World Food Books

Le Sang et La Rose No. 1, 1968

1968, Japanese / French
Softcover, 228 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - Out of stock

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 1 (1968) sets the scene perfectly, opening with Japanese author Yukio Mishima depicted as Saint Sebastian by photographer Kishin Shinoyama in a pictorial feature "Les Morts Masculines", a photographic homage to Georges Bataille that also features the photography of Eikoh Hosoe, Ikkō Narahara, Masahisa Fukase, and Osamu Hayasaki, with models including Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, actor Akira Mita, author Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, actor Jin Nakayama, playwright Jūrō Kara, and others. Other features include " All Japanese are Perverse" — stories by Japanese writers including Yukio Mishima, Taruho Inagaki, Yutaka Haniya, Shinji Sōya; Henry Miller's letters to Anais Nin; a colour gallery of artwork by Belgian painter Paul Delvaux; articles on Vampire fantasy in the arts (including many original illustrations; Witches (illustrated by James Ensor); Oriental Eros, Ancient Indian poetry; Kama Sutra; female bi-sexuality; the history of gay (Danshoku) theatre in Japan; the full-colour art gallery "Masturbation Machine", featuring avant-garde artists Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Masuo Ikeda, Setsu Nagasawa, Carlos Marchioli, Kuniyoshi Kaneko, Masakazu Horiuchi, Tadanori Yokoo, Koji Suzuki, Tommy Ungerer; the fully illustrated museum supplement "Pain and Pleasure : On Torture" by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa with artworks throughout history; pornographic stories by Guillaume Apollinaire and Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne (who coined the term "Pornographer"); fiction by Pierre Morion (pseudo. André Pieyre de Mandiargues); critic Jin'ichi Uekusa on the controversial writings of Roger Peyrefitte, illustrations by Ernst, Bellmer, Labisse, Fini, Lam, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Good copy with some spine damage and tanning/wear.

File under: Max Ernst Léonor Fini Felix Labisse Wilfredo Lam Hans Bellmer Paul Delvaux Natsuyuki Nakanishi Masuo Ikeda Setsu Nagasawa Carlos Marchioli Kuniyoshi Kaneko Masakazu Horiuchi Tadanori Yokoo Koji Suzuki Tommy Ungerer Tatsumi Hijikata Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Eikoh Hosoe Ikkō Narahara Masahisa Fukase Osamu Hayasaki Kishin Shinoyama James Ensor Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Jin'ichi Uekusa Roger Peyrefitte Yukio Mishima Taruho Inagaki Yutaka Haniya Shinji Sōya Henry Miller Suehiro Tanemura Guillaume Apollinaire Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne Jūrō Kara Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Fiction / Poetry Japanese Photography Occult / Esoterica Philosophy Photography Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+ Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Counterculture Surrealism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

Le Sang et La Rose No. 4, 1969

1969, Japanese
Softcover, 286 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$140.00 - Out of stock

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose was a groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and this, the fourth final issue, and rarest of the four, edited by critic Masaaki Hiraoka and especially designed by self-taught painter, graphic designer and political activist, Kiyoshi Awazu (!)

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. Much like an instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design as principally to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 4 includes photographic features by cinematographer Yasuhiro Yoshioka (Woman in the Dunes, Kwaidan, The Face of Another, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief), work by pioneering, self-taught visual artist and designer, Kiyoshi Awazu, Hans Bellmer, illustrations by the incredible Hiroshi Nakamura, sadomasochism in cinema, Ukiyo-e and Shunga art (erotic Japanese prints), writings by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Yukio Mishima, Taruho Inagaki, Jun’nosuke Yoshiyuki, Kôichi Iijima, Jûrô Kara, Ikuya Kato, Minoru Yoshioka, Masaaki Hiraoka, Tadanori Yokoo, and Ryûichi Tamura.   Much more....

Very Good copy.

File under: Yasuhiro Yoshioka Kiyoshi Awazu Hans Bellmer Hiroshi Nakamura Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Yukio Mishima Taruho Inagaki Jun’nosuke Yoshiyuki Kôichi Iijima Jûrô Kara Ikuya Kato Minoru Yoshioka Ryûichi Tamura Masaaki Hiraoka Tadanori Yokoo Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Periodicals Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Surrealism Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Eros Photography Japanese Photography Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Counterculture Fetishism / BDSM Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Occult / Esoterica Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

Being and Event
by Alain Badiou

2005, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 576 pages, 12.9 x 19.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Continuum / London

$65.00 - Out of stock

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First hardcover edition. "Being and Event" is the centrepiece of Alain Badiou's oeuvre; it is the work that grounds his reputation as one of France's most original philosophers. Long-awaited in translation, "Being and Event" makes available to an English-speaking readership Badiou's groundbreaking work on set theory - the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. This book makes the scope and aim of Badiou's whole philosophical project clear, enabling full comprehension of Badiou's significance for contemporary philosophy. In "Being and Event", Badiou anchors this project by recasting the European philosophical tradition from Plato onwards, via a series of analyses of such key figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Rousseau, and Lacan. He thus develops the basis for a history of philosophy rivalling those of Heidegger and Deleuze in its depth. This wide-ranging book is organised in a precise and novel manner, reflecting the philosophical rigour of Badiou's thought. Unlike many contemporary Continental philosophers, Badiou - who is also a novelist and dramatist - writes lucidly and cogently, making his work accessible and engaging.

