, and Kant, and became one of the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition, with profound influence on the works of Hegel, Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. George Eliot [Marian Evans] (1819-1880) prepared this earliest English translation of the Ethics in 1854-56, but it remained unpublished when she could not agree to terms with the publisher of Bohn\u27s Philosophical Library. The manuscript was acquired by the Beinecke Library at Yale University, where it was transcribed by Thomas Deegan (1939-2001) of St. Xavier College. This transcription was published in the Salzburg Studies in English Literature series, Universität Salzburg, Austria, in 1981

The Schizoid Dialectic Theses on winning the Union back

Bringing together Anderson's work as a cultural activist in performance (the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home (www.twoaddthree.org)) and his role as Branch Chair of his institution's union for teaching staff (University and College Union), this performative paper will argue that a dialectical, agonistic blurring of boundaries across the borders of conflicting identities and interests is not only productive and desirable, but also liberatory and could constitute a small act of social justice. From lived experience the paper stages a series of arguments - in dialogue form - between Gary the anarchist art-activist and Gary the reformist trade unionist branch chair. Whilst both would agree that social justice is the 'bottom line' neither would agree that the task of institutional transformation is in part to recognise the dialectical flux inherent in their (Gary's) conflicting identities. Yet, this is what emerges when these identities are juxtaposed to engage in agonistic debate. The dialogues focus on the institutional context of higher education in particular, and suggests that agonistically robust debate produces not a winner and a loser, but a dialectical schizoid (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004 Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari (2004) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, London: Continuum Impacts. [Google Scholar]) who occupies both positions, more or less, simultaneously. The dialogues deploys two texts: Karl Marx's Theses on Feuerbach (1845) - of which the union chair is enamoured - and the rewritten Theses on Winning the Union Back - which the art-activist performance artist has vandalised. The paper contains the full text of the rewritten Theses on Winning the Union Back

The Profanation of Revelation: On Language and Immanence in the Work of Giorgio Agamben

This essay seeks to articulate the many implications which Giorgio Agamben’s work holds for theology. It aims therefore to examine his (re)conceptualizations of language, in light of particular historical glosses on the ‘name of God’ and the nature of the ‘mystical’, as well as to highlight the political task of profanation, one of his most central concepts, in relation to the logos said to embody humanity’s ‘religious’ quest to find its Voice. As such, we see how he challenges those standard (ontotheological) notions of transcendence which have been consistently aligned with various historical forms of sovereignty. In addition, I intend to present his redefinition of revelation as solely the unveiling of the ‘name of God’ as the fact of our linguistic being, a movement from the transcendent divine realm to the merely human world before us. By proceeding in this manner, this essay tries to close in on one of the largest theological implications contained within Agamben’s work: the establishment of an ontology that could only be described as a form of ‘absolute’ immanence, an espousal of some form of pantheism (or perhaps panentheism) yet to be more fully pronounced within his writings

Painting the Body: Feminist Musings on Visual Autographies

In this paper I look at autographical depictions of the body in the work of Mato Ioannidou, a Greek woman artist, who participated in a wider narrative-based project on visual and textual entanglements between life and art. The paper unfolds in three parts: first, I give an overview of Ioannidou’s artwork, making connections with significant events in her life; then I discuss feminist theorizations of embodiment and visual auto/biography; and finally I draw on insights from Spinozist feminist philosophers to discuss the artist’s portrayal of women’s bodies in three cycles of her work. What I argue is that the body becomes a centerpiece in the attempt to perceive connections between life and art through expressionism rather than representation

Tractatus theologico-politicus

[B. Spinosa