Vilém Flusser (1920–1991) has long been known and celebrated in Europe and Brazil primarily as a media theorist. Only recently have other facets of his accomplishments come to light, clearly establishing Flusser as a key thinker. An accessible and thorough introduction to Flusser’s thought, this book reveals his engagement with a wide array of disciplines, from communication studies, posthuman philosophy, media studies, and history to art and art history, migrant studies, anthropology, and film studies. The first to connect Flusser’s entire (...) oeuvre, this volume shows how his works on media theory are just one part of a greater mosaic of writings that bring to the fore cultural and cognitive changes concerning all of us in the twenty-first century. A theorist deeply influenced by his experiences as a privileged citizen of Prague, a Jew pursued by the Nazis, a European emigrant, a Brazilian immigrant, and a survivor keenly interested and invested in history and memory, Vilém Flusser was an outsider in a staunchly hierarchical and disciplined academic world. (shrink)

En 1972, le philosophe et écrivain juif tchèque Vilém Flusser décide de retourner en Europe après avoir passé plus de trente ans au Brésil, où il avait trouvé refuge au début des années 1940 en fuyant l’Allemagne nazie. Avant son départ, il rédige une série de textes, dans lesquels il réfléchit à la manière dont la culture multilingue et la nature tropicale du Brésil ont influencé sa pensée. Dans ce contexte, il aborde également ce que signifie philosopher au Brésil, ainsi (...) que la nature de la philosophie en tant que telle. (shrink)

Der Wind ist fast immer und überall in irgendeiner Form anwesend, er umspielt und umfasst uns von allen Seiten und versetzt unsere Welt in stetigen Austausch. Rainer Guldin wirft einen philosophischen Blick auf das Phänomen Wind und zeigt, wie eng unsere körperliche und emotionale Eingebundenheit in die uns umgebende Wetterwelt eigentlich ist. Der Wind ermöglicht eine Erweiterung und Reorientierung unserer Wahrnehmung auf das Ungreifbare und Fluide, aber auch das Grenzüberwindende hin: So entsteht eine Erkenntnistheorie der Unberechenbarkeit und Verbundenheit, die Dualismen (...) zu überwinden versucht. Das Buch spricht nicht nur Philosoph*innen an, sondern auch Laien und Forschende verschiedenster Disziplinen. (shrink)

This paper explores what might be called the ‘diabolical principle’ in Vilém Flusser’s work, tracing its evolution from the early Brazilian to the last German texts. If God, as the German mystics asserted, is basically ineffable and, thus, comparable to absolute nothingness, the devil – at least within Western civilization – stands for the ultimate frailty and absurdity of all human endeavors, that is, for language, history, progress, and for our continuous attempts to create sense and impose form on the (...) unfathomable nothingness surrounding us. Western history, according to Flusser, is basically a diabolical pursuit. Flusser made use of the figure of the devil in A historia do diabo, first published in 1965, reinterpreting the history of the West from a diabolical point of view. The figure of the devil, the fallen angel inhabiting the dark abysses, however, plays also a major role in Vampyroteuthis infernalis, published in 1987, twenty-two years later. In the second text, it is the devil wearing the mask of Lucifer, the light-bearer. (shrink)