"Infectious Nietzsche is simply one of the most interesting and engaging works to appear on Nietzsche’s philosophy in years." —David Allison Krell explores health, illness, and creativity in the life and thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. Drawing on a varied literature of philosophical reflections on health, and analyzing Nietzsche’s confrontation with traditional values, Krell skillfully engages the legacy of Platonism and Western metaphysics that is at the core of Nietzsche’s thought. Nietzsche’s genealogical critique, his doctrine of eternal recurrence of the same, (...) and the Nietzschean physiology and psychology of decadence are principal foci. Anyone interested in a philosophical reflection on questions of genius and pathology, and all readers of Nietzsche, will find Krell’s new book compelling reading. (shrink)

"This outstanding book has retrieved all the luminous qualities of its subject matter to produce an astonishing revelation of gleaming appearances on splendid display. It is unrivalled by any previous study."--Marcus Bullock, coeditor of Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings 1913-26 "Weimar Surfaces creates provocative new connections between the historical constellations that found a privileged expression in Weimar Berlin and the more contemporary debates on the legacies of modernism and modernity. A compelling study."--Sabine Hake, author of The Cinema's Third Machine "Janet Ward's (...) study of Weimar architecture and design is the most comprehensive and integrated study of the surface of Weimar experience yet written.... A first-rate and stimulating book."--Sander L. Gilman, coauthor of Hysteria Beyond Freud. (shrink)

An understanding of what we mean by the present is one of the key issues in literature, philosophy, and culture today, but also one of the most neglected and misunderstood. _Present Hope_ develops a fascinating philosophical understanding of the present, approaching this question via discussions of the nature of historical time, the philosophy of history, memory, and the role of tragedy. Andrew Benjamin shows how we misleadingly view the present as simply a product of chronological time, ignoring the role of (...) history and memory. Accordingly, discussion of what is meant by the present disappears from philosophical concern. To draw attention to this absence, Andrew Benjamin introduces the notion of hope and asks what this concept can tell us about the present. At the heart of the outstanding work is an emphasis on the relation between hope and the Jewish tradition. Through discussions of philosophical responses to the Holocaust, the work of Walter Benjamin, Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, and the poetry of Paul Celan, _Present Hope_ shows how we must look beyond the purely philosophical horizon to understand the present we live in. (shrink)