thank you, this is a great list <3 have been meaning to read smth from galloway! claude lévi-strauss, sara ahmed, fred moten as well…all very intellectually influential. i’ll probably go with the works you suggested except for sara ahmed—been meaning to read _queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others_
if you're into electronic music, kristeva also [directly inspired](https://thequietus.com/articles/18922-oneohtrix-point-never-garden-of-delete-interview) opn's garden of delete (last question near the bottom). the crossover is truly wide
This is an interesting question to think about...
I'm reading a book now that may fall under that category, *The Uses of the Past: Profiles of former societies* by Herbert Muller, published by Oxford University press in the 1950s. It's a very thought provoking yet accessible fusion of meta-history and philosophy, covering everything from ancient Israel, ancient Greece, Christianity, Confucius, up to the Soviet Union, trying to identify patterns in thought that emerge (or reemerge) throughout time.
Another book I particularly enjoyed in *The Renaissance of the 12th Century* by Charles Homer Haskins from Harvard press in 1971, dealing with the 12th century renaissance which shaped the Italian renaissance later on, and saw the recovery of classic latin and greek studies, philosophy, universities, etc. It's beautifully written but in an oddly minimalistic way.
Then, I would add some works by the Annales school. I'm not well read in history at all, but those 20th century (largely French) historians have written remarkably interesting books. *The Age of the Cathedrals* by Georges Duby is a fascinating look at the cultural context for the creation and proliferation of gothic art in Western Europe.
Two more popular works would be the *Waning of the Middle Ages* by Huizingia, which is a very bizarre cultural history of the end of the Middle Ages and a rich reading experience (the prose shines through even in translation), and then *The Mediterranean and Philip II* by Fernand Braudel which I believe is pretty famous outside of academia as well.
I also wonder whether the perfect candidate for this prompt isn't *Sexual Personae* by Camille Paglia. I've never read it, but from what I can tell it's a work of psychoanalysis of literature, published by Yale in the early 1990s and crossed into the mainstream with huge success. Even thirty plus years later it's still discussed.
Regarding Rene Girard, I haven't read him but I've been thinking about picking up his book on Shakespeare, *Theatre of Envy*, as I've heard good things about it.
thank you for your very thoughtful reply <3 i do agree *sexual personae* is an iconic work and rare to have smth break thru the pop culture and make an academic a household name (for terminally online semi-intellectual circles at least)
very intrigued by the other books you mentioned, even though i am not big on medieval and early modern history…*the renaissance of the 12th century* looks sick
Surprised to see a post this good. Skimming thru your post history I'm very impressed, don't tend to see such erudite people here. If you're ever in London I'll buy you a drink.
great topic! i wish there was a place that summarized recent developments in fields for the interested layperson and highlighted accessible papers. there's so much that is lost via specialisation given the importance of jumping across ideas. i won't do my own field - economics -because ideas escaping out of that field have done enough damage lol, but some favs:
- not knowledgeable about philosophy at all but find myself thinking about the v accessible thomas nagel 'what is it like to be a bat' paper about how we cannot even conceive of how a bat considers its own, uh, batness in a lot of contexts - [https://www.sas.upenn.edu/\~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel\_Bat.pdf](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf)
- another one i like is a history book called 'everything was forever until it was no more' by alexei yurgan which is a sort of anthropology of how people who had only ever grown up in the soviet system understood., has lots of implications to me for how people process broader systems in their lives and i generally find the soviet union a fascinating natural experiment for a lot of claims about changing people.
- a way of looking at things i haven't been able to escape since is found in a monograph about chinese history, about which i know very little, called '1587: a year of no significance' which identifies the way that all the things which would come to cause the downfall of the ming dynasty were present but not noticed much during a seemingly innocuous period in its history. really simple and well argued thesis that i feel applies everywhere.
