Dis-orientations: Philosophy, Literature and the Lost Grounds of Modernity

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This highly original collection of essays contributes to a critique of the common understanding of modernity as an enlightened project that provides rational grounds for orientation in all aspects and dimensions of the world. An international team of contributors contend that the modern principles of foundation show in themselves rather how modernity is disorienting itself. The book brings together discussions on the writings of philosophers who treat more systematically the questions of foundation and orientation, such as Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Pascal, and Patoka, and studies of literary works that explicitly thematize this question, such as Novalis, Hlderlin, Beckett, Platonov, and Benjamin. This multi-disciplinary approach brings to the fore the paradox that modern figures of grounding and orientation unground and disorient and demonstrates a critical path to review current understandings of modernity and post-modernity.

Reviews

This is a carefully put together and astonishingly coherent collection of insightful philosophicalreflections on how major Modern thinkers and writers oriented themselves in a thoroughly disoriented world, where all metaphysical grounding had lost its footing and nothing could have been taken for granted. A vast and illuminating scope of essays, ranging from Novalis to Kundera, from Heidegger to Platonov, from Kierkegaard to Benjamin, this volume is an invaluable contribution to understanding Modernity at its existential best. -- Micha Pawe Markowski, Professor at University of Illinois
A thought-provoking and compelling inquiry into the predicaments of our times, Dis-orientations challenges us to see a gain rather than a loss in the modern loss of grounds -- Jayne Svenungsson, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Stockholm School of Theology
A provocative collection of essays exploring disorientation as the moving force of the present. Reflecting on disorientation in thought, in existence, in being, and in language, these essays examine the theoretical challenges of thinking our present situation of suspension, hovering, homelessness, and exile that have emerged from the lost grounds of modernity. -- Peg Birmingham, Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University

Author Bio

Marcia S Cavalcante Schuback is professor of philosophy at Sdertrn University, Sweden. She has published widely in both English and Portuguese, including the Portuguese translation of Heideggers Being and Time. Tora Lane is a Project Researcher at CBEES, Sdertrn University, Sweden. Contributors: Ludger Hagedorn, Research Fellow, Institut fr die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Austria; Peter Hanly, Research Fellow, Boston College, USA; Krystof Kasprzak, PhD Student in Philosophy, Sdertrn University, Sweden; Tora Lane, Project Researcher, CBEES, Sdertrn University, Sweden; Michael Marder, Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy, University of the Basque Country, Spain; Helena Martins, Associate Professor, Pontifcia Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Jan Patoka; Johan Redin, Research Fellow, Sdertrn University, Sweden; Marcia S Cavalcante, Schuback Professor of Philosophy, Sdertrn University, Sweden; Irina Sandomirskaja, Professor in Cultural Studies, Sdertrn University, Sweden; Gustav Strandberg, PhD student in Philosophy, Sdertrn University, Sweden; Peter Trawny, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Martin Heidegger Institute, Wuppertal University, Germany; Sven-Olov Wallenstein, Professor of Philosophy, Sdertrn University, Sweden.