World Food Books

Languages of the Unsayable: The Play of Negativity in Literature and Literary Theory
Edited by Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser

1996, English
Softcover, 394 pages, 23 x 15.5 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by Stanford University Press / Palo Alto

$20.00 - In stock -

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The articulation of the unsayable, of negativity—that which has been excluded by what is sayable—is one of the most important areas of contemporary humanistic study. This volume brings together fifteen outstanding literary theorists and philosophers to examine ways to make the unsayable tangible.

Good copy with darkened marking to top corner throughout first few pages. Light wear.

File under: Jacques Derrida Jonathan Culler Sanford Budick Wolfgang Iser Stanford University Press / Palo Alto Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare

Models of Desire: René Girard and the Psychology of Mimesis
by Paisley Livingston

1992, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 208 pages, 22.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press / Baltimore

$45.00 - In stock -

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First 1992 edition.

To some, René Girard is best known for his views on sacred myth and ritual. To others, he is the eminent structuralist critic who offers challenging readings of major literary works. Still others know him for his analyses of the Bible.

Central to all aspects of Girard's work is his theory of mimesis, a basic hypothesis about the structures of human motivation, Yet nowhere in his writings does Girard offer a systematic presentation of the mimetic theory. In fact, key terminology shifts from work to work, resulting in considerable ambiguity in both basic concepts and explanatory claims.

In Models of Desire Paisley Livingston provides the first rigorous critical reconstruction of Girard's theory of mimesis. Drawing a careful distinction between the theory itself and Girard's often ambitious claims about it, Livingston provides a systematic presentation of Girard's ideas about the role of imitation in human motivation. He surveys responses to Girard's work and compares his theory of mimetic desire with recent work in cognitive psychology and philosophy.

The result is a salient theoretical alternative to the false choice—between psychoanalysis and anti-psychological doctrines—that currently dominates literary theory.

Fine copy.

File under: René Girard Paisley Livingston Johns Hopkins University Press / Baltimore Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Philosophy Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Psychoanalysis

Eroticism and the Body Politic
edited by Lynn Hunt

1990, English
Softcover, 242 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press / Baltimore

$20.00 - In stock -

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First 1990 edition.

By the end of the nineteenth century, women had become an undeniable force both in the public discussion of social life and in politics itself. Yet in art and literature women's bodies continued to be represented—and domesticated—by men. They were still more often the object of the artist's or writer's gaze than they were the subject of their own representing processes. The erotic potential of women's bodies, however, was far from a marginal concern in the elaboration of modern forms of politics, art, literature, and psychology.

In Eroticism and the Body Politic, scholars from art history, history, and literature examine the frequent intersections between the body erotic and the body politic. Focusing on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, they show how eroticized representations of bodies had a multitude of political and cultural meanings. The authors consider the eroticized body in a wide variety of media: from Fragonard's paintings of "erotic mothers," to political pornography attacking Marie Antoinette, to the "new woman" of fin de siècle decorative arts.

Exploring the possibilities of a multidisiplinary approach, the volume shows that eroticism had an impact far beyond the usual confines of libertine or pornographic literature—and that politics included much more than voting, meeting, or demonstrating. At a time of general methodological ferment in the "human sciences," Eroticism and the Body Politic brings fresh approaches to the developing field of cultural studies.

Good copy, knock to top of front cover edge, otherwise a VG copy throughout.

File under: Lynn Hunt Johns Hopkins University Press / Baltimore Eros Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Art Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Violence, Identity, and Self-Determination
Edited by Hent de Vries and Samuel Weber

1997, English
Softcover, 416 pages
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Stanford University Press / Palo Alto

$30.00 - Out of stock

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First 1997 edition.

With the collapse of the bipolar system of global rivalry that dominated world politics after the Second World War, and in an age that is seeing the return of "ethnic cleansing" and "identity politics," the question of violence, in all of its multiple ramifications, imposes itself with renewed urgency. Rather than concentrating on the socioeconomic or political backgrounds of these historical changes, the contributors to this volume rethink the concept of violence, both in itself and in relation to the formation and transformation of identities, whether individual or collective, political or cultural, religious or secular. In particular, they subject the notion of self-determination to stringent scrutiny: is it to be understood as a value that excludes violence, in principle if not always in practice? Or is its relation to violence more complex and, perhaps, more sinister?