This English language edition includes a new preface, written especially for this translation. "Being and Event" is essential reading for Badiou's considerable following and anyone interested in contemporary Continental philosophy.

VG copy in G dust jacket closed tear, light wear/age.

File under: Alain Badiou Continuum / London Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare

Logics of Worlds : Being and Event II
by Alain Badiou

2009, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 640 pages, 12.9 x 19.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Continuum / London

$70.00 - Out of stock

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Logics of Worlds is the long-awaited sequel to Alain Badiou's much-heralded masterpiece, Being and Event. Tackling the questions that had been left open by Being and Event, and answering many of his critics in the process, Badiou supplements his pioneering treatment of multiple being with a daring and complex theory of the worlds in which truths and subjects make their mark - what he calls a materialist dialectic. The radical recasting of ontology in Being and Event is followed and complemented here by a thoroughgoing transformation in our very understanding of logic, conceived as a theory not of being but of appearing. Unafraid to resurrect and reinvent the classical themes of philosophy, Badiou gives new meaning to concepts such as object, body and relation, mobilising them in arresting studies that range from the architectural planning of Brasilia to contemporary astronomy, and confronting himself with towering philosophical counterparts (Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Lacan, Deleuze). The book culminates in an impassioned call to 'live for an Idea'.

File under: Alain Badiou Continuum / London Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy

Nihil Unbound : Enlightenment and Extinction
by Ray Brassier

2010, English
Softcover, 275 pages, 14 x 21.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Palgrave Macmillan / UK

$140.00 - In stock -

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This book pushes nihilism to its ultimate conclusion by linking revisionary naturalism in Anglo-American philosophy with anti-phenomenological realism in French philosophy. Contrary to the 'post-analytic' consensus uniting Heidegger and Wittgenstein against scientism and scepticism, this book links eliminative materialism and speculative realism.

Very Good—Fine copy, previous owner's name to front endpaper, otherwise As New.

File under: Ray Brassier Palgrave Macmillan / UK Theory / Essay Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Philosophy

Principles of Non-Philosophy
by François Laruelle

2013, English
Softcover, 344 pages, 19.8 x 12.9 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Bloomsbury Academic / London

$65.00 - In stock -

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Principles of Non-Philosophy is a treatise on the method, axioms and objectives of non-philosophy and represents François Laruelle's mature philosophy.

As well as presenting the method and principles of non-philosophy, it includes a history of the development of non-philosophy, a novel conception of science, a discussion of non-philosophical causality and new theories of the subject and object of thought. Providing an introduction to Laruelle's novel theory of 'non-epistemology' or 'unified theory of thought', this volumes challenges the way we think about the traditional philosophical problems.

Bringing together all the elements of his thought developed over twenty years and laying the foundations for his later work, Principles of Non-Philosophy is arguably Laruelle's magnum opus.

Translated by Nicola Rubczak and Anthony Paul Smith

Fine—As New copy, first editon.

File under: François Laruelle Nicola Rubczak Anthony Paul Smith Bloomsbury Academic / London Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy Theory / Essay

Anti-Badiou: The Introduction of Maoism into Philosophy: The Introduction of Maoism into Philosophy
by François Laruelle

2013 / 2017, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 20.5 x 14 cm
Published by Bloomsbury Academic / London

$45.00 - In stock -

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A major new work by Francois Laruelle, in which he confronts another of the most radical thinkers at work in France today, Alain Badiou.

This compelling and highly original book represents a confrontation between two of the most radical thinkers at work in France today- Alain Badiou and the author, Francois Laruelle. At face value, the two have much in common- both espouse a position of absolute immanence; both argue that philosophy is conditioned by science; and both command a pluralism of thought. Anti-Badiou relates the parallel stories of Badiou's Maoist 'ontology of the void' and Laruelle's own performative practice of 'non-philosophy' and explains why the two are in fact radically different. Badiou's entire project aims to re-educate philosophy through one science- mathematics. Laruelle carefully examines Badiou's Being and Event and shows how Badiou has created a new aristocracy that crowns his own philosophy as the master of an entire theoretical universe. In turn, Laruelle explains the contrast with his own non-philosophy as a true democracy of thought that breaks philosophy's continual enthrall with mathematics and instead opens up a myriad of 'non-standard' places where thinking can be found and practised.

