Loser Sons : Politics and Authority

Name: Loser Sons
Brand: University of Illinois Press
SKU: 9780252079696
Price: 4300 KES
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780252079696

by Avital Ronell

Book Details

Format Paperback / softback

ISBN-10 0252079698

ISBN-13 9780252079696

Publisher University of Illinois Press

Imprint University of Illinois Press

Country of Manufacture US

Country of Publication GB

Publication Date Sep 10th, 2013

Print length 208 Pages

Weight 354 grams

Dimensions 15.40 x 22.80 x 2.10 cms

Product Classification: Literature: history & criticism Literature: history and criticism Literary studies: general Semiotics / semiology Semiotics / semiology Gender studies: men and boys Gender studies: men Political science & theory Political science and theory

KSh 4,300.00

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Draws on current philosophy, literary history, and political events to confront the grim fact that divested boys become terrifying men.

There are sons who grow up unhappily believing that no matter what they do, they cannot please their fathers. Often unable to shed their sense of lifelong failure, either they give up and suffer in a permanent sulk, or they try with all their might to prove they are worth something after all. These are the "loser sons," a group of historical men as varied as President George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Atta. Their names quickly illustrate that not only are their problems serious, but they also make serious problems for others, expanding to whole nations. When God is conceived and inculcated as an angry and impossible-to-please father, the problems can last for generations.

In Loser Sons, Avital Ronell draws on current philosophy, literary history, and political events to confront the grim fact that divested boys become terrifying men. This would be old news if the problem didn''t recur so often with such disastrous consequences. Looking beyond our current moment, she interrogates the problems of authority, paternal fantasy, and childhood as they have been explored and exemplified by Franz Kafka, Goethe''s Faust, Benjamin Franklin, Jean-FranÇois Lyotard, Hannah Arendt, Alexandre KojÈve, and Immanuel Kant.

Brilliantly weaving these threads into a polyvocal discourse, Ronell shows how, with their arrays of powerful symbols, ideologies of all sorts perpetuate the theme that while childhood represents innocence, adulthood entails responsible cruelty. The need for suffering--preferably somebody else''s--has become a widespread assumption, not only justifying abuses of authority, but justifying authority itself.

Shockingly honest, Loser Sons recognizes that focusing on the spectacular catastrophes of modernity might make writer and reader feel they''re engaged in something important, while in fact what they are engaged in is still only spectacle. To understand the implications of her insights, Ronell addresses them directly to her readers, challenging them to think through their own notions of authority and their responses to it.

Get Loser Sons by Avital Ronell at the best price and quality guaranteed only at Werezi Africa's largest book ecommerce store. The book was published by University of Illinois Press and it has 208 pages.