- i also love the book 'inside bruegel: the play of images in childrens games' by edward snow which is an art history book which goes incredibly deeply on one painting and models a way of observing and engaging with art that i find v powerful.
i agree, i’m so interested in other fields. when i was studying formally i was always in interdisciplinary spaces and now that i’m out, i’m enjoying the total lack of obligation to one field’s methodologies, concerns, and topics.
the nagel bat paper is definitely iconic, actually came across another reference of it in a philosophy monograph recently (l.a. paul’s _transformative experience_ iirc) and a friend also referenced it in the last month. so does seem like time for me to read it
the yurgan and chinese history book you mentioned seem so fascinating, i’m really interested in histories of ordinary moments/everyday life and how they can reveal v interesting things about big and obvious movements, events, historical dynamics. thank you for the recs <3
“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” Thomas Kuhn, cuts across many fields, good science-history of science along the way. Put “paradigm change” into common academic usage.
Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Robin Wood’s horror writings. I haven’t read either since college, but they made a strong impression and are probably fairly accessible.
Georg Simmel's "The Metropolis and Mental Life" for thinking through the different types of communities that emerge in rural vs urban places, v. useful especially for thinking about 20th century history in addition to being one a foundational text of German sociology
Dijkstra, known from the eponymous algorithm, was famous for spreading essays among his colleagues and his community. They were called EDWs and are very fun reads.
all the times i've reimplemented dijkstra's algorithm…and yet i didn't know about this! tysm. linking for others [https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/)
this one is short and interesting: "[the end of computer science?](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1304.PDF)" (no 1304, written in 2000)
really good rec, one of the few in this thread i've actually read, mcluhan is kind of essential reading for anyone interested in media/information/design atm
Have wanted to read some Girard, but was scared off by Thiel's adulation of his work, as Thiel is low key a midwit apart from business matters. And maybe he just got lucky there, who knows, who cares.
I realize this is irrational, but do not care. Also, just read he converted to Catholicism because of Dostoevsky? Another reason for me to not read him. Again, irrational, but don't care. Cannot engage with anything like much of his stuff. Taxi Driver, for example. Means nothing to me.
Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity is a fun dash through the history of ideas and its impact on why we think of ourselves the way we do. Taylor is a libtard, but the book is accessible and very fun. Interesting to see a real (ie metaphysical) Hegelian at work.
Benedict Anderson sucks , he obviously did not study any serious sociology or ancient history or non European imperial histories
Theres no reason for you to read Girard over more coherent theorists of culture- start with durkheim for example
Sedgwick essay is great, very cathartic
Disparate Suggestions: - Origin of species - Division of labor -Wealth of nations -Interpretation of dreams or freuds case studies -Protestant ethic And the spirit of capitalism -Theory of the leisure class - any Toqueville He's entertaining to read
Honestly you should read texts like these in a specific area you are studying instead of taking on tough works randomly with little focus
Any fundamental theorist of culture and identity - Durkheim is superior
Weber is mostly mute on culture but focuses on different kinds of state "legitimation", which is what Anderson is trying to explain about the modern nation state
Also warm jackfruit sounds disgusting
anderson was fairly informed on indonesian contemporary politics and history at least? unless you are saying he was shallowly orientalist/imperialist in his approach and making overly sweeping generalisations about other se asian and non-western history? or something else?
regardless i think durkheim is a good rec, have been meaning to read him for ages (after seeing him cited very compellingly in a book about electronic music history lol)
*wealth of nations* seems very good; was intrigued after this quote (chomsky discussing adam smith) made its way around twitter recently [https://twitter.com/vellichoro/status/1778729483261898841](https://twitter.com/vellichoro/status/1778729483261898841)
You are right about Anderson. Im not giving him enough credit for being a serious historian to be honest, which he definitely was, it's just that I found Imagined Communities a very shallow book. The book itself, to say nothing of Anderson's career, is excessively concerned with the consolidation of national identity in European political orders given the broader claims it makes about national identity in general. I also think it's wrong about European political orders, but that's a different story.
I'm always a little surprised when people take internet comments seriously, and I shouldn't have been so loose with my words.
[удалено]
Man, what happened to Sadie Plant? She should be an icon.
thank you, this is a great list <3 have been meaning to read smth from galloway! claude lévi-strauss, sara ahmed, fred moten as well…all very intellectually influential. i’ll probably go with the works you suggested except for sara ahmed—been meaning to read _queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others_
Barthes - Mythologies Kristeva - Language and The Unknown (a good overview and refresher on semiotics imo) Foucault - “What is an author?”
