General Intellects

General Intellects:Twenty-One Thinkers for the 21st Century

  • Paperback

    + free ebook

    Regular price $26.95 Sale price $21.56
    Page redirects on selection
    Add to cart
    20% off
  • Hardback

    + free ebook

    Regular price $95.00 Sale price $76.00
    Page redirects on selection
    Add to cart
    20% off
  • Ebook

    Regular price $9.99 Sale price $8.00
    Page redirects on selection
    Add to cart
    20% off

A guide to the thinkers and the ideas that will shape the future

What happened to the public intellectuals that used to challenge and inform us? Who is the Sartre or De Beauvoir of the internet age? General Intellects argues that we no longer have such singular figures, but we do have general intellects whose writing could, if read together, explain our times. Covering topics such as culture, politics, work, technology, and the Anthropocene, each chapter is a concise account of an individual thinker, providing useful context and connections to the work of the others. McKenzie Wark’s distinctive readings are appreciations, but are also critical of how neoliberal universities militate against cooperative intellectual work to understand and change the world.

The thinkers included are Amy Wendling, Kojin Karatani, Paolo Virno, Yann Moulier Boutang, Maurizio Lazzarato, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Angela McRobbie, Paul Gilroy, Slavoj Žižek, Jodi Dean, Chantal Mouffe, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Azumo Hiroki, Paul B. Preciado Wendy Chun, Timothy Morton, Quentin Meillassoux, Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway.

Reviews

  • A wonderful book ... informative and moving ... a great recovery of an instructive life and literary effort. The book makes the case for a kind of political vision and action we need to recognize and enact. A true pleasure to read.

    Kim Stanley Robinson[for Molecular Red]
  • A very imaginative, historically smart, politically generative thesis … that I think we urgently need.

    Donna Haraway[for Molecular Red]
  • Wark is a fine aphorist ... Playful, angry, depressed, celebratory, this is a book for anyone not convinced that there is no alternative to the way we live now.

    Observer[For The Beach Beneath the Streets]