On Freedom
Art, sex, drugs, climate and what freedom really means today.
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4,0 • 1 beoordeling
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- € 10,99
Beschrijving uitgever
A dazzling work of philosophy and personal reflection.
In this bold, invigorating book, Maggie Nelson examines freedom in four arenas of modern life: creative expression, sexuality, substance use and the fight for environmental survival. Weaving literary criticism, memoir and cultural analysis, she invites readers to rethink what liberation can look like amid moral complexity.
On Freedom is at once intellectual and intimate – a conversation across art and activism, reason and desire. One of the most important voices in contemporary thought, Nelson offers a vision of freedom rooted in empathy, curiosity and care.
‘Tremendously energising’ Guardian
‘Nelson is such a friend to her reader, such brilliant company’ Literary Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Critic Nelson (The Argonauts) traces the limits of liberty and the call to care in this expansive and sharp-eyed study. Exploring "structural questions" about freedom, Nelson exposes instances where conventional uses of the term—for instance, the "intensely American" idea "that liberty leads to well-being"—clash with the contradictions of human nature. Skillfully reading the works of such critics as Eve Sedgewick and Hannah Arendt, Nelson outlines the complexities at the heart of her subject: the paradox of sexual freedom, for example, means "many of our most basic and hard-earned sexual freedoms... are legally dependent on principles of individual liberty." On climate change, she probes the costs of personal liberty when humans are changing the planet in "genocidal, geocidal" ways. Patient and "devoted to radical compassion," Nelson turns each thought until it is finely honed and avoids binaries and bromides. While the literary theorizing is rich, this account soars in its ability to find nuance in considering questions of enormous importance: "We tend to grow tired of our stories over time; we tend to learn from them what they have to teach, then bore of their singular lens." Once again, Nelson proves herself a masterful thinker and an unparalleled prose stylist.
