Michel Serres

The Parasite (Posthumanities)

Meditations on environmental change and the necessity of a pact between Earth and its inhabitants

The Natural Contract

This English translation of Michel Serres' 1982 book Gense captures in lucid prose the startling breadth and depth of his thinking, as he probes the relations between order, disorder, knowledge, anxiety, and violence. Written in a unique blend of scientific discourse and lyrical outburst, classical philosophical idiom and conversational intimacy, by turns angry, playful, refined or discordant, Genesis is an attempt to think outside of metaphysical categories of unity or rational order and to make us hear--through both its content and form--the "noise," the "sound and the fury," that are the background of life and thought. Serres draws on a vast knowledge of such diverse disciplines as anthropology, classical history, music, theology, art history, information theory, physics, biology, dance and athletics, and Western metaphysics, and a range of cultural material that includes the writings of Plato, Kant, August Comte, Balzac, and Shakespeare, to name a few. He argues that although philosophy has been instrumental in the past in establishing laws of logic and rationality that have been crucial to our understanding of ourselves and our universe, one of the most pressing tasks of thought today is to recognize that such pockets of unity are islands of order in a sea of multiplicity--a sea which cannot really be conceived, but which perhaps can still be sensed, felt, and heard raging in chaos beneath the momentary crests of order imposed by human civilization. Philosophy of science or prose poetry, a classical meditation on metaphysics or a stream-of-consciousness polemic and veiled invective, Serres mounts a quirky, at times rhapsodical, but above all a "noisy" critique of traditional and current models in social theory, historiography, and aesthetics. The result is a work that is at once provocative, poetic, deeply personal, and ultimately religious--an apocalyptic call for the rebirth of philosophy as the art of thinking the unthinkable. About the Book: "An intensely beautiful and rigourous meditation on the birth of forms amid chaos and multiplicity from a major philosopher who is also an exquisite craftsman of the written word." --William Paulson, University of Michigan "Serres exhibits a rare, raw tendentiousness refreshing in its vitriol . . . it's the sort of light-hearted, perverse, and basically liberal tirade one hears too infrequently of late." --Word

Genesis

This book represents a defining break in Michel Serres' work, leaving behind traditional philosophy to explore the history and culture of science.

A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies

The Five Senses

"Nos sociétés occidentales ont déjà vécu deux révolutions : le passage de l'oral à l'écrit, puis de l'écrit à l'imprimé. Comme chacune des précédentes, la troisième, tout aussi décisive, s'accompagne de mutations politiques, sociales et cognitives. Ce sont des périodes de crises. De l'essor des nouvelles technologies, un nouvel humain est né : Michel Serres le baptise "Petite Poucette". Petite Poucette va devoir réinventer une manière de vivre ensemble, des institutions, une manière d'être et de connaître..." [Source : extrait de la 4e de couv.]

Petite poucette

Daniel W. Smith

The Culture and Technology of Millennials

Thumbelina

Influential philosopher Michel Serres's foundational work uses fable to explore how human relations are identical to that of the parasite to the host body. Among Serres's arguments is that by being pests, minor groups can become major players in public dialogue—creating diversity and complexity vital to human life and thought. Michel Serres is professor in history of science at the Sorbonne, professor of Romance languages at Stanford University, and author of several books, including Genesis. Lawrence R. Schehr is professor of French at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Cary Wolfe is Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English at Rice University. His books include Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal (Minnesota, 2003).

The Parasite

Bruno Latour

Illuminating conversations with one of France's most respected--and controversial--philosophers

Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time

Ce petit manifeste, écrit sur un coup de sang par l'auteur de Petite Poucette en colère contre tous les Grands Papas Ronchons qui empêchent de regarder devant nous avec espoir, a été tout d'abord offert à tout acheteur de deux livres de poche de Michel Serres. Devant l'enthousiasme qu'il a suscité et les nombreuses demandes qui nous sont parvenues, nous avons décidé de le publier sous forme d'un tout petit livre : " Dix Grands Papas Ronchons ne cessent de dire à Petite Poucette, chômeuse ou stagiaire qui paiera longtemps pour ces retraités : " C'était mieux avant ". Or, cela tombe bien, avant, justement, j'y étais. Je peux dresser un bilan d'expert. Qui commence ainsi : avant, nous gouvernaient Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Staline, Mao... rien que des braves gens ; avant, guerres et crimes d'état laissèrent derrière eux des dizaines de millions de morts. Longue, la suite de ces réjouissances vous édifiera. "

C'était mieux avant !

Chi avrebbe supposto che zoppia e mancinismo – oltretutto associati nella stessa figura ideale – venissero portati a vanto del pensiero in atto, come le sue insegne più onorifiche? A compiere il gesto di giustizia che li riscatta dalla difettività è Michel Serres, epistemologo ultraottantenne così intrigato dall’attuale sconvolgimento del sapere da farsene il supremo cantore, con un’euforia lungimirante e contagiosa, con un’audacia concettuale ignota ai colleghi giovani o a chi rimane abbarbicato a un «umanesimo di opposizione», e con uno stile ruscellante evocatore di mondi, al pari di Lucrezio. Alle idee astratte Serres preferisce da sempre le figure sintetiche. Il mancino zoppo è l’eroe dell’«età dolce», la nostra, che nella riconfigurazione digitale dello spazio-tempo si lascia alle spalle la «dura» rigidità euclidea, cartesiana, metrica, abitando la dimensione utopica del possibile e recuperando il concreto attraverso il virtuale. Ma è anche il simbolo vivo di ogni lavorio della mente degno di questo nome, dalla notte dei tempi: pensare vuol dire infatti deviare dai tracciati, avanzare di traverso e un po’ sghembi, rompere le simmetrie, afferrare il segreto di ciò che sarà domani con la stessa «formidabile inventiva dell’Universo in espansione». No, non c’è posto per il già formattato, secondo Serres. «Non conosco alcun metodo che abbia mai aperto la strada a qualche invenzione; né alcuna invenzione trovata con metodo». Solo di fronte al mancino zoppo, e a chi sia all’altezza del suo inesauribile estro, balenano nuovi modi di essere-nel-mondo. «Michel Serres è la mente filosofica più fine che esista oggi in Francia» Umberto Eco

