Friday, October 19, 2012

Ruth Rikowski on 'Consciousness and Revolt' - by R.C. Smith


RUTH RIKOWSKI ON ‘CONSCIOUSNESS AND REVOLT’ – BY R.C. SMITH

On her Serendipitous Moments blog, Ruth Rikowski reviews and analyses Consciousness and Revolt by R.C. Smith.

Ruth notes that:

“Robert Smith’s basic position is that we need to abandon searches for the absolute and for objectivity, and not follow any particular ideology or idol. People's desire for the absolute arises from their need for security, argues Smith, but he says that this is a false sense of security. Also, that it is a form of self-deception, evasion and distortion. Instead, we need to focus on experiential life – and that this is what is meaningful and the way in which we should make sense of the world” (Rikowski, 2012, p.2).


DETAILS ON THE BOOK
Author: R. C. Smith
ISBN: 9780957096103
Publication Date: 01-12-2011
Pages: 424
Format: Soft Cover
Click for a 10 Page Preview
Price: £14.99
Heathwood Press is proud to announce the release of its inaugural publication, Consciousness and Revolt: An Exploration toward Reconciliation.


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Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

The People Speak - by Anthony Arnove, Colin Firth and David Horspool


THE PEOPLE SPEAK: VOICES THAT CHANGED BRITAIN – BY ANTHONY ARNOVE, COLIN FIRTH AND DAVID HORSPOOL

A Message from Anthony Arnove

My new book with Colin Firth, THE PEOPLE SPEAK: VOICES THAT CHANGED BRITAIN, is just out from Canongate Books.

The book, inspired by the work of people's historian Howard Zinn, is a documentary collection of dramatic voices of protest and dissent from the twelfth century to the present.

You can read about the book here: http://www.canongate.tv/the-people-speak.html

There are some very moving readings and musical performances -- including by Vanessa Redgrave, a last-minute surprise guest -- from our launch event here: http://www.canongate.tv/the-people-speak-event-footage

Great photos from the event can be viewed here: http://www.eco-age.com/item/3807-The_People_Speak_
http://pinterest.com/ecoage/the-people-speak-2012/

An excerpt of Colin Firth's introduction and some selections from the book can be found here:
http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/scotland/colin-firth-presents-the-people-speak-voices-that-changed-britain-1-2539941

And you can check out our BBC Culture Show profile here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxHB8eRmXpA

I hope the book might be of interest.

Yours
Anthony

The People Speak tells the story of Britain through the voices of the visionaries, dissenters, rebels and everyday folk who took on the Establishment and stood up for what they believed in. Here are their stories, letters, speeches and songs, from John Ball to Daniel Defoe; from Thomas Paine to Oscar Wilde; from the peasants' revolts to the suffragists to the anti-war demonstrators of today. Spanning almost one thousand years and over 150 individual voices, these are some of the most powerful words in our history.

Colin Firth (CBE) is a Bafta- and Academy Award-winning actor. His films include The English Patient, Fever Pitch, Bridget Jones's Diary, Girl with a Pearl Earring, A Single Man and The King's Speech. Alongside Anthony Arnove, he was instrumental in bringing a televised stage performance of The People Speak to the UK in 2010.

Anthony Arnove is the author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, editor of Iraq Under Siege, Howard Zinn Speaks and The Essential Chomsky, and co-author, with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People's History of the United States and Terrorism and War. He is the co-director of The People Speak with Chris Moore and Howard Zinn.

David Horspool is a historian and editor at the Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of two previous books: Why Alfred Burned the Cakes and The English Rebel: One Thousand Years of Trouble-making from the Normans to the Nineties. He writes for The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the New York Times.

‘The People Speak’ at Canongate Books: http://www.canongate.tv/authors/colinfirthandanthonyarnove



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‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com 
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Glenn Rikowski’s paper, Critical Pedagogy and the Constitution of Capitalist Society has been published at Heathwood Press as a Monthly Guest Article for September 2012, online at:

Heathwood Press: http://www.heathwoodpress.com 

Friday, October 12, 2012

Heathwood Institute & Press



HEATHWOOD INSTITUTE & PRESS – AN INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE FOR CRITICAL THOUGHT

Heathwood Institute and Press

Heathwood Institute and Press is a non-profit, critical theoretical organization. Motivated and inspired by the Frankfurt School, our aim is to offer foundational social critique as well as promote concrete, critical alternatives to the type of social policy symptomatic of ‘damaged society’. As a critical theoretical organization, we strive to not only challenge the existing field of research and policy in contemporary society. We also strive to fundamentally challenge from a foundational and multidisciplinary perspective the existing social model, and with a mind toward the concept of systemic change.