The two most important living French theorists finally meet head to head, Badiou the best known and Laruelle the least. What results is a true disagreement, the first in a very long time. But don't expect the usual insults: Badiou as anachronistic Maoist, or Badiou as unrepentant Platonist. Laruelle's dagger is sharper and more deadly, for his target is Badiou the philosopher!—Alexander R. Galloway, Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University

File under: Alain Badiou François Laruelle Bloomsbury Academic / London Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy

Christo-Fiction: The Ruins of Athens and Jerusalem
by François Laruelle

2015, English
Softcover, 296 pages, 23 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new

$45.00 - In stock -

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First 2015 edition.
François Laruelle's lifelong project of "nonphilosophy," or "nonstandard philosophy," thinks past the theoretical limits of Western philosophy to realize new relations between religion, science, politics, and art. In Christo-Fiction Laruelle targets the rigid, self-sustaining arguments of metaphysics, rooted in Judaic and Greek thought, and the radical potential of Christ, whose "crossing" disrupts their circular discourse.

Laruelle's Christ is not the authoritative figure conjured by academic theology, the Apostles, or the Catholic Church. He is the embodiment of generic man, founder of a science of humans, and the herald of a gnostic messianism that calls forth an immanent faith. Explicitly inserting quantum science into religion, Laruelle recasts the temporality of the cross, the entombment, and the resurrection, arguing that it is God who is sacrificed on the cross so equals in faith may be born. Positioning itself against orthodox religion and naive atheism alike, Christo-Fiction is a daring, heretical experiment that ties religion to the human experience and the lived world.

Translated by Robin Mackay.

François Laruelle is emeritus professor at the University of Paris Ouest, Nanterre la Défense (Paris X), and a lecturer at the Collège International de Philosophie. He is the author of more than twenty works of philosophy, including Principles of Non-Philosophy, Philosophies of Difference, Future Christ, and The Concept of Non-Photography.

Robin Mackay is a philosopher and editor and publisher of Collapse Journal of Philosophical Research and Development.

File under: Robin Mackay François Laruelle Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy Theory / Essay

Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction to Non-philosophy
by François Laruelle

2010, English
Hardcover, 256 pages, 12.9 x 19.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine

$90.00 - Out of stock

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First 2010 hardcover edition of a crucial text in the development of François Laruelle's oeuvre and an excellent starting point for understanding his broader project, Philosophies of Difference offers a theoretical and critical analysis of the philosophers of difference after Hegel and Nietzsche. Laruelle then uses this analysis to introduce a new theoretical practice of non-philosophical thought.

Rather than presenting a narrative historical overview, Laruelle provides a series of rigorous critiques of the various interpretations of difference in Hegel, Nietzsche and Deleuze, Heidegger and Derrida. From Laruelle's innovative theoretical perspective, the forms of philosophical difference that emerge appear as variations upon a unique, highly abstract structure of philosophical decision, the self-posing and self-legitimating essence of philosophy itself. Reconceived in terms of philosophical decision, the seemingly radical concept of philosophical difference is shown to configure rather the identity of philosophy as such, which thus becomes manifest as a contingent and no longer absolute form of thinking. The way is thereby opened for initiating a new form of thought, anticipated here with the development of a key notion of non-philosophy, the Vision-in-One.

Fine—As New copy.

File under: François Laruelle Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay

Art of The Holocaust

1982, English
Softcover, 272 pages, 23 x 30.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Pan / Sydney

$45.00 - Out of stock

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First 1982 softcover edition of Art of The Holocaust, edited by Janet Blatter and Sybil Milton. A powerful collection of over 350 works of art created in ghettos, concentration camps, and in hiding by victims of the Nazis. Jewish, Communist and "degenerate", exiled, enemy-of-the-State avant-garde German artists, whose art was an "insult to German feeling", present here an arresting collective portrait of horror and the indomitable struggle to survive. Paintings and drawings reproduced throughout in colour and b/w with extensive biographies on the artists. Preface by Irving Howe.

Good copy.

File under: Irving Howe Pan / Sydney Crime / Violence Surrealism Painting Drawing Protest / Revolt Sociology / Politics Art Out-of-print / Rare

Auschwitz : A History in Photographs
Compiled and edited by Teresa Swilebocka

1993, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket, 296 pages, 30 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Indiana University Press / Indiana Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum / Olsztyn

$70.00 - Out of stock

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"These photographs and drawings touch the limit of comprehension. The power of such direct evocation can only hint at the ultimate horror of Auschwitz. The importance of this album cannot be fully expressed in words"—Saul Friedländer

First 1993 hardcover edition. This graphic record of Auschwitz, the main center for the Nazi's systematic murder of European Jewry, is an overwhelming experience. Published in association with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (where Swiebocka is senior curator), it reproduces more than 280 pictures taken by Nazis, by liberating Allied forces and, clandestinely, by prisoners; there are also prisoners' drawings and paintings. Notes smuggled out of Auschwitz informing the world of the Nazi genocide and testimonies by prisoners who escaped are also included. The Nazis murdered more than one million people in the Auschwitz camp system, which was founded in 1940 in occupied Poland; 90% were Jews, but Poles, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals and people of other ethnic groups and nationalities were also exterminated. Recording the ravages of slave labor, starvation and torture, as well as the prisoners' struggle for life and dignity and the range of organized and spontaneous resistance to the Nazis, this is an essential Holocaust document.

Compiled and edited by Teresa Swilebocka, Teresa
Texts by Teresa Swilebocka, Connie Wilsack and Jonathan Webber

VG copy in VG dust jacket.

File under: Teresa Swilebocka Connie Wilsack Jonathan Webber Indiana University Press / Indiana Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum / Olsztyn Photography Out-of-print / Rare Crime / Violence Sociology / Politics

Zippermouth
by Laurie Weeks

2012, English
Softcover, 144 pages,‎ 17.7 x 20.9 cm
Published by The Feminist Press / New York

$34.00 - In stock -

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This novel of a young lesbian addict in ’90s NYC “recalls Naked Lunch” with “dreamy, impressionistic, and rapturous” prose―“an ecstatic love story” (Publishers Weekly)

Written in the brash, fervent voice of the young and addicted, this debut novel from underground superstar Laurie Weeks “is a short tome of infinitesimal reach, a tiny star to light the land” (Eileen Myles)

Strung out on dope and unrequited love for her straight best friend, Jane, the novel’s unnamed narrator zig-zags between glimpses of her childhood and early teens to the raw, super-caffeinated world of her present on the streets of New York. Chosen by Dave Eggers as Best American Nonrequired Reading and a winner of a 2012 Lambda Literary Award, this novel encapsulates the soaring highs and gritty lows of the junkie and the reckless intensity of love. “The book’s pulse is evident on every page.” (Lambda Literary)

“Zipper Mouth is a brilliant rabbit hole of pitch-black hilarity, undead obsession, the horror of the everyday, and drug, drugs, drugs.”―Michelle Tea, author of Against Memoir

Laurie Weeks has been an underground superstar in the New York downtown writing world since the 1980s. Her fiction and other writings have been published in The Baffler, Vice, Nest, Index, LA Weekly, and Semiotext(e)’s The New Fuck You. She has taught in writing programs at UC San Diego and The New School, and has toured the US with the girl-punk group Sister Spit.

File under: Laurie Weeks The Feminist Press / New York Fiction / Poetry

Earth Angel
by Madeline Cash

2023, English
Softcover, 126 pages, 18.9 x 11.9 cm
Published by Clash Books / US

$34.00 - Out of stock

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In her electric debut, Madeline Cash synthesizes the godlessness of a digital age into a glimmering, sublime, life-affirming collage of stories.

Earth Angel is a book like no other, the paperback that swallowed the smartphone. An Isis recruit, an adolescent beauty queen, and a childless millennial walk into a bar. A Biblical plague rains down head lice, aerial drone strikes, gender non-conforming frogs. An app throws a slumber party for a friendless office worker. Texans in the winter, the Taliban in Springtime, Teslas with ??e???? bumper stickers, Frozen 5 in Arabic, architectural consistency laws in Laurel Canyon, the longest recorded nosebleed in history.

An unhinged jet stream that is ultramodern and poignantly timeless, capturing the angst of the post-millennial generation.

File under: Madeline Cash Clash Books / US Fiction / Poetry

Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts
by Ronald Bogue

2003, English
Softcover, 234 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 cm
Published by Routledge / London

$50.00 - Out of stock

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Bogue provides a systematic overview and introduction to Deleuze's writings on music and painting, and an assessment of their position within his aesthetics as a whole. Deleuze on Music, Painting and the Arts breaks new ground in the scholarship on Deleuze's aesthetics, while providing a clear and accessible guide to his often overlooked writings in the fields of music and painting.

"After these books are published, there will be no need for anyone else to write a how-to-understand-Deleuze book. The clarity of the prose, the careful explanation of each difficult and important concept, and the lack of any jargon whatsoever make this the definitive commentary on Deleuze." — Dorothea Olkowski, University of Colorado

First edition. As New.

File under: Gilles Deleuze Ronald Bogue Routledge / London Philosophy Sound / Music Out-of-print / Rare Art Painting Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay

The Limit of The Useful
by Georges Bataille

2023, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 416 pages, 20.5 x 14 cm
Published by Random House / New York

$59.00 - Out of stock

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The first English-language translation of an essential, early work key to understanding the French philosopher's later thought.

In the decade prior to the publication of Inner Experience (L'experience interieure), the twentieth-century French philosopher Georges Bataille produced a nascent masterwork containing some of his most original and extensive reflections on a range of subjects. With thoughts on ritual sacrifice and military conquest, the nature of laughter, and the mechanisms of capitalism, The Limit of the Useful, as Bataille had planned to title the work, illuminates the philosopher's later corpus, yet it remained unfinished and unpublished in his lifetime, and untranslated until now.

This is the first English-language translation of what Cory Austin Knudson and Tomas Elliott argue is one of Bataille's most structurally consistent works. Paired with draft essays and plans for The Accursed Share, along with over a hundred pages of appendixes and notes, the volume distinctively elaborates Bataille's thought. The Limit of the Useful spans a decade of rich intellectual ferment in Bataille's life as he first formulated his challenge to capitalism, engaging with concepts and ideas in ways not seen in his other published works. The volume bridges the gap between Bataille's surrealist literary writings and later scientific pretensions, drawing attention to, and filling in, an overlooked lacuna in his oeuvre.

File under: Georges Bataille Random House / New York Theory / Essay Art Surrealism Philosophy

Radical Futurisms : Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come
by T. J. Demos

2023, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 21.5 x 14.8 cm
Published by Sternberg Press / Berlin

$48.00 - Out of stock

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What comes after end-of-world narratives: visions of just futurity and multispecies flourishing.

There is widespread consensus that we are living at the end--of democracy, of liberalism, of capitalism, of a healthy planet, of the Holocene, of civilization as we know it. Drawing on radical futurisms and visions of justice-to-come emerging from the traditions of the oppressed--Indigenous, African-American, multispecies, anti-capitalist--as materialized in experimental visual cultural, new media, aesthetic practices, and social movements, in this book. T. J. Demos poses speculative questions about what comes after end-of-world narratives, arguing that it's as vital to defeat fatalistic nihilism as the false solutions of green capitalism and algorithmic governance.

How might we decolonize the future, and cultivate an emancipated chronopolitics in relation to an undetermined not-yet? If we are to avoid climate emergency's cooptation by technofixes, and the defuturing of multitudes by xenophobic eco-fascism, Demos argues, we must cultivate visions of just futurity and multispecies flourishing.

File under: T. J. Demos Sternberg Press / Berlin Art Ecology / Earth Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language

Queering the Renaissance
Edited by Jonathan Goldberg

1994, English
Softcover, 388 pages, 24 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Duke University Press / North Carolina

$55.00 - In stock -

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Queering the Renaissance offers a major reassessment of the field of Renaissance studies. Gathering essays by sixteen critics working within the perspective of gay and lesbian studies, this collection redraws the map of sexuality and gender studies in the Renaissance. Taken together, these essays move beyond limiting notions of identity politics by locating historically forms of same-sex desire that are not organized in terms of modern definitions of homosexual and heterosexual.

The presence of contemporary history can be felt throughout the volume, beginning with an investigation of the uses of Renaissance precedents in the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision Bowers v. Hardwick, to a piece on the foundations of 'our' national imaginary, and an afterword that addresses how identity politics has shaped the work of early modern historians. The volume examines canonical and noncanonical texts, including highly coded poems of the fifteenth-century Italian poet Burchiello, a tale from Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron, and Erasmus's letters to a young male acolyte. English texts provide a central focus, including works by Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Donne, Beaumont and Fletcher, Crashaw, and Dryden. Broad suveys of the complex terrains of friendship and sodomy are explored in one essay, while another offers a cross-cultural reading of the discursive sites of lesbian desire.

Accessibly written, boldly interdisciplinary, Queering the Renaissance will be indispensable for literary critics, historians, and theorists seeking to understand the representation of same-sex desire in the early modern period.

Contributors. Alan Bray, Marcie Frank, Carla Freccero, Jonathan Goldberg, Janet Halley, Graham Hammill, Margaret Hunt, Donald N. Mager, Jeff Masten, Elizabeth Pittenger, Richard Rambuss, Alan K. Smith, Dorothy Stephens, Forrest Tyler Stevens, Valerie Traub, Michael Warner

Industry Reviews
"An outstanding collection . . . Not only does it contribute importantly to emerging areas of gay/lesbian studies and the history of sexuality by historicizing what has been for the most part a relentlessly presentist field; it makes significant scholarly contributions to traditional fields in Renaissance studies."-Karen Newman, Brown University

File under: Jonathan Goldberg Alan Bray Marcie Frank Carla Freccero Janet Halley Graham Hammill Margaret Hunt Donald N. Mager Jeff Masten Elizabeth Pittenger Richard Rambuss Alan K. Smith Dorothy Stephens Forrest Tyler Stevens Valerie Traub Michael Warner Duke University Press / North Carolina LGBTQ+ Art Painting Theory / Essay Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language

Site Of Sound : Of Architecture & The Ear
Edited by Brandon LaBelle and Steve Roden

English / German
Softcover (+ CD), 188 pages, 18 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Errant Bodies / Berlin Smart Art Press / Michigan

$70.00 - Out of stock

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First English edition, long out-of-print. CD included.

Site of Sound is an anthology focusing on current trends in experimental music, sound art and audio theories, featuring writings, visual works, interviews and artist projects by leading experimental composers, sound-artists, and architects whose work concerns itself with architectural and acoustic space, sound sculpture, field/environmental investigation and recording, and site-specificity. Complementing this are theoretical, fictional and diaristic writings by contemporary authors, cartographers and ecologists."—publisher's statement.

Edited by Brandon LaBelle and Steve Roden. Artists and contributors include Alison Knowles, Achim Wollscheid, Jalal Toufic, Hildegard Westerkamp, Phillip Corner, Christina Kubisch, Giancarlo Toniutti, Jake Tilson, Brandon LaBelle, Rolf Julius, Leif Elggren, CM von Hausswolff, Steve Peters, Ralf Wehowsky, David Dunn, Christof Migone, Loren Chasse, Moniek Darge, Michael Brewster, Max Eastley, Tim Robinson, Steve Roden, Rupert Loydell, Tom Marioni, Pierre Koenig, the Stalacpipe Organ at Luray Caverns, WrK, Minoru Sato, Toshiya Tsunoda, and Jio Shimizu. Includes audio CD featuring many of the featured works.

As New.

File under: Alison Knowles Achim Wollscheid Hildegard Westerkamp Phillip Corner Christina Kubisch Giancarlo Toniutti Jake Tilson Brandon LaBelle Rolf Julius Leif Elggren CM von Hausswolff Steve Peters Ralf Wehowsky David Dunn Christof Migone Loren Chasse Moniek Darge Michael Brewster Max Eastley Tim Robinson Steve Roden Rupert Loydell Tom Marioni Pierre Koenig the Stalacpipe Organ at Luray Caverns WrK Minoru Sato Toshiya Tsunoda Jio Shimizu Jalal Toufic Brandon LaBelle Steve Roden Jalal Toufic John Hudak Richard Lerman Giancarlo Toniutti Steve Peters David Dunn Leif Elggren CM von Hausswolff Michael Brewster Christof Migone Rupert Loydell Tim Robinson Pierre Koenig Rolf Julius Hildegard Westerkamp Loren Chasse WrK Christina Kubisch Moniek Darge Max Eastley Errant Bodies / Berlin Smart Art Press / Michigan Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Architecture / Interior Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Fluxus Conceptual Art Curatorial Group Shows / Collections Minimal Art Objects / Ephemera / A/V

Matter and Memory
by Henri Bergson

1991, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 288 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Zone Books / New York

$65.00 - Out of stock

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“Since the end of the last century,” Walter Benjamin wrote, “philosophy has made a series of attempts to lay hold of the ‘true’ experience as opposed to the kind that manifests itself in the standardized, denatured life of the civilized masses. It is customary to classify these efforts under the heading of a philosophy of life. Towering above this literature is Henri Bergson’s early monumental work Matter and Memory.”

Along with Husserl’s Ideas and Heidegger’s Being and Time, Bergson’s work represents one of the great twentieth-century investigations into perception and memory, movement and time, matter and mind. Arguably Bergson’s most significant book, Matter and Memory is essential to an understanding of his philosophy and its legacy.

“It would greatly distort Bergson to minimize the amazing description of perceived being given in Matter and Memory. Never before had anyone thus described the brute being of the perceived world. In unveiling it along with nascent duration, Bergson rediscovers in the heart of man a pre-Socratic and ‘prehuman’ sense of the world.”—Maurice Merleau-Ponty

"Matter and Memory was the diagnosis of a crisis in psychology. Movement, as physical reality in the external world, and the image, as psychic reality in consciousness, could no longer be opposed. The Bergsonian discovery of a movement-image, and more profoundly, of a time-image, still retains such richness today that it is not certain that all its consequences have been drawn."—Gilles Deleuze

"Since the end of the Last century, philosophy has made a series of attempts to lay hold of the 'true' experience as opposed to the kind that manifests itself in the standardized, denatured life of the civilized masses. It is customary to classify these efforts under the heading of a philosophy of life. Towering above this literature is Bergson's early monumental work, Matter and Memory."—Walter Benjamin

Translated by N.M. Paul, W.S.

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1927. His works include Time and Free Will, An Introduction to Metaphysics, Creative Evolution, and The Creative Mind.