Dal metodo non nasce niente

Il mancino zoppo

Anne-Marie Feenberg-Dibon

What the Financial Crisis Revealed and How to Reinvent Our Lives and Future

Times of Crisis

"Le sphinx égyptien, corps de fauve rasé à face royale, tient parfois entre ses mains, alors humaines, comme en offrande, une sorte de table ou de boîte sur laquelle repose une tête de bélier : dos de bête et visage d'homme doublé d'un museau à corps empaqueté. On peut voir ailleurs et en grand nombre des sphinx criocéphales, lion dévorant et ovin dévoré incorporés. A-t-on jamais vu le loup et l'agneau ou l'homme et le taureau cousus ensemble dans la même fabuleuse peau ? Ici, la statue se décompose et se rythme comme si elle se dépliait : le mufle animal à corps de boîte précède un monstre à croupe léonine et tête humaine ; celle-ci paraît sacrifier une tête de bête. Si le fauve a tué le bélier, que fait l'homme au milieu d'eux ? Qu'y a-t-il dans la boîte noire ? On dirait que Pharaon se cache derrière la face bestiale. Entre deux parties animales d'espèces différentes l'homme et la boîte s'entrelacent mystérieusement. Qu'est-ce qu'un fétiche ? Comment le fabrique-t-on" ? Michel Serres évoque ici le profond mystère de la mort, et l'élévation des statues qui en procède depuis l'aube des temps. Livre multiple, Statues est une réflexion sur la sculpture, nourrie des mythes, de l'histoire et de la littérature.

Le second livre des fondations

Statues

For Michel Serres, economic crises are earthquakes caused by societal tectonic plates. The current crisis erupted because of the widening discrepancy between major social changes and institutions that have remained the same since WWII. Serres, one of the first to bring nature into the political, writes, "To destroy, kill, exploit is worthless. In the long run, it means destroying ourselves." At a time when the world population has grown so much that it is exhausting natural resources and the environment, we need to rethink cultural, social, and political dynamics. Serres argues that geopolitics and economics will no longer be a two-player game, between West and East, for example, but a three-player one, in which is Earth will be the third partner. This book is one of hope as it calls for a new world and extols the importance of science for our future and political institutions. Here, Serres demonstrates an optimistic outlook in a clear and luminous language that offers new paths for reflection and, ultimately, a better life for Earth and its inhabitants.

What the Financial Crisis Revealed and How to Reinvent our Lives and Future

Michel Serres first book in his 'foundations trilogy' is all about beginnings. The beginning of Rome but also about the beginning of society, knowledge and culture. Rome is an examination of the very foundations upon which contemporary society has been built. With characteristic breadth and lyricism, Serres leads the reader on a journey from a meditation the roots of scientific knowledge to set theory and aesthetics. He explores the themes of violence, murder, sacrifice and hospitality in order to urge us to avoid the repetitive violence of founding. Rome also provides an alternative and creative reading of Livy's Ab urbe condita which sheds light on the problems of history, repetition and imitation. First published in English in 1991, re-translated and introduced in this new edition, Michel Serres' Rome is a contemporary classic which shows us how we came to live the way we do.

The First Book of Foundations

Rome

The first translation of the volumes in Michel Serres' classic 'Humanism' tetralogy, this ambitious philosophical narrative explores what it means to be human. With his characteristic breadth of references including art, poetry, science, philosophy and literature, Serres paints a new picture of what it might mean to live meaningfully in contemporary society. He tells the story of humankind (from the beginning of time to the present moment) in an attempt to affirm his overriding thesis that humans and nature have always been part of the same ongoing and unfolding history. This crucial piece of posthumanist philosophical writing has never before been released in English. A masterful translation by Randolph Burks ensures the poetry and wisdom of Serres writing is preserved and his notion of what humanity is and might be is opened up to new audiences.

The Incandescent

According to Michel Serres, a process of 'hominescence' has taken place throughout human history. Hominescence can be described as a type of adolescence; humanity in a state of growing, a state of constant change, on the threshold of something unpredictable. We are destined never to be the same again but what does the future hold? In this innovative and passionately original work of philosophy, Serres describes the future of man as an adolescence, transitioning from childhood to adulthood, or luminescence, when a dark body becomes light. After considering the radical changes that humanity has experienced over the last fifty years, Serres analyzes the new relationship that man has with diverse concepts, like the dead, his own body, agriculture, and new communication networks. He alerts us to the consequences of these changes, particularly on the danger of growing inequalities between rich and poor countries. Should we rejoice in the future, ignore it, or even dread it? Unlike other philosophies that preach doom and gloom, Hominescence calls for us to anticipate the uncertain light of the future.

Michel Serres

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