Reconsideration of the concepts, the practice, and even the critique of violence requires an exploration of the implications and limitations of the more familiar interpretations of the terms that have dominated in the history of Western thought. To this end, the nineteen contributors address the concept of violence from a variety of perspectives in relation to different forms of cultural representation, and not in Western culture alone; in literature and the arts, as well as in society and politics; in philosophical discourse, psychoanalytic theory, and so-called juridical ideology, as well as in colonial and post-colonial practices and power relations.

The contributors are Giorgio Agamben, Ali Behdad, Cathy Caruth, Jacques Derrida, Michael Dillon, Peter Fenves, Stathis Gourgouris, Werner Hamacher, Beatrice Hanssen, Anselm Haverkamp, Marian Hobson, Peggy Kamuf, M. B. Pranger, Susan M. Shell, Peter van der Veer, Hent de Vries, Cornelia Vismann, and Samuel Weber.

VG copy.

File under: Hent de Vries Samuel Weber Giorgio Agamben Ali Behdad Cathy Caruth Jacques Derrida Michael Dillon Peter Fenves Stathis Gourgouris Werner Hamacher Beatrice Hanssen Anselm Haverkamp Marian Hobson Peggy Kamuf M. B. Pranger Susan M. Shell Peter van der Veer Cornelia Vismann Stanford University Press / Palo Alto Theory / Essay Crime / Violence Psychoanalysis Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare

The Languages of Psyche : Mind and Body in Enlightenment Thought
Edited by G. S. Rousseau

1992, English
Softcover, 494 pages, 15.2 x 22.9 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by University of California Press / Berkley

$40.00 - In stock -

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First 1991 edition.

The Languages of Psyche traces the dualism of mind and body during the 'long eighteenth century,' from the Restoration in England to the aftermath of the French Revolution. Ten outstanding scholars investigate the complex mind-body relationship in a variety of Enlightenment contexts - science, medicine, philosophy, literature, and everyday society. No other recent book provides such an in-depth, suggestive resource for philosophers, literary critics, intellectual and social historians, and all who are interested in Enlightenment studies.

Very Good copy, light wear.

File under: G. S. Rousseau University of California Press / Berkley Philosophy Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Drugs / Psychedelia Sociology / Politics Art Out-of-print / Rare Psychoanalysis

Freud and Oedipus
by Peter L. Rudnytsky

1987, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Columbia University Press / New York

$50.00 - In stock -

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First 1987 edition.

Freud and Oedipus reassesses Freud’s central concept of the Oedipus complex from the interlocking perceptives of biography, intellectual history, and Greek tragedy. Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary materials, Peter Rudnytsky establishes how Freud reached his epochal formulation through his own self-analysis and clinical work. He then places Freud’s discoveries in the context of nineteenth-century German intellectual and literary history. Finally, he demonstrates how many of Freud’s insights are foreshadowed in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and discusses the psychoanalytic and structuralist interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus cycle as a whole.

Very Good copy.

File under: Sigmund Freud Peter L. Rudnytsky Columbia University Press / New York Psychoanalysis Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language

Exotic Memories: Literature, Colonialism, and the Fin de siècle
by Chris Bongie

1991, English
Softcover, 162 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Stanford University Press / Palo Alto

$35.00 - In stock -

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First 1991 edition.

"A challenging study that will be welcomed by scholars in the fields of French, English, Italian, and comparative literature, as well as by his- torians of anthropology and colonialism, and readers interested in theories of postmodernism. This is a book whose time is exactly right: a fin-de-siècle meditation on the end of modernity, marked by a keen nostalgia for a past (and an elsewhere) that it knows to be already lost."—Richard Sieburth, New York University

"It brings together, as few works do, literature with history, criticism of aesthetic production with a subtle political consciousness. It makes one understand the colonial implications of modernity as nothing else does. It is essential for the re-evaluation of anthropology and is a powerful addition to the crucial philosophical issue of Alterity."—Michael Taussig, New York University

"This book focuses on the literature of exoticism at the turn of the last century and how it foreshadows our own fin de siècle. Earlier writers of exoticism had turned away from the West and its modernity, rejecting the social changes caused by industrialization and displacing onto "savage" or "primitive" cultures their aspirations for political freedom. By the turn of the century, however, European nations had reduced vast areas of the globe to colonial status: this global exportation of Western cultural norms and economic systems had a critical effect on the literature of exoticism.

