The Structure of World History
- 376 pages
- 14 hours of reading
Seeks to understand both Capital-Nation-State, the interlocking system that is the dominant form of modern global society, and the possibilities for superseding it.
Kōjin Karatani Books
August 6, 1941
Kōjin Karatani is a Japanese philosopher and literary critic whose work delves into the complexities of modernity and postmodernity. He focuses on a rigorous analysis of language, number, and money, viewing these as fundamental structures shaping our understanding of the world. Known for his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and his distinctive approach, Karatani has been called 'The Thinking Machine.' His critical insights offer a unique lens through which to examine contemporary society and culture.
Marx: Towards the Centre of Possibility (Lbe)
- 160 pages
- 6 hours of reading
Originally published in 1974, Kojin Karatani's Marx- Towards the Centre of Possibility has been among his most enduring and pioneering works in critical theory. Written at a time when the political sequences of the New Left had collapsed into crisis and violence, with widespread political exhaustion for the competing sectarian visions of Marxism from 1968, Karatani's Marx laid the groundwork for a new reading, unfamiliar to the existing Marxist discourse in Japan at the time. Karatani's Marx takes on insights from semiotics, deconstruction, and the reading of Marx as a literary thinker, treating Capital as an intervention in philosophy that could be read as itself a theory of signs. Marx is unique in this sense, not only because of its importance in post-'68 Japanese thought, but also because the heterodox reading of Marx that Karatani debuts in this text, centred on his theory of the value-form, will go on to form the basis of his globally influential work.
A genuine Copernican turn in Kantian and Marxist theory and practice.
Marx: Towards the Centre of Possibility
- 160 pages
- 6 hours of reading
Classic study of Marx by Japan's leading critical theoristOriginally published in 1974, Kojin Karatani's Towards the Centre of Possibility has been amongst his most enduring and pioneering works in critical theory. Written at a time when the political sequences of the New Left had collapsed into crisis and violence, with widespread political exhaustion for the competing sectarian visions of Marxism from 1968, Karatani's Marx laid the groundwork for a new reading, unfamiliar to the existing Marxist discourse in Japan at the time.Karatani's Marx takes on insights from semiotics, deconstruction, and the reading of Marx as a literary thinker, treating Capital as an intervention in philosophy that could be read as itself a theory of signs. Marx is unique in this sense, not only because of its importance in post-68 Japanese thought, but also because the heterodox reading of Marx that Karatani debuts in this text, centered on his theory of the value-form, will go on to form the basis of his globally-influential work.
In Architecture as Metaphor, Kojin Karatani detects a recurrent will to architecture that he argues is the foundation of all Western thinking, traversing architecture, philosophy, literature, linguistics, city planning, anthropology, political economics, psychoanalysis, and mathematics.