1-Darwin and Fundamentalism
Merryl Wyn Davies
UK £ 3.99 , Canada $9.99 , USA $7.95
UK Publication September 2000
Darwin’s Origin of Species is undoubtedly one of the most important books in the scientific pantheon. But can we takeDarwin’s theory of evolution as a confirmed scientific fact? Contrary to myth, the famed Scopes ‘Monkey Trials’ of 1925 failed to establish the truth of science and the falsehood of creationism. Biblical literalism has now returned with renewed vigour in the guise of ‘creation science’. Fundamentalists are demanding that fact-based education should teach both evolution and creationism.
Should we dismiss creation science as an irrelevant myth? Has evolution itself been turned into a new ‘fundamentalist’ theology, and is it now a useful ploy to police orthodoxy in science? Is religious bigotry matched by scientific bigotry, bad religion by bad science?Darwin and Fundamentalismargues that there are important issues lurking behind the simplistic headlines. What is reasonable to believe and what are prudent uses of the scientific method are complex matters vital to how we investigate and assess ideas of evolution.
Merryl Wyn Davies, writer and anthropologist, is a former television producer who worked for BBC religious programmes for several years. She is the author ofKnowing One Another: Shaping An Islamic Anthropology.
2-Irony and Crisis - A Critical History of Postmodern Culture
Stuart Sim
UK £ 11.99
UK Publication2nd September 2002
Indispensable guide to the key ideas of contemporary thinking, explored through a wealth of criticism.
Postmodernism is more than just an intellectual theory. It is something we can see in action at grass roots, something that affects us all.
For some, postmodernism is liberation from a repressive culture; for others, it is symptomatic of cultural decline.Irony and Crisis maps the debates that have led to this impasse, combining a selection of key extracts from postmodern writings with detailed editorial comment on their relevance.
An invaluable resource for students across the full range of academic disciplines, as well as a book with wide popular appeal.
Stuart Sim is Professor of English Studies at theUniversity of Sunderland. He is the author of: Introducing Critical Theory and Lyotard and the Inhuman for Icon, and the Routledge Companion to Postmodernism.
3-The End of Everything
Foreword by Will Self
UK £ 8.99 , Canada $17.00 , USA $11.95
UK Publication3rd February 2003
‘The machine is us’ says Donna Haraway, author of the Cyborg Manifesto. There is no clear line any longer denoting where people stop and machines begin. Science fiction has a legion of stories to tell about the time when technology will outgrow its human masters. But the diagnosis reached about this 21st-century relationship by philosophers and theorists like Haraway, Lyotard or McLuhan is far more subtle – and more surprising.
The End of Everything is a collection of five vibrant essays on this profound shift. Stuart Sim examines Jean-François Lyotard and his deep suspicion of the dehumanising effects of advanced capitalism. George Myerson explores the work of Donna Haraway against the debate on GM foods. Kieron O’Hara discusses Plato, no postmodernist yet a vital source in thinking on the internet. George Myerson returns to stage an encounter between the enigmatic Martin Heidegger, and Jürgen Habermas, advocate of ‘authentic communication’. Christopher Horrocks tells how McLuhan’s prophetic Sixties radicalism has, at the turn of the century, been resurrected in the face of ‘virtual reality’ and ‘cyberspace’.
Accompanied by writing from Will Self, author ofGreat Apes, a distinctly unsettling picture of a post-human future, and Stuart Sim,The End of Everything brings together startling images of our present – and even more startling suggestions about our future.
Will Self is an acclaimed author, journalist and critic. His novels includeMy Idea of Fun,Great Apes,How the Dead Live and Dorian. He has also published a number of collections of short stories and two books of collected journalism and criticism.