The author concentrates on four writers-Jules Verne, Pierre Loti, Victor Segalen, and Joseph Conrad-although he touches on a number of other writers, and even painters, like Paul Gauguin. Making an explicit link between turn-of-the-century exoticism and the present day, the book concludes with a critical assessment of Pier Paolo Pasolini's neo-exoticist attachment to a supposedly revolutionary Third World in his poetry and literary criticism. The book's critical stance is noteworthy, drawing its basic assumptions from pensiero debole, the "weak thought" of the contemporary Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo."

NF copy.

File under: Pier Paolo Pasolini Paul Gauguin Chris Bongie Jules Verne Pierre Loti Victor Segalen Joseph Conrad Pier Paolo Pasolini Gianni Vattimo Stanford University Press / Palo Alto Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare Art Fiction / Poetry

The Eye in the Text: Essays on Perception, Mannerist to Modern
by Mary Ann Caws

1981, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 23.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Princeton University Press / New York

$30.00 - In stock -

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First 1981 edition. Illustrated.

Ranging from the English metaphysical poets to our contemporaries, Mary Ann Caws presents a new way of thinking about poetry and its relation to other forms of art, such as painting and film. She studies the poetic text conceived of as a threshold, as a boundary or crossing where the reader faces another consciousness staring back from the depths of the text.

"What is intended," the author writes, "is a study both textural and thematic, of an outer object and an inner seen. The question is, how to look from the inside at what we perceive outwardly, how to include ourselves in a writing which we, after all, only read. My topic, then, is the inclusion of the 'I' within the text.. I mean the eye in the text, and the reflexivity between text and reading, as mirror and mirrored object, in an extensive interchange of function, action, and glance."

Discussed against a background of mannerism, baroque, rococo, Dada, surrealism, and symbolism, are figures such as Crashaw, Rilke, Brancusi, Mallarmé, Duchamp, Reverdy, Char, Malraux, Bonnefoy, and Jabès.

Mary Ann Caws is Professor of Comparative Literature and French at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of The Presence of René Char, The Poetry of Dada and Surrealism, and The Inner Theatre of Recent French Poetry (all Princeton books).

Very Good copy.

File under: Mary Ann Caws Stéphane Mallarmé Princeton University Press / New York Dada Surrealism Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Art Fiction / Poetry Film / Video Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Literature and Psychoanalysis : The Question of Reading: Otherwise
Edited by Shoshana Felman

1982, English
Softcover, 512 pages, 13.3 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press / Baltimore

$45.00 - Out of stock

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The relationship between literature and psychoanalysis has never been one of equals. Traditional (particularly in American tradition), literature has been relegated to the position of foil for its more abstract counterpart—a mere body of language to be explained through the theoretical authority of psychoanalysis and, through its need to be interpreted, to add justification and prestige to Freudian theory. Such a relationship has always bothered literary critics—who feel that psychoanalysis refuses to even to recognize literature as such—and, of late, it has begun to both some scholars of psychoanalysis, as well. This volume proposes a fundamental reorientation of the relationship between literature and psychoanalysis, arguing that neither discipline dominates the other. Instead, the contributors assert that the subjects traverse each other's boundaries and that their relationship is one of give and take.

This thought-provoking volume contains readings of Shakespeare—including Jacques Lacan's study of Hamlet, which is as yet unpublished in French and is available exclusively in this volume—Coleridge, Henry James, and Dante, as well as of Freud, Lacan, Marx, Derrida, and Plato. Drawing heavily from French psychoanalytic theory as inspired by Lacan's pioneering interpretation of Freud, leading French and American scholars arrive at an approach that is characteristic of neither country. Bringing their own individual interests and perceptions to bear on the textual and theoretical encounters between literature and psychoanalysis, they suggest how both disciplines might be rethought, in terms of their uniqueness and their common wisdom. The object is not to establish hard and fast rules for the relationship, but rather to pave the way for new discussion and new theoretical possibilities. The provocative ideas set forth in this volume will interest students in fields ranging from French, English, literary theory, and psychoanalysis to history, philosophy, and women's studies.

Shoshana Felman is professor of French at Yale University and an editor of Yale French Studies. She is the author of La "Folie" dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Stendhal, La "Folie" et la chose Litteraire, and Le Scandale du corps parlant: Don Juan avec Austin, ou la Seduction en deux langues (the latter two forth-coming in English translation).

Very Good first edition.

File under: Jacques Lacan Jacques Derrida Sigmund Freud Shoshana Felman Dante Karl Marx Plato Johns Hopkins University Press / Baltimore Philosophy Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Out-of-print / Rare

Black Sun : Depression and Melancholia
by Julia Kristeva

1989, English
Softcover, 300 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Columbia University Press / New York

$45.00 - Out of stock

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In Black Sun, Julia Kristeva addresses the subject of melancholia, examining this phenomenon in the context of art, literature, philosophy, the history of religion and culture, as well as psychoanalysis. She describes the depressive as one who perceives the sense of self as a crucial pursuit and a nearly unattainable goal and explains how the love of a lost identity of attachment lies at the very core of depression's dark heart.

In her discussion she analyzes Holbein's controversial 1522 painting "The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb," and has revealing comments on the works of Marguerite Duras, Dostoyevsky and Nerval. Black Sun takes the view that depression is a discourse with a language to be learned, rather than strictly a pathology to be treated.

Translated by Leon S. Roudiez

Julia Kristeva is a professor of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII. She is the author of many highly respected books (most published in English by Columbia University Press) and a practicing psychoanalyst.

Good copy with some wear and (erasable) pencil marginalia from previous owner.

File under: Julia Kristeva Leon S. Roudiez Columbia University Press / New York Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Feminism Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language

Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art
by Julia Kristeva

1984 / 1987, English
Softcover, 306 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by Basil Blackwell / Oxford

$35.00 - In stock -

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First 1984 UK Basil Blackwell edition, 1987 print.

Desire in Language traces the path of an investigation, extending over a period of ten years, into the semiotics of literature and the arts. But the essays of Julia Kristeva in this volume, though they often deal with literature and art, do not amount to either "literary criticism" or "art criticism." Their concern, writes Kristeva, "remains intratheoretical: they are based on art and literature in order to subvert the very theoretical, philosophical, or semiological apparatus."

Probing beyond the discoveries of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Roman Jakobson and others, Julia Kristeva proposes and tests theories centered on the nature and development of the novel, and on what she has defined as a signifying practice in poetic language and pictural works. Desire in Language fully shows what Roman Jakobson has called Kristeva's "genuine gift of questioning generally adopted 'axioms,' and her contrary gift of releasing various 'damned questions' from their traditional question marks."

Average—Good copy. Heavy tanning to page block edges, general wear to covers with knocking to spine.

File under: Julia Kristeva Sigmund Freud Jacques Lacan Basil Blackwell / Oxford Psychoanalysis Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Art Philosophy

The Museum of Synthesizer Technology
by Martin J. Newcomb

1994, English
Softcover, 118 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by The Museum of Synthesizer Technology / Berkshire

$220.00 - Out of stock

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First edition from 1994 of the mega rare "The Museum of Synthesizer Technology" book, published upon the establishment of the museum itself in Berkshire, UK, which was opened by Bob Moog and only existed for a few years (1994—1997) and was at the time the largest collection of analogue synthesizers in the world. This wonderful resource book by synthesizer afficianado Martin Newcomb, brings the collection to print, lavishly illustrated with colour and b/w photographs of some of the most legendary analogue synthesizers ever made (or heard) — Moog, E-mu, Arp, Buchla, Oberheim, Sequential Circuits, Polyfusion, Electronic Dream Plant, Roland, Korg, EMS, EML, PPG, and the ever important lesser-known misc. models... — alongside the history of the synth, the history of Moog, instrument listings and background information on the manufacturers and models alongside their logos and designs, pics of pioneering musicians and engineers, wave diagrams, and much more. A must for any synthesizer library or serious electronic musician.

Good copy some light wear and a crease to the front cover.

File under: Robert Moog Martin J. Newcomb The Museum of Synthesizer Technology / Berkshire Art Sound / Music Out-of-print / Rare

CVS (Copyright Violation Squad) Bulletin No. 1, February 1993

1993, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The Drawing Legion / Iowa City

$70.00 - In stock -

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Extremely rare copy of the "First Dispatch" of the CVS (Copyright Violation Squad) Bulletin, issued in February 1993. The Copyright Violation Squad (CVS) was founded in 1992 in effort to make publicly available those cultural works which have been suppressed because they theoretically violated copyright law. "It is our view at the CVS that, in spite of the the questionable legal nature of these releases, they are nonetheless valid products of cultural work ethically valid in their own right — and as such, deserve to be heard by those who are interested in them."

The CVS Bulletin is edited by Lloyd Dunn and sponsored by the Drawing Legion, a non-profit performance and intermedia company based in Cedar Rapids, lowa, publishers of Retrofuturism, YAWN, and PhotoStatic Magazine. Lloyd Dunn was a founding member of The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's.

This first (possibly only?) issue centres heavily around the 1991 legal case of San Francisco experimental sound collage/art collective/intellectual property law activists Negativland being sued by U2 over their U2 EP on SST Records, which the editors here have put into redistribution alongside John Oswald's Plunderphonic CD. Stories on these cases, plus graphics and news and commentary by CVS; "Disclaimer" by Brian Goldberg; "Parallel Culture" by Luke McGuff; "What Happens to the Reader?" by Ross Martin from Your Name Here; "How SST Sees It: Negativland's U2" by Greg Ginn; "Negativland Gets Their Say"; "The Electric Triad" by Fortner Anderson; plus many artworks and reviews on radical publishing.

Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.

File under: Negativland John Oswald The Drawing Legion / Iowa City Periodicals Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Counterculture Anarchism Sociology / Politics Out-of-print / Rare Art

Retrofuturism no. 17, April 1993

1993, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The Drawing Legion / Iowa City

$30.00 - In stock -

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Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.

Retrofuturism no. 17, April 1993 features: Excess Culture From A Culture of Excess by Scott Gray; The Role of Disdainists within the International Art Dump Project by Dvid Richter; Keynote Address to the Southwest Decentralised Mail Art Congress and Rodeo by Dr. Al "Blaster" Ackerman; Media—Countermedia by Stephen-Paul Martin; plus many artworks, book reviews and contact listings...

Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.

File under: The Tape-Beatles The Drawing Legion / Iowa City Out-of-print / Rare Counterculture Anarchism Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Sociology / Politics Art

Retrofuturism: No. 16, March 1992

1992, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The Drawing Legion / Iowa City

$35.00 - In stock -

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Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.

Retrofuturism no. 16, March 1992 features: The group NEGATIVLAND presents THE CASE FROM OUR SIDE in their dispute with Island Records; The IMMEDIAST UNDERGROUND unveils its plans for SEIZING THE MEDIA; Stephen Perkins and Mark Palmer offer new insights concerning the subject of PLAGIARISM: is it a BASTARD CHILD, or is there some TRUTH IN DOUBLING? And, of course, the usual columns, reviews, and listings of other marginalia from around the world. RETROFUTURISM, the sporadic quarterly, uses only the finest ingredients, and encourages your input into the process.

Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.

File under: Negativland The Tape-Beatles The Drawing Legion / Iowa City Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare Sound / Music Counterculture Sociology / Politics Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art

Retrofuturism No. 14, January 1991
The Art Strike 1990-1993, one year in...

1991, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The Drawing Legion / Iowa City

$35.00 - In stock -

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Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.

Retrofuturism no. 14, January 1991 features: STATE OF THE ART FOR TODAY'S ARTIST by the Bureau of Control; THE MAGIC OF BIGAMY by Dr. Al Ackerman; SENSORIA MEDIA-TORS; CODES AND CHAOS by Thomas Wiloch; CASSETTE REVIEWS by Paul Neff; PRINT REVIEWS; TAPE-BEATLE NEWS; REPORT from the IOWA CHAPTER of the AGGRESSIVE SCHOOL of CULTURAL WORKERS; and much more!

Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.