File under: Henri Bergson Zone Books / New York Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Philosophy

Samalio Pardulus
by Otto Julius Bierbaum, Illustrations by Alfred Kubin

2019, English
Softcover, 88 pages, 17.8 x 11.4 cm
Published by Wakefield Press / Cambridge

$29.00 - Out of stock

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Told through the horrified account of Messer Giacomo (a mediocre artist at once repulsed and fascinated by the events unfolding around him), Samalio Pardulus describes the simultaneous descent and ascent of the titular antihero, the wildly ugly painter of blasphemies, into a passionate perversion of Catholicism in which love and madness become one, as a dark, incestuous incubus settles into a doomed family.

In an isolated castle on the outskirts of a city in the Albanian mountains, Samalio Pardulus executes works too monstrous to bear viewing, and espouses a philosophy that posits a grotesque world which reflects the ravings of a dead, grotesque god.

When it was first published in 1908, Otto Julius Bierbaum's gothic novella -- the first of his "Sonderbare Geschichten" ("Weird Stories") -- offered a Gnostic stepping-stone between German Romanticism and the nascent Expressionism that had not yet taken root. It presents the grotesque not just as a way of life, but as a godly path to a higher vision, even when it appears to be but a manifestation of evil.

This first English edition includes the full set of illustrations by Alfred Kubin from the book's 1911 German edition.

File under: Alfred Kubin Otto Julius Bierbaum Wakefield Press / Cambridge Fiction / Poetry Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction

Gashō Yamamura
Plants

1976, Japanese
Hardcover, 88 pages, 26 x 23.7 cm
Ed. of 600,
Published by TB Design Institute / Japan

$380.00 - Out of stock

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Rare, first, limited edition printing of Gashō Yamamura's 1976 masterpiece, "Plants", for which he won the 1st Ina Nobuo Award in the same year. After Yamamura (b. Osaka, 1939—1987) began photographing plants in 1974, he published two incredible, largely unknown collections of his otherworldly botanical photo-studies before his sudden death by suicide in 1987 — “Plants” (1976) and “Botanical Planetarium” (1988). Yamamura's plant photography is like no-other. "Caught in stroboscopic light, the plants stiffen momentarily; they emerge as strange shapes not seen in natural light, rising up and towering high as if by desire." [...] "The perspective is different to how we usually see flower beds and plants; there are no downwards, surveying gazes. Instead, many of Yamamura’s photographs employ an upwards angle, taken in close vicinity to the plants, the way a bug would see them. Here, even the tenderest of flowers appear as bold, towering structures. With this insectuous, un-human perspective, Yamamura carves out the strange and unfamiliar hiding in everyday reality and questions a way of looking that turns its subjects into mere trivialities." [...] "The sights that Yamamura captured expose plants as strange entities that exist in indifference towards human life. At the same time, they let us imagine a world before the presence of human life, or perhaps the world after our disappearance from this earth."—Mika Kobayashi, photography researcher

Includes poetry by Yasuo Fujitomi.
Highly recommended, an absolute favourite.

Yamamura began photographing in high school, focusing mainly on the children in his neighborhood. In 1959, he turned his attention to Americans living in Washington Heights, a residential area in central Tokyo that housed soldiers and their families. His images of American children, shot through fences or wearing masks, convey not only a sense of sinister strangeness and distance, but also the stark economic differences between American and Japanese children immediately after the war. He began photographing plants in the mid-1970s and continued to do so until his suicide at age 47 in 1987.

Very Good copy, light cover wear. Limited edition of 600.

File under: Gashō Yamamura Yasuo Fujitomi TB Design Institute / Japan Ecology / Earth Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare

Gashō Yamamura
Botanical Planetarium

1988, Japanese
Hardcover, (w. slipcase and obi), 31.5 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by ADV communication / Tokyo

$320.00 - Out of stock

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Rare, first edition printing of Gashō Yamamura's 1988 masterpiece, Botanical Planetarium, published posthumously in this lavish, over-sized slip-case edition the year after the photographer's sudden death. After Yamamura (b. Osaka, 1939—1987) began photographing plants in 1974, he published two incredible, largely unknown collections of his otherworldly botanical photo-studies before his sudden death by suicide in 1987 — “Plants” (1976) and “Botanical Planetarium” (1988). Yamamura's plant photography is like no-other. "Caught in stroboscopic light, the plants stiffen momentarily; they emerge as strange shapes not seen in natural light, rising up and towering high as if by desire." “Botanical Planetarium”, which can be translated from the Japanese as “Hunting Flowers”, is Yamamura's photobook of colour plant photography, focussing exclusively on blossoms, the plants’ reproductive organs. "The perspective is different to how we usually see flower beds and plants; there are no downwards, surveying gazes. Instead, many of Yamamura’s photographs employ an upwards angle, taken in close vicinity to the plants, the way a bug would see them. Here, even the tenderest of flowers appear as bold, towering structures. With this insectuous, un-human perspective, Yamamura carves out the strange and unfamiliar hiding in everyday reality and questions a way of looking that turns its subjects into mere trivialities." [...] "The sights that Yamamura captured expose plants as strange entities that exist in indifference towards human life. At the same time, they let us imagine a world before the presence of human life, or perhaps the world after our disappearance from this earth."—Mika Kobayashi, photography researcher

Highly recommended.

