Designs on the Contemporary

Anthropological Tests

Rabinow Paul, Stavrianakis Anthony

"Designs on the Contemporary" pursues the challenge of how to design and put into practice strategies for inquiring into the intersections of philosophy and anthropology. Drawing on the conceptual repertoires of Max Weber, Michel Foucault, and John Dewey, among others, Paul Rabinow and Anthony Stavrianakis reflect on and experiment with how to give form to anthropological inquiry and its aftermath, with special attention to the ethical formation and ramifications of this mode of engagement. The authors continue their prior explorations of the contemporary in past works: How to conceptualize, test, and give form to breakdowns of truth and conduct, as well as how to open up possibilities for the remediation of such breakdowns. They offer a surprising and contrasting pair of case studies of two figures who engaged with contemporary breakdowns: Salman Rushdie and Gerhard Richter. Approaching Richter's artistic struggles with form and technique in the long wake of modernism and Rushdie's struggles to find a narrative form – as well as a form for living – to respond to the Iranian fatwa issued against him, they show how both men formulated different new approaches to anthropology for the twenty-first century.

About the Author

Paul Rabinow is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of many books, most recently "The Accompaniment" and "Designing Human Practices", both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Anthony Stavrianakis received his PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

"In a world where concepts are so often deployed in an ad hoc fashion, half explored before being displaced by others, it is immensely refreshing to encounter such serious and sustained attention to the building blocks of inquiry – and to the responsibilities thereby incurred. 'Designs on the Contemporary' is a work of profound importance to the philosophy of anthropology. In conjunction with Rabinow's other works, it creates a nonpareil, a configuration of thought with no equal" – Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

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