File under: The Tape-Beatles The Drawing Legion / Iowa City Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Counterculture Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Sound / Music Sociology / Politics

Sense Sound Sound Sense
Fluxus Music Scores & Records - Luigi Bonotto Collection

2019, English / Italian
Softcover, 216 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Published by Danilo Montanari Editore / Ravenna

$60.00 - In stock -

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Luigi Bonotto dedicated himself to keeping the work of the artists of Fluxus and Experimental Poetry alive, and to preserving, cataloguing, and promoting their poetry, music, and work, which was strongly influenced by John Cage and the key concept of his theoretical framework, indeterminacy. Published on the occasion of an exhibition curated by Patrizio Peterlini and Walter Rovere, with the collaboration of Giorgio Maffei, this catalogue delves deeply into this aspect of the Fluxus network. Rife with illustrations, the materials of the collection, as well as the movement and its history, are analysed in scholarly essays by Anna Cestelli Guidi, Alison Knowles, and the curators.

features the work of Henning Christiansen, Wolf Vostell, Eric Andersen, George Brecht, Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Giuseppe Chiari, Philip Corner, Esther Ferrer, Juan Hidalgo, Dick Higgins, Robert Filliou, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Joe Jones, Milan Knizak, Takehisa Kosugi, Shigeko Kubota, György Ligeti, George Maciunas, Jackson Mac Low, Walter Marchetti, Charlotte Moorman, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Ben Patterson, Terry Riley, Mieko Shiomi, Takako Saito, Gianni-Emilio Simonetti, Ben Vautier, Yoshimasa Wada, La Monte Young and others.

Reprint edition.

File under: Henning Christiansen Wolf Vostell Eric Andersen George Brecht Sylvano Bussotti John Cage Giuseppe Chiari Philip Corner Esther Ferrer Juan Hidalgo Dick Higgins Robert Filliou Toshi Ichiyanagi Joe Jones Milan Knizak Takehisa Kosugi Shigeko Kubota György Ligeti George Maciunas Jackson Mac Low Walter Marchetti Charlotte Moorman Claes Oldenburg Yoko Ono Nam June Paik Ben Patterson Terry Riley Mieko Shiomi Takako Saito Gianni-Emilio Simonetti Ben Vautier Yoshimasa Wada La Monte Young Alison Knowles Anna Cestelli Guidi Patrizio Peterlini Walter Rovere Danilo Montanari Editore / Ravenna Sound / Music Art Fluxus Sculpture / Installation Out-of-print / Rare

Hugh Davies
Sounds Heard (+ CD)

2002, English
Softcover (+ audio CD), 124 pages, 24 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by FMR Records / Essex

$35.00 - In stock -

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An immensely useful book by one of the UK's early experimenters and pioneers in sound art, and a working authority in the field. This book collects much of his own writing on environmental listening, musical history, improvisation and indeterminacy, new instruments, audio art and installations and includes project descriptions and workbooks. Heavily illustrated throughout. The CD contains a great collection of early plunderphonia, installation recordings, pieces for invented instruments and sound sculptures, musical boxes and found instruments (buzzers, dot matrix printers, eggslicers, tin can and fishing line, etc). An important contribution to the field.

British electronic music composer, improviser and instrument builder (1943—2005. Hugh Davies was the first UK composer to perform "live electronic music," renowned for making unique DIY electroacoustic instruments (held in the Science Museum's collection in London). As a musicologist and archivist, he created one of the most comprehensive compendiums of early electronic music, a monumental International Electronic Music Catalog (Répertoire International Des Musiques Electroacoustiques) co-authored with Groupe De Recherches Musicales at INA-GRM in France and published by The MIT Press in 1967. Davies worked at Electronic Music Workshop (EMW) at Goldsmiths College from 1968 to 1986, one of England's earliest academic electronic music studios. Since 1999 and till his death, he was a part-time researcher and lecturer at Middlesex University's Centre for Electronic Arts in London.

NF copy.