Yamamura began photographing in high school, focusing mainly on the children in his neighborhood. In 1959, he turned his attention to Americans living in Washington Heights, a residential area in central Tokyo that housed soldiers and their families. His images of American children, shot through fences or wearing masks, convey not only a sense of sinister strangeness and distance, but also the stark economic differences between American and Japanese children immediately after the war. He began photographing plants in the mid-1970s and continued to do so until his suicide at age 47 in 1987.

Very Good—Near Fine copy preserved in original illustrated slip-case w. original obi-strip, light case/obi wear. Book fine.

File under: Gashō Yamamura ADV communication / Tokyo Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Ecology / Earth

Kohei Yoshiyuki
Document Park

1980, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi strip), 114 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Seven Sha / Tokyo

$900.00 - Out of stock

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Stunning first edition of Kohei Yoshiyuki's cult classic photo book, Document: The Park (Document Park), published in 1980 by Seven Sha, Tokyo. Yoshiyuki's voyeuristic masterpiece, The Park is like no other photo book. A controversial volume of 74 photographs taken by the photographer using a 35mm camera, infrared film, and flash, Yoshiyuki documented a secret community of lovers and voyeurs who gathered in Shinjuku Park and Yoyogi Park between 1971 and 1973. His pictures document the people who gathered in these parks for clandestine trysts under the cloak of darkness, as well as the many spectators lurking in the bushes who watched—and sometimes participated in—these couplings. With their raw, snapshot-like quality, these images not only uncover the hidden illicit sexual encounters of their subjects, both homosexual and heterosexual, but they also serve as a chronicle of a Japan we rarely see. As Martin Parr writes in The Photobook: A History, Volume II, The Park is "a brilliant piece of social documentation, capturing perfectly the loneliness, sadness and desperation that so often accompany sexual or human relationships in a big, hard metropolis like Tokyo."

A beautifully printed book, complete with original dust-jacket and obi-strip. Includes two conversations with Kohei Yoshiyuki with Kenichi Matsumoto and Nobuyoshi Araki.

Kohei Yoshiyuki (b. 1946—2022)   came to recognition in 1972 when material from his photo project “The Park” was featured in magazine Shukan Shincho, and a year later, in respected photo journal Camera Mainichi.  However, it was the 1979 photo exhibition “The Park” at Komai Gallery and 1980 photo book “Document: The Park” that established him within the contemporary photographic landscape. Since then, Yoshiyuki was a recurrent fixture in Japan debauchery journal Super Photo Magazine along photographers: Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Keizo Kitajima and Seiji Kurata.

Very Good copy with tanning to front-right edge of dust jacket. Light edge wear/age to jacket and obi. A lovely copy, well preserved.

File under: Kohei Yoshiyuki Nobuyoshi Araki Nobuyoshi Araki Seven Sha / Tokyo Eros Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Out-of-print / Rare Japanese Photography Photography Fetishism / BDSM Art Counterculture LGBTQ+

Ikko Kagari
Peeping Special Shot

1995, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 29.8 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Outo Shobo / Tokyo

$240.00 - Out of stock

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Very rare photo book by Japanese photographer Ikko Kagari, published in 1995 in Tokyo. Kagari made a number of these extraordinary, extremely questionable, surreptitious infrared photography collections in the 1980's—1990's, featuring secret "close-up photography" documenting clandestine sexual activities in public places — groping and upskirt photographs taken on packed Tokyo Metro commuter trains, in nightclubs, on escalators, couples making it in public toilets, parked cars and in parks with infrared strobe techniques reminiscent of Kohei Yoshiyuki's incredible Document Park. Cover-to-cover b/w reproductions of Kagari's grainy, blown-out infrared images that blur all lines between voyeur/participant and simulated/real, make for disorientating, sometimes claustrophobic, uneasy viewing. But they are also absolutely stunning, effective photo books that feel as conceptual as they do devious. Including selections from Kagari's "Document Commuter Train" (1982), as featured in The Photobook: Vol. III, by Parr & Badger, Kagari's fleeting in flagrante scenes capture erotic desire and criminal impulse engulfed by the soft folds of entangled garment fabrics, through foliage and grass, and across the cold darkness of the metropolis, with stunning technique. He went so far as to publish a how-to book for amateurs! Thankfully the 2000s saw the introduction of women-only carriages on the Tokyo Metro, relegating such expertise to history.

Very Good copy with VG dust jacket.

File under: Ikko Kagari Outo Shobo / Tokyo Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Fetishism / BDSM Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Eros

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