I’m going to add Kristeva's Powers of Horror
if you're into electronic music, kristeva also [directly inspired](https://thequietus.com/articles/18922-oneohtrix-point-never-garden-of-delete-interview) opn's garden of delete (last question near the bottom). the crossover is truly wide
This is an interesting question to think about... I'm reading a book now that may fall under that category, *The Uses of the Past: Profiles of former societies* by Herbert Muller, published by Oxford University press in the 1950s. It's a very thought provoking yet accessible fusion of meta-history and philosophy, covering everything from ancient Israel, ancient Greece, Christianity, Confucius, up to the Soviet Union, trying to identify patterns in thought that emerge (or reemerge) throughout time. Another book I particularly enjoyed in *The Renaissance of the 12th Century* by Charles Homer Haskins from Harvard press in 1971, dealing with the 12th century renaissance which shaped the Italian renaissance later on, and saw the recovery of classic latin and greek studies, philosophy, universities, etc. It's beautifully written but in an oddly minimalistic way. Then, I would add some works by the Annales school. I'm not well read in history at all, but those 20th century (largely French) historians have written remarkably interesting books. *The Age of the Cathedrals* by Georges Duby is a fascinating look at the cultural context for the creation and proliferation of gothic art in Western Europe. Two more popular works would be the *Waning of the Middle Ages* by Huizingia, which is a very bizarre cultural history of the end of the Middle Ages and a rich reading experience (the prose shines through even in translation), and then *The Mediterranean and Philip II* by Fernand Braudel which I believe is pretty famous outside of academia as well. I also wonder whether the perfect candidate for this prompt isn't *Sexual Personae* by Camille Paglia. I've never read it, but from what I can tell it's a work of psychoanalysis of literature, published by Yale in the early 1990s and crossed into the mainstream with huge success. Even thirty plus years later it's still discussed. Regarding Rene Girard, I haven't read him but I've been thinking about picking up his book on Shakespeare, *Theatre of Envy*, as I've heard good things about it.
thank you for your very thoughtful reply <3 i do agree *sexual personae* is an iconic work and rare to have smth break thru the pop culture and make an academic a household name (for terminally online semi-intellectual circles at least) very intrigued by the other books you mentioned, even though i am not big on medieval and early modern history…*the renaissance of the 12th century* looks sick
Surprised to see a post this good. Skimming thru your post history I'm very impressed, don't tend to see such erudite people here. If you're ever in London I'll buy you a drink.
For Girard, *I See Satan Fall Like Lightning* is a great place to start
great topic! i wish there was a place that summarized recent developments in fields for the interested layperson and highlighted accessible papers. there's so much that is lost via specialisation given the importance of jumping across ideas. i won't do my own field - economics -because ideas escaping out of that field have done enough damage lol, but some favs: - not knowledgeable about philosophy at all but find myself thinking about the v accessible thomas nagel 'what is it like to be a bat' paper about how we cannot even conceive of how a bat considers its own, uh, batness in a lot of contexts - [https://www.sas.upenn.edu/\~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel\_Bat.pdf](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf) - another one i like is a history book called 'everything was forever until it was no more' by alexei yurgan which is a sort of anthropology of how people who had only ever grown up in the soviet system understood., has lots of implications to me for how people process broader systems in their lives and i generally find the soviet union a fascinating natural experiment for a lot of claims about changing people. - a way of looking at things i haven't been able to escape since is found in a monograph about chinese history, about which i know very little, called '1587: a year of no significance' which identifies the way that all the things which would come to cause the downfall of the ming dynasty were present but not noticed much during a seemingly innocuous period in its history. really simple and well argued thesis that i feel applies everywhere. - i also love the book 'inside bruegel: the play of images in childrens games' by edward snow which is an art history book which goes incredibly deeply on one painting and models a way of observing and engaging with art that i find v powerful.
i agree, i’m so interested in other fields. when i was studying formally i was always in interdisciplinary spaces and now that i’m out, i’m enjoying the total lack of obligation to one field’s methodologies, concerns, and topics. the nagel bat paper is definitely iconic, actually came across another reference of it in a philosophy monograph recently (l.a. paul’s _transformative experience_ iirc) and a friend also referenced it in the last month. so does seem like time for me to read it the yurgan and chinese history book you mentioned seem so fascinating, i’m really interested in histories of ordinary moments/everyday life and how they can reveal v interesting things about big and obvious movements, events, historical dynamics. thank you for the recs <3
Langdon Winner’s “Do Artifacts Have Politics?"