File under: Hugh Davies Hugh Davies FMR Records / Essex Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Out-of-print / Rare Art

Spectral Sounds : Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird
Edited by Manon Burz-Labrande

2023, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 18.8 x 13 cm
Published by British Library Publishing / London

$32.00 - In stock -

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'Darkness now was around me - and sound. I seemed to stand in the centre of some yelling planet, the row resembling the resounding of many thousands of cannon, punctuated by strange crashing.' The violent peals of a disconnected bell in the night; a trudging footfall in the hush of an abandoned manor; the whisper of a deathly voice in the ear: uncanny sounds remain the most frightening heralds of danger and terror in supernatural fiction. Gathered here are fourteen tales which resonate with the unique note of fear struck by weird happenings experienced through the aural sense. Divided into four sections exploring noises from invisible presences, ghostly voices, possessed technology and the power of extreme levels of sound or silence, this collection pulses with pioneering pieces from B. M. Croker, Algernon Blackwood, Edith Wharton and M. P. Shiel alongside haunting obscurities from the British Library collections.

File under: B.M. Croker Algernon Blackwood Edith Wharton M.P. Shiel Manon Burz-Labrande Edgar Allen Poe Berry Pain Annie Trumbull Slosson Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Thomas Street Millington H.D. Everett British Library Publishing / London Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Sound / Music Fiction / Poetry

A Year of Deep Listening: 365 Text Scores for Pauline Oliveros
Edited by Stephanie Loveless

2025, English
Flexicover, 360 pages, 27 x 22 cm
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts

$59.00 - In stock -

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365 scores for listening in celebration of the legacy of groundbreaking composer Pauline Oliveros.

A Year of Deep Listening is a publication of 365 scores for listening gathered by the Center for Deep Listening in celebration of the legacy of groundbreaking composer Pauline Oliveros.

Originally begun online, in honor of what would have been Oliveros' 90th birthday (May 30, 2022), the project shared one score per day across social media for 365 days. The book version of A Year of Deep Listening brings these scores together into one beautiful and historic volume. An expression of the Deep Listening community, the scores were created by over 300 artists—ranging from prize winning composers to ear-minded grocery store clerks, from those who worked closely with Oliveros for decades to those who never met her.

File under: Pauline Oliveros Stephanie Loveless Pauline Oliveros The MIT Press / Massachusetts Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Theory / Essay Art

Nobuyoshi Araki
Obscenities

1994, Japanese
Softcover, 44 pages, 23 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Photo-Planete / Japan

$120.00 - In stock -

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First edition of Nobuyoshi Araki's Obscenities, published in 1994. Here Araki, a master of Japanese fetish photography, has continued to challenge sexual taboos with radical techniques. Instead of presenting his acutely revealing images of sexuality, for which he had come to face charges, Araki has chosen an expressive thumbing of the nose to Japanese censorship techniques by scratching away the "obscenities" of the negatives—and not only the obvious ones. Just as with the explicit erotic images collected here, photographs of banal everyday objects, flowers and cityscapes also become charged with delirious sexual potency at the hands of the censor. The images become oddly more arousing, as they are revealed and embellished further through the marks of Araki's hand, as well as the desire of his eye. The result is a very special book, and Araki's statement on the idea of “obscenity”.

"Photography reveals. To reveal is obscene. Photography conceals. To conceal is obscene. Taking photographs is obscene. To be photographed is obscene. Showing photographs is obscene. To look at photographs is obscene. Not showing photographs is obscene. To not be able to look at photographs is obscene. Obscene things do not exist. Obscene acts exist. Obscene photographs are acts. Obscene photographs are relations. Photographs are obscenities. Obscenities are beautiful."—Araki Nobuyoshi (book introduction)

Very Good copy.

File under: Nobuyoshi Araki Photo-Planete / Japan Japanese Photography Photography Eros Out-of-print / Rare

NOBUYOSHI ARAKI
TOKYO COMEDY

1997, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 254 pages, 30. x 21.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Korinsha Press & Co / Kyoto

$90.00 - In stock -

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First 1997 edition of this wonderful black and white collection of Araki's photographic works, almost entirely comprised of his finest female nudes and provocative bondage photography. Text sections in English and Japanese with introductory essay by Werner Würtinger, Vienna Secession. "The artist Nobuyoshi Araki works without a safety net, so to speak, every utterance turns into the spontaneous and irrevocable expression of his loneliness vis-à-vis the wilderness of sexuality"—Werner Würtinger, Vienna Secession). Includes biographical information and exhibition history at rear.

VG copy with a light buckling to the block.

