Books in the Zone Books series

The Accursed Share provides an excellent introduction to Bataille the philosopher.

A consideration of blandness not as the absence of defining qualities but as the harmonious union of all potential values-an infinite opening into human experience.

Late Medieval Christianity's encounter with miraculous materials viewed in the context of changing conceptions of matter itself.

A new form of investigative practice that uses architecture as an optical device to investigate armed conflicts and environmental destruction.

In this book, his first to appear in English, French sinologist Francois Jullien uses the Chinese concept of shi-meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential-as a touchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking.

Examining Tony Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art.

Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) was already an established neuropsychologist when he emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1930s. This book, his magnum opus and widely regarded as a modern classic in psychology and biology, grew out of his dissatisfaction with traditional natural science techniques for analyzing living beings.

An exploration of the central role of indirect modes of expression in ancient China.

Design objects, bachelor pads, and multimedia rotating beds as expressions of the relationships among architecture, gender, and sexuality.

Chantal Thomas presents the history of the mythification of one of the most infamous queens in all history, whose execution still fascinates us today.

Beginning with a definition of the pre-rational meaning of "truth" in archaic Greece, Detienne traces the lineage of the concept. Its distinct difference from the logic of the western philosophers is discussed and a movement from a religious to a secular thought about truth is identified.

An exploration of the roles of metamorphosis and hybridity in the establishment of personal identity, with particular emphasis on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

A history and theory of the powers, the failures, and even the pleasures of paperwork.

A reconsideration of the problem of time in the Renaissance, examining the complex and layered temporalities of Renaissance images and artifacts.

The new form of "humanitarian government" emerging from natural disasters and military occupations that reduces people to mere lives to be rescued.

Women's bodies and the study of anatomy in Italy between the late thirteenth and the mid-sixteenth centuries.

An original, elegant, and far-reaching philosophical inquiry into what it means to feel alive.

Why do nation-states wall themselves off despite widespread proclamations of global connectedness?

How the ear came to play a central role in modern culture and rationality.

A radically interdisciplinary inquiry into the origins of human consciousness, community, and potential.

Understanding late medieval pictorial representations of violence.

A fascinating account of the Na society, which functions without the institution of marriage.

Essays by a provocative Italian philosopher on memory and oblivion, on what is lost and what remains.

The first English-language publication of a major history of the Great Lakes region of Africa.