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The Parasite
Michel Serres
Translated by Lawrence R. Schehr
Introduction by Cary Wolfe
The foundational work in the area now known as posthuman thought.
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.
“Serres is an extremely imaginative thinker with extraordinary intellectual range. Moving through fields as diverse as physics, information theory, literature, philosophy, theology, anthropology, music, art, and political economy, and through works as different as La Fontaine’s fables, Rousseau’s Confessions, Molière’s Tartuffe, Plato’s Symposium, and the Bible, Serres tries to uncover points of convergence between the natural and human sciences. Serres’s writings provide unusually rich resources.”—Religious Studies Review
“The richness of Serres’s work lies not only in the controlled brilliance of his theoretical constructs, it lies also in the fine detail of his readings of the texts at his disposal. He once again demonstrates what the exact sciences can learn from cultural sources they too often tend to ignore.”—MLN
“Here is philosophy in a new key—mercurial, elliptical, narrative. We can be thankful for this fluently translated and usefully annotated introduction to a figure who is emerging as one of the searching, provocative thinkers of our time.”—Library Journal
“This re-release of a classic philosophical text is highly recommended” —Midwest Book Review
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 and Critical Environments: Postmodern Theory and the Pragmatics of the “Outside”.
288 pages | 9 b&w photos | 2007 | Posthumanities Series, volume 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Translator's Preface
Translator's Introduction
Introduction to the New Edition: Bring the Noise: The Parasite and the Multiple Genealogies of Posthumanism by Cary Wolfe
I. Interrupted Meals LogicsRats' Meals CascadesSatyrs' Meals Host/GuestDiminishing Returns The Obscure and the ConfusedDecisions, Indecisions The Excluded Third, IncludedThe Lion's Share The Simple ArrowAthlete's Meals Difference and the Construction of the RealPicaresques and Cybernetics The New Balance Pentecost
II. More Interrupted Meals Technique, WorkRats' Dinner Diode, Triode Logic of the Fuzzy The Master and the Counter-MasterMore Rats' Meals Machines and Engines The Means, the Milieu Spaces of TransformationLunar Meals Meals of the Lord in Paradise Insects' Meals Work Energy, Information The Gods, the Perpetual Host Interlude Full-Length Portrait of the ParasiteConfessed Meals Jean-Jacques, Laawmaker's Judge Noises Music
III. Fat Cows and Lean Cows EconomySalad Meals Stercoral Origin of Property RightsMeals of Satire Exchange of Money, the Exact and the FuzzyMeals among Brothers Theory of the JokerMeals of Chesnuts The Sun and the SignThe Cows Come out of the River StocksCows Eat Cows Theory of the Line The Best Definition Of Sickness in General
IV. Midnight Suppers SocietyImpostors' Meals Analyze, Paralyze, CatalyzeThe Proper Name of the Host Masters and Slaves Theory of the Quasi-ObjectThe Empty Table On LoveThe Devil On Love The Worst DefinitionStories, Animals