File under: Nobuyoshi Araki Werner Würtinger Korinsha Press & Co / Kyoto Japanese Photography Photography Eros Fetishism / BDSM Art Out-of-print / Rare

Takuma Nakahira
Adieu à X

1989, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi), 120 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha / Tokyo

$650.00 - In stock -

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Very rare first edition, first printing of Takuma Nakahira's classic photo book Adieu à X, published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Tokyo, in 1989. Profusely illustrated throughout with Nakahira's stunning imagery; beautifully reproduced in full-bleed, these celebrated works by the iconic photographer exemplify the aesthetic and wide-ranging subject matter of the Provoke movement, which he co-founded in Tokyo in 1968 alongside Daido Moriyama, Takahiko Okada, Yutaka Takanashi, and Koji Taki. Takuma Nakahira (1938–2015) alongside the Provoke photographers revolutionized post-war Japanese photography with his dark, expressionistic photographs that captured the uncertainty, exhilaration, and tumult of life in the decades following World War II. As well as a critically acclaimed photographer, Nakahira is a writer, critic, and political activist, whose groundbreaking ideas and essays about visual expression led to the publication of Provoke: Provocative Materials for Thought (first published 1968), a radical, short-lived journal that nevertheless had a profound impact on visual culture in Japan. Nakahira and his contemporaries introduced what became known as the are, bure, boke (rough, blurred, out-of-focus) style of photography, pushing the camera well beyond its previous use as a documentary or propaganda tool. Stark and suggestive, his photographs show fragmented scenes of urban life as he experienced it—imbued with pathos, grit, and potential.

VG-Fine original edition in gold printed photographic dust jacket with rare original publisher's obi. Preserved in mylar wrap.

File under: Takuma Nakahira Kawade Shobo Shinsha / Tokyo Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare

Daido Moriyama
Shinjuku (Signed)

2002, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket) in slipcase, 600 pages, 25 x 19 cm
Signed and numbered edition of 300,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Getsuyosha / Tokyo

$550.00 - In stock -

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"There is no place for which words such as "melting pot" or "purgatory" are more suited than the town of Shinjuku...."—Daido Moriyama

Signed and numbered very first, limited edition, first Japanese printing of Daido Moriyama's 'Shinjuku', his collection of stark b/w, full-bleed photographs shot in Tokyo's shinjuku district, one of the photographer's most famous, and published in this incredible 600 page volume in 2002 by Getsuyosha, Tokyo. Re-printed in many various editions, this is the true 2002 first premium print-run of only 300 copies and published in Japan. This special edition was followed by the regular Japanese edition w/o slipcase/sign, then followed by the Nazraeli Press US re-print of 500 copies mimicking this edition that is often considered the first appearance. Numbered on the slipcase (this copy being no. "51 / 300") and signed by Daido Moriyama with his characteristic silver ink to the first photographic endpaper, this copy also includes the preserved fold-out poster / booklet insert (50 x 36 cm) with text by Moriyama in Japanese and English. One of his finest.

"The current town of Shinjuku shows sign of becoming a near future city. The real and virtual, pleasure and pathos are entangled night and day, and this becomes a huge stadium where the gathering crowds wander, holding their raggle taggle desires. There is no place for which words such as "melting pot" or "purgatory" are more suited than the town of Shinjuku.... When we try lining up in a row cheap words stained with finger marks such as chaos, deluge, greed, vulgarity, vice, indecency, etc., every single one of them epitomizes Shinjuku, and I unintentionally start laughing. This is also an impressive point, as no matter how or where you search in the world, you wouldn't be able to find a city that is this weird. From the eastern JR train line, in other word this side where it seems like a stew in simmering and boiling, to the phantom landscape of high rise buildings that seem like a mirage over the west side, Shinjuku vividly exhibits all the shadiness, toughness, and considerable disconsolateness that a city has, like a truly unfathomable mathematical functional relationship, like a modern Babylon. I and Shinjuku, as well as my attraction to it and shooting photos of it, must have some kind of similar character somewhere."—Daido Moriyama

Very Good copy in Good slipcase. Well preserved book in DJ, with a single spine crease, binding solid, crisp book. Slipcase with light wear and marking, closed splitting.

File under: Daido Moriyama Getsuyosha / Tokyo Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Art Signed Books

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