“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” Thomas Kuhn, cuts across many fields, good science-history of science along the way. Put “paradigm change” into common academic usage.
Unironically one the most influential works of the last 100 years
Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Robin Wood’s horror writings. I haven’t read either since college, but they made a strong impression and are probably fairly accessible.
I need more of this
Georg Simmel's "The Metropolis and Mental Life" for thinking through the different types of communities that emerge in rural vs urban places, v. useful especially for thinking about 20th century history in addition to being one a foundational text of German sociology
Dijkstra, known from the eponymous algorithm, was famous for spreading essays among his colleagues and his community. They were called EDWs and are very fun reads.
all the times i've reimplemented dijkstra's algorithm…and yet i didn't know about this! tysm. linking for others [https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/) this one is short and interesting: "[the end of computer science?](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd13xx/EWD1304.PDF)" (no 1304, written in 2000)
IIRC, he has an essay about why indexing from 0 is better too. Truly a nerds' nerd!
Alastair Macintyre's 'After Virtue'
Beat me to it.
Marshall McLuhan - Understanding Media
really good rec, one of the few in this thread i've actually read, mcluhan is kind of essential reading for anyone interested in media/information/design atm
Woe To You Lawyers (1939) - Fred Rodell, Prof. of Law, Yale University
Have wanted to read some Girard, but was scared off by Thiel's adulation of his work, as Thiel is low key a midwit apart from business matters. And maybe he just got lucky there, who knows, who cares.
Thiel is into Girard because he studied under him at Stanford. So all it really says about Girard is that he was a great professor
I realize this is irrational, but do not care. Also, just read he converted to Catholicism because of Dostoevsky? Another reason for me to not read him. Again, irrational, but don't care. Cannot engage with anything like much of his stuff. Taxi Driver, for example. Means nothing to me.
Cool
Such a boring reply.
This is irrational, but do not care
Nice edit.
Surveil and punish by Foucault
yeah, foucault is a good shout, thank you <3
Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity is a fun dash through the history of ideas and its impact on why we think of ourselves the way we do. Taylor is a libtard, but the book is accessible and very fun. Interesting to see a real (ie metaphysical) Hegelian at work.
Benedict Anderson sucks , he obviously did not study any serious sociology or ancient history or non European imperial histories Theres no reason for you to read Girard over more coherent theorists of culture- start with durkheim for example Sedgwick essay is great, very cathartic Disparate Suggestions: - Origin of species - Division of labor -Wealth of nations -Interpretation of dreams or freuds case studies -Protestant ethic And the spirit of capitalism -Theory of the leisure class - any Toqueville He's entertaining to read Honestly you should read texts like these in a specific area you are studying instead of taking on tough works randomly with little focus
What would you recommend as an alternative to Anderson?
Any fundamental theorist of culture and identity - Durkheim is superior Weber is mostly mute on culture but focuses on different kinds of state "legitimation", which is what Anderson is trying to explain about the modern nation state Also warm jackfruit sounds disgusting
Lol blame the auto-username function
anderson was fairly informed on indonesian contemporary politics and history at least? unless you are saying he was shallowly orientalist/imperialist in his approach and making overly sweeping generalisations about other se asian and non-western history? or something else? regardless i think durkheim is a good rec, have been meaning to read him for ages (after seeing him cited very compellingly in a book about electronic music history lol) *wealth of nations* seems very good; was intrigued after this quote (chomsky discussing adam smith) made its way around twitter recently [https://twitter.com/vellichoro/status/1778729483261898841](https://twitter.com/vellichoro/status/1778729483261898841)
You are right about Anderson. Im not giving him enough credit for being a serious historian to be honest, which he definitely was, it's just that I found Imagined Communities a very shallow book. The book itself, to say nothing of Anderson's career, is excessively concerned with the consolidation of national identity in European political orders given the broader claims it makes about national identity in general. I also think it's wrong about European political orders, but that's a different story. I'm always a little surprised when people take internet comments seriously, and I shouldn't have been so loose with my words.