Originally founded in December 2011 by a group of well-respected researchers, academics and activists, we are now actively bringing together and supporting individuals who are leaders in their area and whose scholarship possesses the potential to break new grounds in critical theoretical study and improve our understanding of how to sensitively measure and foster ‘human progress’ in contemporary society.

While our aim at Heathwood is to not only understand but also to measure social progress from a multidisciplinary, integrated and methodologically unique perspective; our motivation is to also develop simultaneously a post-Frankfurtian critical theory and to collectively promote the idea of foundational critique. In the interests of social progress we are geared toward excellence in scholarship and distinguished merit in terms of providing ground breaking research in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Psychology and Education, and with the ultimate goal of communicating the findings of our research in an engaging, practical manner that is both applicable to policy makers and accessible to the general public.

Our Mission

The mission of Heathwood Institute and Press is to address the root causes of social, economic and environmental inequality. In the process we are committed to the promotion of an informed and engaged citizenry; to promote a foundational awareness and understanding of social, cultural, economic and political processes; as well as to fight economic and social injustice, and to protect the diversity of nature and society and the natural systems upon which all life depends.

By investigating more generally the idea of ‘damaged society’ our goal is to produce highly respectable, critical works, whose seminal theses offer the more broad foundations for concrete, critical alternatives which affirm the notion of systemic change and the need for fundamental public policy shifts. In principle, we seek to further this mission by advancing a new wave of critical theory in to the 21st Century.

Our mission is three-fold:
1) To understand the fundamental human issues that prevent individual and collective harmony and well-being, and that impede social progress as well as the healthy development of Western civilization;
2) To identify catalysts for change on a fundamental level across the different spheres of society;
3) To engage with researchers, policy makers and most importantly the general public in effort to promote critical dialogue as well as active leadership and participation in the manifestation of social change

The Heathwood Institute & Press website is at: http://www.heathwoodpress.com/

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‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moonhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com 
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Saturday, October 6, 2012

I Love Transcontinental


I LOVE TRANSCONTINENTAL

I Transcontinental is a protest against corporate banality, mass-produced goods, human exploitation, and vulgarity.

We support originality, beauty, and harmony.

Our products are all individually mixed media hand-printed. No two are alike. We do not make more than three of any design (if that) because we want it to be yours, true, unique, and obscure. The clothes and accessories we craft are fair trade, organic cotton, using water based dyes and other such environmentally friendly materials.

This is a peaceful protest. We can only hope that beauty and art will tame the beast greed made our world into.

See I Transcontinental at: http://ihearttranscontinental.blogspot.co.uk/

This is a new, radical and dynamic development in art, design, music and protest Glenn Rikowski

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‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com 

Glenn Rikowski’s paper, Critical Pedagogy and the Constitution of Capitalist Society has been published at Heathwood Press as a Monthly Guest Article for September 2012, online at:

Heathwood Press: http://www.heathwoodpress.com 

Friday, October 5, 2012

D.H. Lawrence: A Journey



D.H. LAWRENCE: A JOURNEY

Blog item for ‘Serendipitous Moments’ by Ruth Rikowski


In this piece, Ruth Rikowski briefly describes her ‘D.H. Lawrence Summer Journey’. It was actually a journey that we both went on, as she read various f bits out to me, as she was reading this summer 2012.

D. H. Lawrence: an incredible writer; a writer that profoundly changed both of our lives.

Ruth’s initial intention was to find out more about the so-called Nietzschean effect in Lawrence’s work; how much of it was real and how much imagined and/or exaggerated?

Together we concluded that it was more a Nietzschean way of life that Lawrence embraced; the ‘going for life’ mentality. It was this, rather than adhering to any particular philosophical positions of Nietzsche’s, such as the ‘Will to Power’, which Lawrence actually disagreed with.

And it was Frieda Lawrence, his wife, who loved Nietzche and read lots of him, who really drove all this forward – she wanted to nurture a male genius and to live life more fully.

Lawrence himself preferred reading and writing literature.

G. H. Neville, Lawrence’s closest childhood friend said in his book ‘A Memoir of D. H. Lawrence: the Betrayal’ (Cambridge University Press, 1981):

“We bemoan, I bemoan, Lawrence as a lost leader of men. I believe that, could his undoubted gifts have been applied in other directions, he would have become the leader of a new world movement. I know that he could have become such a leader, but I sometimes feel that, even now, he has completed his real work, and that, ultimately, when a right conception of our Lawrence has spread throughout the world, that dreamed-of leadership will yet be his.” (Neville, 1981, p. 142)

Do read the piece, and let us aim to live life more fully – even in the limiting and limited form of life that is capitalist society.


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‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com  
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski