What we want from this time
Is to see beyond the sublime
To more than live, but to feel alive
And never cease to strive
To be more than a metaphor
For all the people who came before
To leave marks and traces
Evident on our peers’ faces
To know upon leaving one day
That we’ve proven there’s another way
To be, to do, and to thrive
To more than live, but to feel alive

Ricocheting from such subjects as The Matrix to James Joyce, Prefiguring Cyberculture (MIT Press) is a dazzlingly ambitious compendium. As in any collection of essays, it is a mixed affair, however, given its scope, and despite the occasional lapse into impenetrable jargon, it is an important addition to the burgeoning world of cyber-theory. Read more

There is something a little bit scary about reading The Road of Excess -– this meticulous exploration of the influence of narcotics on literature is like a late night literary overdose.

The author, Marcus Boon, is Assistant Professor of English at York University in Toronto, and his academic background shines through without bogging down this intriguing subject. Read more

Have you ever been to a party where every conversation was of interest? Didn’t think so, but as host, Geert Lovink, the founder of Nettime, might just pull it off.

Lovink’s latest book, Uncanny Networks (MIT Press), is a roller-coaster ride of discussion that ranges from art to politics, techno-tribes to dot.com IPOs, radical politics to futuristic fantasy. Read more

In short, that contradictions must be accepted. — David Jones

To unify the thing that is postmodernism might sound futile at the outset, but Lawrence Cahoone’s anthology From Modernism to Postmodernism (Blackwell) sets out to do just that. The very term “postmodernism” is fraught with misconception, misuse, and implies an adherence to fragmentation over unity. Cahoone’s selections combat this by demonstrating postmodernism’s origins, its disparate applications and definitions in different fields, and the ongoing debates about what exactly it all means. From Descartes and Hume to Nietzche and Sartre, and from the post-structuralists (e.g., Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and Guittari, etc.) to the architects (e.g., Le Corbusier and Robert Venturi), Cahoone’s anthology provides an excellent overview of an inherently fractured lens on the world. Read more