http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
"A panoramic view of the cosmos must begin with the tension of a single political moment. In Quantum History, Slavoj }i~ek brings together Hegelian dialectics, Lacan psychoanalysis and quantum mechanics to rethink history, reality and political possibility. Taking up Lenin's challenge to radically reconsider materialism in the wake of each big scientific discovery, and rejecting the recent vogue for giving a vague spiritualist spin to wave mechanics, }i~ek embraces the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics with characteristic erudition and verve. Drawing on the central themes of the holographic universe, non-commutativity and the collapse of superpositions, }i~ek evolves a quantum-inspired ontology which reinvents the historical materialism of Hegel and Heidegger -- and compels a brutal, often darkly funny, inquisition into the chances of radical emancipatory acts today. Quantum History takes the reader from the absolute contradiction of the primordial void through quantum oscillations to our ordinary reality, weaving in Lacan and Deleuze, Rovelli and Schelling, opera, cinema, sex and war. }i~ek is at his sharpest, saddest, most provocative best as he demonstrates that there is no way of extracting ourselves from the texture of history, no neutral position from which the workings of the world can be observed transparently -- we must act from a contingent, complex and inscrutable political moment, in sadness and in doubt, but defiantly"-- Publisher's website
Introduction: Materialism and Quantum Criticism I -- Universal: Collapse Comes First 1 Why A Hegelian Needs Quantum Mechanics 2 Why Quantum Mechanics Needs Hegel 3 Noncommutativity in the Symbolic and in the (Quantum) Real II -- Particular: From Hegel to Heidegger... and Back 1 Names for Finitude: Hegel, Heidegger, Pippin 2 The Night of the World 3 Heidegger's Politics of Finitude III -- Singular: Politics in a Quantum World 1 The Hologram of Conflicting Universalities 2 Can Artificial Intelligence Really Think? 3 The Politics of Vocation Variations Variation 1 -- Frozen Beauty: Rovelli, Deleuze and the Stoics Variation 2 -- No Substitute for True Universals Variation 3 -- Pure Voice, Pure Sound: Beethoven, Globokar, Act Variation 4 -- Acts of Reconciliation Variation 5 -- Moderately Conservative Communism Variation 6 -- The Painted Void Variation 7 -- The Many Monsters of Cinema Variation 8 -- Sexual Superpositions Variation 9 -- Make The Kitchen Maid King Conclusion: The Hunger to Be Something.
Includes bibliographical references and index