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Radical Thinkers Competition: win the entire series!

John Merrick24 February 2016

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The competition is now over! Thank you to everyone who took part: the answer and winners have been announced here.

The notorious Radical Thinkers competition is back! This time to celebrate the publication of Set 12!

We'll be picking two SUPER WINNERS who will win a copy of every single Radical Thinkers book we currently have in stock. That's well over 100 books covering everything from the development of US capitalism since 1945 and studies on Freudian metapsychology to classic theory from the likes of Judith Butler, Alain Badiou and Louis Althusser!

A further 6 runners up will win the new set—featuring Ellen Meiksins Wood, Judith Butler, Norman Geras, OSkar Negt and Alexander Kluge.




The highly popular Radical Thinkers series publishes beautifully designed and affordable editions of important works of theory and philosophy. Covering a full spectrum of critical thought, the series includes work from radical thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord, Georg Lukács, Gillian Rose, Jean-Paul Sartre, Theodor Adorno and many more.

Set 12 features 4 classic works of political theory including Ellen Meiksins Wood's reinvigoration of historical materialism in Democracy Against Capitalism, Judith Butler on contemporary violence in Frames of War, Norman Geras's classic account of Marx on human nature, and Negt and Kluge's seminal critique of liberalism in Public Sphere and Experience.

Two winners (one from North America and one from the rest of the world), will win all available titles published so far in the series—over 100 books! We will then select a furhter 6 runners up (3 in North America, 3 in Rest of World) to win all the new books in set 12.

How it works [pull up a chair]:

There will be twelve questions in total, each relating to a title from Set 12 of the series. Four questions will be posted on the Verso Blog every day this week—starting today, Wednesday, until Friday. And as ever, they are not meant to be easy. 

Keep your answers close to your chest!

The final four questions will be posted at 4pm GMT/11am EST on Friday 26 February. The super winners will be the first person in each territory to email the correct answers to ALL twelve questions. The runners up will be the next 6 people to email in with all correct answers (3 in each territory). The email address for entries will be posted with the final question on Friday. The winners will be announced and all the answers will be posted on Monday 29 February.

Please do not post the answers on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else—entries accepted by email only. Any comments posting the answers will be deleted. 

Good luck! 

Wednesday:

1) In Democracy Against Capitalism Ellen Meiksins Wood attempts to draw a Marxist theory of class from the work of which British Marxist historian?

2) Who does Judith Butler cite as having argued that photographic images have lost their power to enrage and incite?

3) As well as being one of Germany's most famous writers and intellectuals, Alexander Kluge was also one of it's most pioneering filmmakers. Kluge was an original signatory of the Oberhausen Manifesto which inaugurated the New German Cinema movement. One of the movements classic films is the collectively produced and directed Germany in Autumn. The film also features a nude scene featuring which famous German filmmaker?

4) As noted by Norman Geras, who was Marx criticizing as not seeing that “religious sentiment” is itself a social product, not to be confused with the abstracted individual belonging to a particular form of society?

Thursday:

1) Which political philosopher does Ellen Meiksins Wood call "the most extreme example of contradictions that constituted nineteenth-century liberalism"?

2) Which series of photos, when released in the US, did conservative television pundits argue that it would be un-American to broadcast?

3) What spiritual construct was regarded by Marx as something that wanted to free us from determination by nature only because it regarded nature as not belonging to us?

4) Alexander Kluge, in a series of interviews with the playwright Heiner Müller, claimed that which philosopher masturbated against a tree on his weekly walk?

Friday:

1) Which famous right-wing politician favourably reviewed Ellen Meiksins Wood's book on democracy in Ancient Greece, Peasant-Citizen and Slave, in 1988?

2) Norman Geras, as well as being being a scholar of Marx and a cricket fanatic, was one of the principle authors of which political manifesto?

3) Which famous philosopher cited by Butler, drew on the work of Spinoza to argue that there can be different modalities of materiality?

4) Alexander Kluge collaborated with which famous German photographer and artist for a book originally published in 2010?

If you live in North America please email: verso@versobooks.com

If you live outside of North America please email: enquiries@verso.co.uk

Please put RADICAL THINKERS COMPETITION in the subject line

The winners (and correct answers!) will be announced on Monday 29th Feb!

Filed under: competitions, radicalthinkers, radicalthinkersset12